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May, 2014 - Week 3

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California

California mass shooter details years of angst before deadly rampage

by Holly Yan, Ralph Ellis and Sara Sidner

Isla Vista, California (CNN) -- The angst leading up to the 10 minutes of horror was years in the making.

Elliot Rodger was frustrated by his height, his parents' divorce and his lack of success with women -- and wrote 140 pages detailing as much.

After chronicling his years of perceived misfortune, he picked Friday as the day to launch a killing spree.

It started at his own home in Isla Vista, near the scenic beaches of Southern California. Rodger, 22, stabbed three men repeatedly at his home -- for no obvious reason.

All three of the men died.

Next stop in his rampage: the Alpha Phi sorority house near the University of California Santa Barbara.

Rodger hinted at the carnage he'd inflict at the sorority house in a YouTube video posted the day before, called "Retribution."

"On the day of retribution I'm going to enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB," he said in the video. "I'll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you."

On Friday night, sorority members heard loud knocking on the front door for several minutes -- but nobody answered.

Minutes later, Rodger sprayed bullets at the house from across the street, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said.

Witness Kyle Sullivan saw three young women lying on the front lawn.

"There was a young girl, laying right here. And she was -- I could tell immediately she was gone," said Sullivan, 19. "I saw a gunshot wound to her abdomen, also one to her side and one through her head."

She wasn't alone.

"There was a girl right here and she was really struggling. You could tell she was barely able to move her eyes and just moving her arms slightly," Sullivan said. "And there was another girl right here. You could tell she was lying down crotched. She was still conscious, talking. She immediately got on the phone with her mother and told her mother she wasn't going to make it."

Deli shooting

By the end of the night, two of the three young women died -- Katherine Cooper, 22, and Veronika Weiss, 19. Both were students at UC Santa Barbara.

Alpha Phi posted on its Facebook page Saturday that "all our members are safe."

Rodger then zoomed around town in a black BMW, picking a delicatessen as his next stop. He got out, stepped inside the deli and shot and killed Christopher Martinez, another UC Santa Barbara student.

Exactly why, no one knows for sure.

But Rodger's spree was far from over.

He kept zipping around town, allegedly driving down the wrong side of the road so he could fire out the driver's side window near the sidewalk. He shot at two people on the sidewalk, pulled a handgun on a female and fired some more, Brown said.

Ian Papa said he was inches away on the street when the gunman's car sped up and struck two bicyclists.

"It happened so fast," he said. "I had no time to react. I jumped on the sidewalk and I see a man on a BMW, his body inside the windshield and glass broken everywhere ... I almost wanted to break into tears."

The nightmare finally ended after Rodger slammed into a parked vehicle and apparently shot himself in the head. By the time the melee was over, six victims were dead, 13 were injured, and a quiet beachfront community was left to wonder how this could happen -- and whether anyone could have prevented it.

'Day of Retribution'

In the nearly seven-minute video posted Thursday, Rodger rants about women who ignored or rejected him over the past eight years, "since I hit puberty."

"Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which I will have my revenge," he says in the video. "You girls have never been attracted to me. I don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it." He specifically criticized sorority members.

Rodger appears to have further chronicled his rage in a 140-page account of his life that begins with his birth and ends with "the Day of Retribution." The manifesto, titled "My Twisted World," was obtained by CNN affiliate KEYT.

"It was apparent he was very mentally disturbed," Brown said.

So disturbed that a relative asked law enforcement officers to check on his welfare April 30, Brown said.

Rodger's family contacted police after discovering social media posts about suicide and killing people, family spokesman and attorney Alan Shifman told reporters Saturday.

"He expressed to the deputies he was having troubles with his social life, and that he would probably not be returning to school next year," Brown said.

There was nothing in his behavior to suggest he was violent, and the deputies "determined he did not meet the criteria for an involuntary hold," he said.

They found Rodger to be "polite and courteous," and left, Brown said.

Unused ammo

It''s unclear what Rodger might have done had he not wrecked his car. Inside the wrecked BMW, Brown said, police found three handguns -- all legally purchased -- and more than 400 rounds of unused ammunition.

Martinez's father, Richard, said some politicians and the National Rifle Association are also to blame for his son's death.

"Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA," he said. "They talk about gun rights, what about Chris' right to live? When will this insanity stop?"

Rodger suffered from an undisclosed mental health issue, and was under the care of a variety of health care professionals, Brown said.

But there was no indication he had been committed to a mental health facility.

Rodger passed the background check needed to buy the firearm used in the shooting, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told CNN. The official said nothing had been found in the gun trace to indicate Rodger shouldn't have qualified to buy a gun.

Transcript of the chilling video

Who's the man behind the rampage

Transcript of Elliot Rodger 'Retribution' video

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/25/justice/california-shooting-deaths/

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From the FBI

Five Chinese Military Hackers Charged with Cyber Espionage Against U.S

In a case out of the Western District of Pennsylvania, five Chinese military hackers were indicted on charges of computer hacking, economic espionage, and other offenses directed at six American victims in the U.S. nuclear power, metals, and solar products industries. This marks the first time criminal charges have been filed against known state actors for hacking.

From 2006-2014, defendants Wang Dong, Sun Kailiang, Wen Xinyu, Huang Zhenyu, and Gu Chunhui, who were officers in Unit 61398 of the Third Department of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, were allegedly involved a hacking conspiracy that targeted Westinghouse Electric Co.; U.S. subsidiaries of SolarWorld AG; United States Steel Corp.; Allegheny Technologies Inc.; the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union; and Alcoa, Inc.

“The range of trade secrets and other sensitive business information stolen in this case is significant and demands an aggressive response,” said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at a press conference announcing the charges today in Washington, D.C. “Success in the global market place should be based solely on a company's ability to innovate and compete, not on a sponsor government's ability to spy and steal business secrets.”

“State actors engaged in cyber espionage for economic advantage are not immune from the law just because they hack under the shadow of their country's flag,” added Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin. “Cyber theft is real theft, and we will hold state-sponsored cyber thieves accountable as we would any other transnational criminal organization that steals our goods and breaks our laws.”

As FBI Executive Assistant Director Robert Anderson emphasized, “If you are going to attack Americans—whether for criminal or national security purposes—we are going to hold you accountable. No matter what country you live in.”

http://www.fbi.gov/news/news_blog/five-chinese-military-hackers-charged-with-cyber-espionage-against-u.s

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Colorado

Debate rages in Colorado over involuntary holds for mental illness

by Electa Draper

A contentious policy debate rages in Colorado over when is the right time to hold someone against his will when no crime has been committed.

Colorado is one of just a handful of states where people must pose an "imminent danger" of harm to themselves or others before they can be committed involuntarily for evaluation.

Supporters say the language is an important barrier to civil liberties abuses. Critics call "imminent danger" too restrictive and difficult for health professionals to use effectively.

Efforts to legislate a new balance between personal liberty and public safety in civil commitment procedures failed in the Colorado General Assembly session that just ended. Proposed language would have allowed a person to be held against his will if there were "recent threats" or evidence of "substantial risk of physical harm to himself, or to others."

Since the Aurora movie theater shooting in July 2012 took 12 lives, caused a miscarriage and injured 70 others, the governor and lawmakers have pushed to prevent the worst consequences of untreated severe mental illnesses.

Mental health policy analysts regard "imminent danger" as more restrictive — harder to use — than the standards of 43 states.

"States have learned through tragedy of the consequences of keeping an 'imminent' reference in their statutes. It requires health care providers to predict the future," said Dr. Patrick Fox, forensic psychiatrist and deputy director of clinical services for the state Office of Behavioral Health.

Yet, even under Colorado's current standards, 31,317 mental health emergency holds or certifications of commitments took place in the state in fiscal year 2013. That's more than enough, some argue.

"You know it's not a bad thing to be among the minority of states that have higher standards when civil liberties are at stake," said Mark Ivandick, an attorney and advocate for mental health consumers.

Commitment process

Emergency commitment procedures can be initiated by police officers, doctors, psychiatric nurses, licensed social workers and therapists. They often are decided in hospital emergency rooms.

The law allows a person to be held for up to 72 hours, although many are released more quickly, often after 12 hours, with little or no treatment.

The law requires that a psychiatrist or psychologist evaluate and treat the person to determine whether extended treatment is needed. Court certification is required for short-term holds of three months and long-term holds of six months or longer. There are no limits on how many times a person can be recertified.

History professor and gun-rights supporter Clayton Cramer argues that Colorado's mental health laws failed its citizens in the Aurora shooting. He has been researching the topic for the conservative Independence Institute.

The theater gunman, James Holmes, had given clear signs of potentially violent mental illness to his psychiatrist — enough for her to alert police, Cramer said. Yet under state standards of "imminent danger" for involuntary commitment, he said, police would have to catch him loading his magazines at the theater before intervening.

"We have an American tragedy under this false banner of scrupulous concerns for individual rights," Cramer said.

Most individuals with serious mental illnesses are not dangerous, Fox and other mental health experts say. Most violence is committed by individuals who are not mentally ill. Yet a small number of individuals with serious and persistent mental illnesses commit 5 percent to 10 percent of all homicides.

These crimes often are committed by people who are having their first psychotic break or are not being treated for other reasons. Many also are abusing alcohol and drugs, Fox said.

State Sen. Ken Lundberg, R-Berthoud, said civil commitment was one of the most important issues before lawmakers this year, and removing "imminent" danger from the statute would lower the threshold and diminish civil rights.

"This is a system that is abused," Lundberg said in a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the last days of the session. "It's a wide net of people who can initiate (involuntary holds), and I see no controls. ... Removing the word 'imminent' is not improving the current law; it's making it worse."

The hearing ended with the bill's co-sponsor, Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver, withdrawing the legislation because, he said, he didn't think he'd have the votes on the Senate floor. But he defended the bill.

Real hesitation

Johnston spent several years running a mental health center for adolescents and young adults with the most serious mental health needs, from active psychosis to extreme depression, he said, and there was real hesitation on the part of medical providers to put someone on involuntary hold unless there was dramatic evidence of serious risk.

"I haven't seen any sort of overreach," Johnston said. "I've seen real judicious deference to every other option before we had a 72-hour hold."

No agreement could be reached about whether the bill sponsors' stated intention of "clarifying" the process for mental health professionals would result in more or fewer involuntary holds of people who have not committed crimes.

"In my opinion, it will be easier to effect an emergency hold by lowering the threshold from 'imminent' danger where the danger must manifest itself in the immediate future to a substantial risk of harm manifested by recent dangerous behavior," said Ivandick, managing attorney for the Denver office of The Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older People. He had planned his comments for a Senate hearing before it was hurriedly rescheduled and ended with withdrawal of the legislation.

Moe Keller, vice president of public policy and strategic health initiatives for Mental Health American of Colorado, said it isn't clear how dropping "imminent" would affect numbers of commitments — the intent was to make them more appropriate, not more numerous.

"And what does it matter what the definition is when a person is held a short time and released without support systems and no place to go for longer-term treatment," Keller said.

Mental health consumers pushed back hard against legislators and mental health providers who favored changing the standard in civil commitment.

"The 'imminent' standard is so critical," said Aubrey Ellen Shomo, a 29-year-old computer programmer who describes herself as a psychiatric survivor. "The 'imminent' standard is as close to reasonable as we can get. This (attempted legislation) is the tyranny of good intentions. ... People with mental illness find themselves on the lowest social rungs, and people on the lowest social rungs are more likely to be arrested. ... We're the untouchables. There's no political benefit to helping us."

Shomo said she was medicated against her will as a child, through adolescence. "They hoped it would lead to peace in the home. But I question the efficacy of the drugs. They dull your mind. ... It took the joy out of my childhood."

Keller said mental health patients are not of one mind on the subject.

"Some people will tell you (commitment) is the best thing that's ever happened to them. They didn't know how much they needed help," she said. "Others will tell you it's the most traumatic thing that ever happened to them. It exacerbated their illness, and they did not seek treatment for years because of it."

Most states had shifted away from the "imminent danger" standard by 2005, according to a Marquette Law Review analysis, as legislators came to understand that some individuals with severe mental illnesses are chronically ill and their behavior will periodically deteriorate, resulting in a revolving door of commitments, incarcerations and homelessness.

Task force on issue

The law is turning away from a requirement of imminent dangerousness to "a more socially responsible statute" that provides for commitment and more assertive treatment models before a person completely deteriorates to a point where he or she is an imminent danger to self or others, the Marquette analysis said.

A Civil Commitment Statute Review Task Force, which includes Fox, has been studying the issue for legislators, and it is set to continue through November.

Researchers at the School of Social Welfare at the University of California at Berkeley reported in 2011 that there is a strong association with lower homicide rates in states with broader commitment criteria and increased access to inpatient psychiatric care. After controlling for gun-control laws, poverty levels and other demographic factors, researcher Steven P. Segal concluded that better-performing mental health systems contributed to lower homicide rates.

"Earlier and more consistent treatment with antipsychotic medications gives schizophrenics a better chance of leading stable lives," said Cramer, who wrote a book about his older brother Ron, who has schizophrenia.

Facts about involuntary holds

• In fiscal 2013, 31,317 mental-health emergency holds or certifications of commitments took place in the state, up from 25,862 in 2012, according to the Colorado Department of Human Services.

• In 2011, only 3.5 percent of holds were initiated because a person was considered a danger to others, mental health providers reported to Human Services. In 58 percent of cases, detained individuals were considered a danger to themselves. Just more than 16 percent were of those "gravely disabled" and unable to care for themselves.

• Of those placed on holds in 2011, 3,942 voluntarily committed themselves during a crisis, sometimes with encouragement from family or under threat of involuntary commitment.

• Ages of those involuntarily held ranged from 5 years up. Two-thirds were identified as Caucasian. And 50.5 percent were women; 49.5 percent male.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_25831191/debate-rages-colorado-over-involuntary-holds-mental-illness

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North Carolina

Gaston County to host police academy for youth

by Staff reports

The Gaston County Police Department will hold its annual Citizens' Police Academy for Youth from July 14 to July 18. Class sessions will be held at the county police headquarters at 420 W. Franklin Blvd., Gastonia.

The Gaston County Police Department Citizens' Police Academy for Youth is designed to introduce students 12-15 years old to the law enforcement profession and show them firsthand how the Gaston County Police Department functions.

Students will learn about police operations, including community policing, police patrol procedures, criminal investigations, crime scene and fingerprinting, special investigations, Hazardous Devices Unit, Marine Enforcement Unit, community service, Police K-9, and the Emergency Response Team. Students will be given tours of the police department, 911 communications division, animal control division, the court system, and the county jail. They will also be involved in hands-on demonstrations, including simulated police vehicle stops, Teen Court, and participation in the Fatal Consequences D.W.I. program.

The academy session will select 14 students from applicants who will be selected based on three letters of reference from a teacher, a principal and a guidance counselor.

For more information, call Sgt. Josh Hamlin at 704-866-3320.

Want to sign up?
Applications are available at County Police Station, 420 W. Franklin Blvd., Gastonia, and online at www.gastoncountypolice.org.

http://www.gastongazette.com/news/local/gaston-county-to-host-police-academy-for-youth-1.323818

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Making Public Safety Mobile

CIO Jim Gwinn says FirstNet is building the backbone to support mobile apps for first responders

by Nicole Blake Johnson

What if information sharing applications used by first responders in New York City were also made available to professionals in Los Angeles? Imagine that those apps could be accessed from a netbook, tablet computer or smartphone.

The concept isn't far-fetched. In fact, first responders are sharing data across state lines, but too often they rely on using phone, pen and paper to obtain information, analyze data, share information and coordinate response efforts, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

But First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) CIO Jim Gwinn envisions a future in which app sharing across public-safety departments is the norm rather than the exception. As his organization develops a high-speed network dedicated to public safety, Gwinn says harnessing the power of apps and mobile technology will be vital.

“We are building the backbone that supports all of these other components,” Gwinn says.

Events such as the recent AT&T Mobile App Hackathon: Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness underscore the need and interest in building apps that better equip first responders and ultimately benefit the public. One of the apps developed at the Washington, D.C., event is for injured people or those who are lost in an emergency situation, according to a blog post on FirstNet.gov.

The app, called Beacon, allows users to “quietly and quickly send a pre-configured distress notice from their mobile devices to anyone they have designated as recipients.” People who receive the message will be notified immediately of the condition and location of the person in distress. There is a companion app to Beacon that continuously updates the person's location.

Beacon was named best public-safety app at the hackathon. The first version of the app is expected to be released in late June.

“FirstNet is a strong proponent of initiatives that foster innovative communication capabilities for public safety and emergency response purposes, such as mobile apps,” the organization wrote in its blog post. “The deployment of a nationwide public safety broadband network will provide first responders with greater access to mobile apps that can help them respond more effectively and efficiently to emergencies and save lives and property.”

The broadband network will cover 3.8 million square miles and stretch across 3,250 counties. An estimated 7 million emergency responders are expected to use the network.

Gwinn said common standards and terminology must be used when building mobile apps. “New York City and Los Angeles or Green Bay, Wisconsin might not talk the same language,” he says. FirstNet advisory committees will play a role in developing those standards.

“We have to build that infrastructure,” Gwinn says about FirstNet. “It doesn't exist.”

http://www.statetechmagazine.com/article/2014/05/making-public-safety-mobile

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Tennessee

Tennessee to use electric chair when lethal drugs unavailable

by Ed Payne

As controversies over lethal injection drugs surge, Tennessee has found a way around the issue: It is bringing back the electric chair.

Eight states authorize electrocution as a method of execution but only at the inmate's discretion.

Now Tennessee is the first state to make use of the electric chair mandatory when lethal injection drugs are unavailable.

Gov. Bill Haslam signed the measure into law Thursday.

"This is unusual and might be both cruel and unusual punishment," said Richard Dieter, president of the Death Penalty Information Center.

"No state says what Tennessee says. This is forcing the inmate to use electrocution," according to Dieter, who believes "the inmate would have an automatic Eighth Amendment challenge."

The amendment protects against cruel and unusual punishment.

"The electric chair is clearly a brutal alternative," Dieter said.

Controversy over lethal injections has been brewing in recent years after European manufacturers, including the Denmark-based manufacturer of pentobarbital, banned U.S. prisons from using their drugs in executions.

In April, a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma catapulted the issue back into the international spotlight. It was the state's first time using a new, three-drug cocktail for an execution. Execution witnesses said convicted murderer and rapist Clayton Lockett convulsed and writhed on the execution gurney and struggled to speak, before officials blocked the witnesses' view. Lockett died 43 minutes after being administered the first drug, CNN affiliate KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City reported.

Earlier this year, a convicted murderer and rapist in Ohio, Dennis McGuire, appeared to gasp and convulse for at least 10 minutes before dying from the drug cocktail used in his execution.

In 2009, the U.S.-based manufacturer of sodium thiopental, a drug also commonly used in executions, stopped making the painkiller.

Many states have scrambled to find products from overseas or have used American-based compounding pharmacies to create substitutes.

This month, a group of criminal justice experts recommended that federal and state governments move to a single lethal drug for executions instead of complex cocktails that can be botched.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/22/us/tennessee-executions/

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Ohio

College Student's Disappearance Baffles Cops

by ABC NEWS

Police in Ohio are stumped by the disappearance of a 21-year-old college student.

Brogan Dulle, who attends the University of Cincinnati, vanished Sunday after reportedly leaving his apartment to go look for his cell phone.

Police say he headed out around 3 a.m., leaving his keys, wallet and jacket behind. They believe surveillance video released Thursday shows Dulle retracing his steps, using a flashlight to try and find the phone. Dulle hasn't been seen since and officials say they have no idea what happened to him.

Cincinnati Police Lt. Col. James Whalen said the department has exhausted every lead in the disappearance.

“We have no evidence of foul play at this point,” Whalen said. “It's unusual that we don't get a phone call. Somebody saw something.”

Now, a massive search is underway. Volunteers have spent the last few days passing out fliers, looking in homeless shelters and canvassing the woods, with friends and family leading the way.

More than $13,000 has been raised to help fund search efforts. Online, more than 16,000 have joined the “Help Find Brogan Dulle” Facebook page, posting videos and photos of Dulle in happier times.

Brad Ernst wrote a message for his missing friend.

“Brogan, we just want to talk to you, man. We just hope you're alright,” Ernst wrote.

Courtney Knowles Hass, Dulle's cousin, says the family is humbled by the public support.

“Each painful day that passes is eased by the love and support we are seeing in each one of you,” she wrote online.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/college-students-disappearance-baffles-cops/story?id=23839303

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Massachusetts

Partnerships are key in community policing

The Amesbury Beat

by Officer Tom Hanshaw

Over the past few months, I have been able to share quite a bit of crime prevention and safety information with readers, thanks to the continued support of The Daily News. I have also found quite an increase in the number of comments I'm getting from people in the area who check out the column weekly so I'd like to say thanks to you as well. I'm always looking for topics to write about and appreciate the feedback as “The Beat” is an excellent community policing resource as we partner with the media.

Amongst the requests I have received were a couple to share some insight into what community-policing really is. Some, including many police officers, believe it's a “touchy-feely” approach to police work.

In reality, it's an initiative using innovative methods to solve problems. “Thinking outside the box” is certainly a part of the philosophy, but community policing is far from being soft on crime. In many cases, a small problem can grow into a more serious one, so addressing it early can save a lot of time and effort. Police officers are counselors, mediators, psychiatrists, parents, teachers and even referees but we don't have a magic wand on our duty belts. Some problems are more of a challenge to resolve, and unlike those television shows we don't always get results in an hour.

Working to establish partnerships within the community is the key to making a city safer. In Amesbury, we have developed strong partnerships with the Council on Aging, Chamber of Commerce, civic groups, several government agencies and many others. In fact, our relationship with the school department was a key in receiving grant money to hire school resource officers. Officers participate in various community events, fundraisers, sporting programs and causes, often on their own time, to make the city a better and safer place.

http://www.newburyportnews.com/local/x2117412825/Partnerships-are-key-in-community-policing

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New Jersey

County students into police work

21 Technical Education kids in week-long internship program

by Daniel J. Kov

VINELAND — Cumberland County's future generation of police officers got an inside look this week into the many facets of law enforcement work.

As part of a week-long internship program, 21 students at Cumberland County Technical Education Center joined two local police departments to learn firsthand what being a cop is all about.

“For one week they're being put in the shoes of a police officer,” said Andre Lopez, a retired state police captain and now law enforcement instructor with the tech center. “They will be getting a true life perspective of the day-to-day life of police officers.”

The first-year pilot program — open to seniors in the second year of their law enforcement education — calls for the students to be paired with officers at both the Vineland police and the Cumberland County Sheriff's departments for two hours each day.

The students get the chance to tag along with officers while they conduct everyday operations, such as community policing and even live calls.

At the end of the week, the students turn in completed reports they are asked to write each day, Lopez said.

“These kids are going to get a good idea of what we go through,” Vineland Police Sgt. Charles Garrison said.

One benefit of the program, Garrison noted, was a chance for young adults to interact with police officers in a positive matter, getting a more personal understanding of issues officers deal with each day.

“Sometimes they can get a different impression of what we are about,” Garrison said. “We're trying to show them different aspects of what police work is all about.”

On Tuesday, Garrison led seven students through a crash course in community police work, a near-daily staple of the department's efforts to interact with the public.

The idea, Garrison told the students before setting off on bicycles, is for citizens to become familiar with their local police officers and have a positive impression on the men and women who are called to serve and protect.

“Our job today is to go out to citizens for a meet-and-greet,” Garrison said. “We reach out to the residents to see if there's any quality-of-life issues and to try to get the public on our side.”

He added, “It's a way for us to get to know the public and for them to get to know us.”

The students returned to community police work Thursday, tagging along with officers as they shared lunch with youngsters at Petway Elementary School, which is a typical activity for Vineland police officers.

“Kids are afraid of cops,” Garrison told the group. “We want the kids to like us. We don't want them to be in fear of us.”

Officer Joe Pagano added, “We need the eyes and ears of the public. Everyone needs to look out for each other.”

Criminal Justice student Adrian Rodriguez, 18, said he appreciated the chance to get an inside look at what being a cop is all about.

“It's something we don't get to see in books,” he said. “I've always wanted to become a police officer and this makes me want to do it even more.”

Rodriguez, who grew up in Vineland, noted the humor in seeing his buddies walk down the streets as he's helping assist police patrol officers.

“It would be awkward, but also proud,” he said. “I feel like they will respect me more.”

Selena Negron, 17, also a criminal justice student, said the community patrol work suited her. “I like helping people. I like being somebody people can turn to.”

Hector Maldonado, 17, agreed. “It makes me look at the job differently,” he said. “I want to be a police officer so I can help people.”

http://www.thedailyjournal.com/article/20140523/NEWS01/305230054/County-students-into-police-work?nclick_check=1

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Nevada

Fire, police kick start public safety notification system

by Elaine Bassier

ELKO — A new public safety notification system will allow Elko police and fire departments to alert the community about critical incidents.

Starting June 1, the two departments will use software from Nixle Community Information Service, which specializes in community notification. People may receive text messages or emails when the alerts are issued.

The software is free to use. Although there are more in-depth notification systems that come with a fee, Elko Police Chief Ben Reed said the departments are starting slow.

Reed guessed residents would receive alerts about once or twice a month, depending on the number of critical incidents that occur in Elko. Regardless, the departments will not bombard the public with daily notifications, he said. It's meant to notify people quickly of a problem that could affect them.

“It's an effort to quickly communicate with the public about public safety concerns,” Reed said.

Examples of the alerts include road closures, floods and fires, building evacuations, lost children, and bomb threats. For example, Reed said an alert would have been issued during the recent bomb scare at the courthouse, when the complex was evacuated and a large portion of the downtown corridor and Idaho Street were closed.

Reed said there are three types of notifications: community, advisory and alert. Alerts concern public safety threats. Advisory notifications are less critical, such as road closures because of parades or other instances where there is less of a threat.

Community notifications will inform the public about department events, such as National Night Out or Fire Prevention Picnic. Residents must customize their preferences online to receive community notifications.

“This is one small aspect of community-orientated policing,” Reed said, adding that the notification system allows police and fire to connect to the public.

People interested in receiving the notifications must subscribe for the service. To sign up, go to nixle.com and click the “Sign Up Now!” button and follow the steps from there. Or text “elkops” — which stands for Elko public safety — to 888777. Enter the zip code 89801 to receive notifications from the Elko area.

http://elkodaily.com/news/local/fire-police-kick-start-public-safety-notification-system/article_caf7f958-e20a-11e3-b9cf-001a4bcf887a.html

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Washington

Safe Yakima Valley to host forum on crime, public safety

YAKIMA, Wash. — The Safe Yakima Valley coalition wants residents to talk about how to solve crime and public safety problems in the Valley.

The coalition, which includes representatives from local churches, civic groups and government agencies, is hosting an “Open Space Forum” Wednesday at the Yakima Convention Center, 10 N. Eighth St. The meeting starts at 7:30 a.m. and will conclude at 2:30 p.m., with lunch provided by the coalition.

The meeting will be an open forum during which attendees will convene and lead sessions on issues of concern. Afterwards, the notes from each session will be printed and handed out for participants to follow up on.

The meeting is the second time since 2006 that a public discussion on crime and safety has been organized, said Carmen Mendez, Safe Yakima Valley's executive director. The goal, Mendez said, is to get people thinking about what they can do to make the Valley safer.

The event is free, but people must register by today to ensure there are enough lunches for everyone. Registration is available either by calling 509-248-2021, Ext. 112, or online at safeyakimavalley.com/events/openspaceforum2014.

http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/latestlocalnews/2201311-8/safe-yakima-valley-to-host-forum-on-crime

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Los Angeles

A Skid Row Cop's Opinion: A Mental Health State of Emergency

Hello again all. It has been a while since I have posted on the blog. This is primarily due to my fellow officers keeping our fingers in the cracks of the Skid Row dam to keep it from breaking. Those cracks include an injunction that hampers the City's efforts in obtaining and maintaining a decent quality of life for the Skid Row citizens we serve, as well as AB109, which severely impedes our ability to deter outside narcotics dealers from selling drugs near drug programs under the protections of the Lavan injunction. It is state law now, and there is nothing we can do to change it. With any change to our laws, we as a law enforcement entity must adapt and continue to find ways, no matter how difficult to reduce crime and fear of crime in any community we serve. Skid Row is no exception.

The Lavan decision and a slow recovering economy have injured the enhancement and outreach efforts arms of the Safer Cities initiative. Though we are still engaged in various forms of enforcement to keep crime down, without the aforementioned components, it is difficult to build on the success of past efforts. With talk of nearly, $3.7 million dollars being allocated to Skid Row, I believe the enhancement arm will be slowly restored over time. As far as outreach, aside from individual efforts of dedicated officers in the area, we have yet to see any movement or talks to bring that arm of the initiative back on line. We have been working diligently to start the conversation.

Without additional resources an extremely marginalized class of the Central City East community, remains vulnerable to the criminal element of the Skid Row community. That segment of the community is the mentally ill. Many of them are drawn to Skid Row for the level of free services that are not availed to them in other parts of the City or county. Many of them are not criminals, and function as any other law-abiding citizen when they properly manage their illnesses. They obey laws, utilize housing and other services, and even become advocates in assisting others struggling with mental illness. Some are partners with our department via community policing, and assets to the Skid Row community. Yet others are unfortunately dumped in the Skid Row area from other parts of the state and country at varied and dangerous stages of mental illness.

While in Skid Row their various issues become exacerbated, as many become victimized and exploited by the criminal element of Skid Row. Others become dual diagnosed as they begin to self medicate on the plethora of illicit narcotics being sold throughout the area by the very criminals we are struggling to keep out.

Historically as a department, we have been relegated to assisting these individuals when they degenerate to such a state, when they meet the legal requirements for a mandatory hold, only to be released several days later only to wonder back to Skid Row. They usually end up being handcuffed again and returned to a contract hospital for treatment again. Even worse, we often are relegated being an after the fact entity, as the mentally ill often become chronic victims or suspects in violent crimes, where they end up seriously hurt, or locked away in a jail or prison cell for a violent crime. Though many times this is understandable from a legal and public safety standpoint, it remains in my opinion one of the great wrongs in our society.

As an officer working over 16 years in the Skid Row area, I have seen many individuals, who I believed were right on the edge of either committing a crime, based on their volatile behavior. Unfortunately I had to wait until they actually committed the crime before I could “help” them. Others, I would observe in such a deteriorated state, that I knew that they would become vulnerable to an often merciless and heartless criminal element, due to their inability to report or articulate crimes against them. Without video, or a willing witness of these crimes, their cases would routinely get rejected, and they would remain open to more violence. Most of them we are unable to assist as well, because they legally do not meet the requirements to be helped by our department.

Recently, a mentally ill man, who is known for trying to pick fights with random individuals when his mental illness overcomes him, challenged a violent man to a fist fight in the area of 7th Street and Wall Street. I along with other officers in Skid Row have detained and placed this individual on a medical hold on several occasions to prevent him from being harmed via his actions. On a day that we were not able to rescue him from his illness, he was stabbed multiple times in the heart and throat by the man he challenged. He died several times in the hospital as doctors worked diligently to preserve his life. Thankfully he survived, but I saw this coming for months, and left untreated and un-housed, I truly believe he will be harmed again.

Just months prior, I was involved in a use of force with the same man, as he tried to assault a woman in front of children at the Union Rescue Mission, because blocks away, he was harassed and bullied over his sexual orientation. At no time during the struggle was I angry with this man. I was angry with a system that placed him, a homeless woman, and me in danger. In my opinion, his actions were a cry for help than nearly turned criminal.

Others who are not violent will become anchored to the sidewalk in unhealthy conditions for weeks, and develop scabies, attract rats and other vermin, or become so filthy that they can be smelled from blocks away. They end up in such a poor mental state that they do not take care of themselves physically, but because they at least have the wherewithal to feed themselves, they are often not considered a candidate for assistance via our department mental health resources.

We have been asked for years to be the answer for the issues stemming from mental illness in the communities we serve. We have done the best that we can to manage this issue with limitations to protect the mentally ill from predators, as well as protect the public from mentally ill individuals who we know are prone to violence. It is not the LAPD that has failed the mentally ill or the public. It is our society that has failed them. A society that has closed down hospitals. A system that is slow to create more housing plus care locations that would respect their autonomy and civil rights, as well as provide them with on-site access to services that can manage their conditions.

As a Division, it is no longer our goal to remain an “after the fact entity” as it relates to the homeless. I as a patrol officer, and a Senior Lead Officer, had to arrest many mentally ill men and women who I knew and cared about, after their illness drove them to harm someone. Though it was legal and in good faith, it was in my mind a moral crime. I put people in prison, and jail who needed help long before they committed their crimes. I could not stop them ahead of time because they did not utter the magic words of “I want to kill myself” or “I want to hurt others.” I watched helplessly as the indicators of their crime presented themselves in their behavior moments before an assault, a stabbing, or an act of mayhem. Or even worse, for the innocent victims, who would sit on the sidewalk mumbling incoherently, or cursing at an imaginary nemesis. I had an uneasy feeling that as soon as I walked away they would become victimized by a Skid Row predator anxious to prove how tough they were. Some were sexually violated because the assailant perceived that the victim could not call for help, or be able to articulate what happened to them. Upon my return from a meeting or handling a call for service my fears would often be confirmed.

Since the Lavan Injunction, the early release of many mentally ill individuals from the prison system, and a more aggressive form of nimbyism in other community's eager to rid themselves of their mentally ill, we have seen an increase in the presence of said individuals in the Skid Row area like never before. We are at a state of urgency, as the streets of Skid Row have once again become an outdoor asylum without walls. On a daily basis we see the potential for violence against or committed by these individuals, and we truly need the stepped up assistance of mental health professionals who deal with mental health to reach out to these individuals before they become victimized, threaten suicide, victimize others, or become so mentally unstable, that they stop taking care of themselves. As we enter into this new phase of the Safer Cities Initiative, we desire that outreach stand at the front end our efforts. That can only happen when mental health providers, within and outside of Skid Row partner with us to try to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in Skid Row before they become a police report, or criminalized by their illness.

We have made several attempts to bring this to fruition, but our requests have been met with trepidation in working side by side with us out of fear of how they would be perceived by the public for working with law enforcement. This mentality has to change. It is not our desire to violate the constitutional rights of the mentally ill members of the Skid Row community. We desire to meet the mentally ill where they are with resources and counseling before they get to a point where they lose their freedom via a criminal act or a mandatory hold. This will take a collective and unified effort, because if we are honest, everything else we have tried has failed them.

No one knows better than the officers who work Skid Row where the neediest individuals of proactive outreach can be found. We see them daily. We know who the most vulnerable are, and we simply want to reach out to them via a consistent and proactive partnership to get them helped, and housed. We are not helping the mentally ill in a reactive state.

We as a Department are changing the way we do things for the safety of the community, and to develop stronger relationships with the people we serve. We need for Mental Health agencies to do the same and join us with us. We have tried everything else; it is time to try something that may actually work if we give it a chance.

Sincerely

Senior Lead Officer Deon Joseph
Los Angeles Police Department Central Division

http://lapdblog.typepad.com/lapd_blog/

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Boston

FBI Feared Boston Bombers 'Received Training' And Aid From Terror Group, Docs Say

by JAMES GORDON MEEK

Prosecutors seeking a death penalty conviction of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Wednesday said the FBI at the time of his arrest last year believed he and his brother Tamerlan had been trained by a terrorist group because of the sophistication of their weapons and tradecraft.

The Chechen immigrants are alleged to have built the two pressure cooker improvised explosive devices that detonated Monday, April 15, 2013 near the race's finish line, killing three Bostonians and wounding more than 260 other marathon spectators.

"These relatively sophisticated devices would have been difficult for the Tsarnaevs to fabricate successfully without training or assistance from others," the U.S. Justice Department said in a filing that opposed defense lawyers' efforts to have Dzhokar Tsarnaev's hospital bed confessions tossed out of the case.

Counterterrorism sources have said that investigators have been unable to find any hard evidence of any training or assistance.

But ABC News reported last month that many senior current and former counterterrorism officials -- including former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul and former Joint IED Defeat Organization director Army Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero -- remain skeptical that the Tsarnaevs built their bombs solely from instructions they found posted online.

A side by side comparison last year of the pressure cooker IED design found in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's 2010 debut issue of "Inspire" magazine with evidence collected in Boston showed significant differences in the design and construction, according to analysis by the FBI's Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center, ABC News reported last month.

On Friday, April 19, the brothers allegedly murdered an MIT cop and then engaged in a street gunfight with Watertown police officers that left Tamerlan dead. Hours later, the badly wounded Dzhokar was captured hiding inside a boat in a driveway.

Searches afterward of their residences, vehicles and other places they had frequented found no trace of the fine black powder siphoned from fireworks that were used in their IEDs, "again strongly suggesting that others had built, or at least helped the Tsarnaevs build, the bombs," the government filing stated.

Beyond the extraordinary skill required to build the pressure cooker bombs and three other types of rudimentary IEDs law enforcement sources say the Tsarnaevs threw at cops, the FBI saw the coordinated bombings, the recovery of only one of two remote-controlled switch-triggers used, and the rhetoric of Dzhokar's statements scrawled inside the boat all as hallmarks of al Qaeda, prosecutors recounted.

The brothers' use of "burner" cell phones with interchangeable SIM cards was viewed as further evidence that suggested they possibly "had received training and direction from a terrorist group," the court papers said.

The government did not say what investigators believe today.

The FBI has briefed officials on their conclusion that the brothers likely used only the Internet to research bombcraft, multiple officials have told ABC News. Many skeptical senior officials in counterterrorism, however, note that the FBI was hampered by the Russian FSB security service in probing Tamerlan's 2012 trip to militant Islamist hotspots Chechnya and Dagestan, and that no one else has built the "Inspire" pressure cooker IED inside the U.S. homeland in the four years since the magazine's "How to build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom" recipe was made public.

Law enforcement sources say the Tsarnaevs also distinguished themselves by building four separate IED designs -- and used three types successfully, including pipe bombs and CO2 "cricket" grenades.

The FBI's fear of a follow-on attack last year by unknown accomplices led agents to press the surviving Tsarnaev brother for information without reading him his Miranda rights under a national security exception and while he was lightly sedated, prosecutors explained to the court in Wednesday's filing. Defense lawyers want his statements excluded from the case.

Interrogators questioned Tsarnaev 14 times over two days, taking breaks for rest, sleep and treatment periods, such as when they backed off questioning him for one 10 1/2-hour stretch. He admitted his involvement in the attacks to the FBI and denied there was a terror cell, the filing alleged.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to federal terrorism charges.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fbi-feared-boston-bombers-received-training-aid-terror/story?id=23819429

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New York

Inmate died after 7 days in NYC cell

by JAKE PEARSON

NEW YORK (AP) — After a mentally ill Bradley Ballard made a lewd gesture to a female guard at the Rikers Island jail, he was locked in his cell alone for seven increasingly agitated days in which he was denied some of his medication, clogged his toilet so that it overflowed, stripped off his clothes and tied a rubber band tightly around his genitals.

During that period, guards passed Ballard's cell in the mental observation unit dozens of times, peering through the window in the steel door but never venturing inside — until it was too late.

The 39-year-old Ballard was eventually found naked and unresponsive on the floor, covered in feces, his genitals swollen and badly infected. He was rushed to a hospital but died hours later.

"He didn't have to leave this world like that. They could have put him in a mental hospital, got him some treatment," Ballard's mother, Beverly Ann Griffin, said from her Houston, Texas, home. "He was a caring young man."

Ballard's death last September, detailed in documents obtained by The Associated Press and in interviews with two city officials on condition of anonymity, came five months before another Rikers inmate in a similar mental health unit died in a cell that climbed to a suffocating 101 degrees because of malfunctioning heating equipment.

Experts say Ballard's death is only the latest example of how poorly equipped the city's jail system is to handle the mentally ill, who make up about 40 percent of the 12,000 inmates in the nation's most populous city. A third of those inmates suffer from serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

In Ballard's case, his family said, he was diagnosed as schizophrenic more than a decade ago, and he also had diabetes.

Faced with rising criticism over conditions at Rikers, Mayor Bill de Blasio has vowed reforms. Correction Department spokesman Robin Campbell said in a statement Wednesday that Ballard's case is under investigation. He said mental health and jail officials have started shift-by-shift briefings on inmates like Ballard and are working on other measures "so that a similar tragedy will not happen again."

More tests are needed to determine exactly how Ballard died, the medical examiner's office says. But preliminary findings show that he probably succumbed to sepsis, an infection that has spread through the body, according to the two officials.

Ballard grew up in Houston and moved to New York to pursue a better life after working as a cook in a fried chicken restaurant, his family said. He spent six years behind bars after being arrested in 2004 for assaulting a receptionist and another employee of a New York law firm.

Last June, he was arrested in Houston on public lewdness and assault charges for punching and exposing himself to a bus driver. He was sent back to jail in New York for not telling his parole officer that he had left the city.

He was first placed in a Rikers facility for 17 days, then a Correction Department psychiatric hospital for 38 days. Then he was sent to a roughly 30-bed mental observation unit at Rikers.

In documents obtained by the AP via a public records request, Cathy Potler, executive director of the city Board of Correction, gave her account of Ballard's case, based on a review of records, security footage and interviews with inmates.

She noted that even though Ballard was in a unit where inmates are ordinarily allowed in and out of their cells to mingle with others for 14 hours a day, he was locked up continuously for seven days and for most of that time wasn't given his medication. The type of medication was not disclosed.

Guards confined Ballard to his cell on Sept. 4 after he stared for hours at a female officer, rolled up his shirt to look like a penis and thrust it toward her, Potler said.

The next day, Potler wrote, Ballard intentionally flooded his combination sink-toilet, after which a mental health provider spoke with him for 15 seconds through the cell door. The next day, a plumber turned off the water to his cell.

Over the next few days, guards and deputy wardens looked in his cell dozens of times throughout the day, Potler wrote, and the inmate was at times seen at the door.

On Sept. 10, video of an inmate delivering a tray of food to Ballard's cell showed the inmate covering his nose with his shirt and three officers backing away, "presumably because of the foul odor coming from the cell," Potler wrote.

Ballard was checked on at least two dozen times that day and night, with an officer at one point seen kicking his cell door several times, according to Potler's account.

By the time medical staffers were called in and his cell was opened, Ballard was so weak he couldn't move. He was pronounced dead early on the morning of Sept. 11.

Under city rules, mental health staffers are required to make twice-daily rounds in the unit where Ballard was jailed, and the guards on duty are supposed to be steadily assigned there and receive annual mental health training.

But mental health staffers visited Ballard's cell only once before he was discovered to be in distress, according to Potler. And of the 53 officers who worked in the unit in the days leading up to Ballard's death, only one was steady, and none had received the required annual refresher course on mental health, Potler wrote.

Following Ballard's death, Department of Health officials said a city investigation found workers missed multiple opportunities to treat him, transferred the unit chief to another facility and retrained staffers on how to do rounds and other procedures.

Jail officers have long complained that they aren't sufficiently trained to handle severely mentally ill inmates. At a recent public meeting, a union official said trainees get 21.5 hours of mental health training during their 16 weeks of academy instruction, plus the three-hour annual refresher.

In a statement, Norman Seabrook, president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, said Ballard's death was an example of "non-communication between medical staff and uniform staff." He said officers can notify members of the medical staff, "but it's clearly up to them and solely them to determine treatment."

Ballard's death, though tragic, was unsurprising to those familiar with how the mentally ill fare in jails, said Dr. Bandy Lee, a Yale psychiatrist who was a co-author of a report critical of jail officials' use of solitary confinement.

"Correctional institutions are such a poor substitute for mental hospitals, which is what they're basically functioning as in our society," she said. "The problem is the correction setting is not fit to deliver the proper care, and in fact many of the settings exacerbate their symptoms."

Curtis Griffin, Ballard's stepfather, said a jail chaplain informed the family months ago of his son's death, but he wasn't told the specifics.

"They know," Griffin said, "that they were wrong in the way they handled the situation."

http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/AP-Exclusive-Inmate-died-after-7-days-in-NYC-cell-5497159.php

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Washington D.C.

Air Force security failed nuke test, report says

by The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Armed security forces at a nuclear missile base failed a drill last summer that simulated the hostile takeover of a missile launch silo because they were unable to speedily regain control of the captured nuclear weapon, according to an internal Air Force review obtained by The Associated Press.

The previously unreported failure, which the Air Force called a "critical deficiency," was the reason the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana flunked its broader safety and security inspection.

The security team was required to respond to the simulated capture of a Minuteman 3 nuclear missile silo, termed an "Empty Quiver" scenario in which a nuclear weapon is lost, stolen or seized. Each of the Air Force's 450 Minuteman 3 silos contains one missile armed with a nuclear warhead and ready for launch on orders from the president.

The review obtained by the AP through a Freedom of Information Act request sought to examine why the security force showed an "inability to effectively respond to a recapture scenario." It cited their failure to take "all lawful actions necessary to immediately regain control of nuclear weapons" but did not specify those actions.

The prize for terrorists or others who might seek to seize control of a missile would be the nuclear warhead attached to it. In 2009, the Air Force cited a "post-9/11 shift in thinking" about such situations, saying that while this nightmare scenario once was considered an impossibility, the U.S. "no longer has the luxury of assuming what is and what is not possible."

The inspection failure was one of a string of nuclear missile corps setbacks revealed by the AP over the past year.

The force has suffered embarrassing leadership and training lapses, breakdowns in discipline and morale problems.

Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered two parallel nuclear reviews, still underway, to address his concern that these lapses could erode public trust in the security of the nation's nuclear weapons.

The safety and security of nuclear weapons under military control is considered of paramount importance, and thus defense agencies perform detailed and rigorous inspections at regular intervals.

When the Air Force publicly acknowledged the inspection failure in August, it said "tactical-level errors" had been committed during one phase of the inspection, but it did not say the errors were made by security forces. At the time, the Air Force declined to provide details, saying to do so could expose potential vulnerabilities. Security forces, safety officers, logistics teams, missile launch crews and others participated in the Malmstrom inspection.

Lt. Col. John Sheets, a spokesman for Air Force Global Strike Command, which is responsible for the nuclear missile corps as well as the nuclear-capable bomber aircraft, said Wednesday he could not comment further.

"We cannot divulge additional details of the scenario or the response tactics due to it being sensitive information that could compromise security," Sheets said. He added that all "countermeasures," or corrective actions, that were proposed in the review obtained by the AP have been accomplished. The only exception is a plan for more extensive practicing of security response tactics at launch silos, a move that requires signed agreements with owners of the private land on which the missile silos are situated.

The Aug 5-13, 2013, inspection, designed to evaluate management and handling of nuclear weapons to ensure they are properly controlled at all times, was repeated two months later and found no security weaknesses.

Security forces are responsible for a range of protective roles on the Air Force's three nuclear missile bases, including along roads used to transport missiles and warheads to and from launch silos; at weapons storage facilities; and at launch silos and launch control centers. The Air Force operates three Minuteman 3 bases — in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming — each with 150 missiles.

The partially censored document provided to the AP describes in broad terms the nature of the inspection failure, its significance and its underlying causes.

It said insufficient training was at the heart of the problem, beginning with a lack of familiarity among the security forces with "complex scenario" exercises. It also cited unspecified shortcomings in "leadership culture" and a lack of standardized simulations not only at Malmstrom but throughout the nuclear missile corps.

Among the corrective measures cited in the report: Arrange to hold recapture exercises at one launch silo among the 50 silos in each of the 341st's three Minuteman squadrons, using "realistic, varied, simple-to-complex" scenarios based on what the Pentagon calls its "local nuclear security threat capabilities assessment." Also, the Air Force is taking steps to more closely track lessons learned from each "recapture" exercise.

The Air Force declined to further explain the August exercise scenario, but the document provided to the AP indicates that a security force team was told to recapture a Minuteman 3 missile launch silo within a certain time limit.

It did not identify or otherwise describe the team, but each Minuteman 3 missile base has "tactical response force" teams specially trained and equipped for nuclear weapons recapture and recovery missions.

Two years ago, the Air Force promoted these teams as a "secret weapon" ensuring nuclear security, saying they are provided "an extensive amount of unique training and are expected to perform flawlessly in whatever scenario thrown their way."

It is not clear from available records precisely what Malmstrom's security forces did wrong or inadequately in the August exercise.

A section apparently elaborating on what was meant by the phrase "failed to take all lawful actions" was removed from the document before its release to the AP last week. The Air Force said this information was withheld in accordance with senior-level Pentagon orders "prohibiting the unauthorized dissemination of unclassified information pertaining to security measures" for the protection of "special nuclear material."

Labeling the security forces' misstep a "critical deficiency," the report said that because security of nuclear weapons is paramount, "the inability to demonstrate effective recapture/recovery TTPs (tactics, techniques and procedures) detracts from the Wing's ability to conduct its day-to-day mission."

Col. Robert Stanley, who was commander of the 341st Wing at the time of the failure, said at the conclusion of the inspection that to publicly reveal details of the results would "give America's adversaries far too much information about how we operate." Despite the inspection failure, "there was no question about our capability to operate safely and with complete confidence," Stanley said, adding nonetheless that more needed to be done to ensure that "some very young airmen" understand their responsibilities "much more clearly."

Nine days later he fired the officer in charge of his security forces, Col. David Lynch, and replaced him temporarily with Col. John T. Wilcox II. In March, Stanley resigned amid a scandal involving alleged cheating on proficiency tests by up to 100 missile officers at Malmstrom, and the Air Force replaced Stanley with Wilcox.

In an AP interview in January, Stanley suggested there had been disagreement about how the security exercise was conducted during the August inspection. Without providing specifics, he said it was simulated "in a way that we've never seen before," adding: "It confused our airmen. We were off by a matter of seconds."

The 341st has had other security-related problems over the past year. It disciplined two launch control officers who broke security rules on May 31, 2013, by leaving open the blast door to their underground command center when a maintenance person arrived while one of the two crew members was asleep. Compounding the error, the crew commander and his deputy initially lied to their squadron commander in an attempt to hide the violation.

The 341st also has at least two missile launch officers under criminal investigation for alleged illegal drug use or possession.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/05/22/air-force-security-failed-nuke-test-report-says/

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Community policing program keeps kids safe online

The e-Copp program has been purchased by schools and police agencies and it can be used by parents who home school their little ones

by Doug Wyllie, PoliceOne Editor in Chief

Police departments (and schools) now have access to a resource to help protect little kids from online predation and other dangers. The product — called e-Copp — is an Internet and stranger danger program that is also an excellent community policing tool.

Similar to ‘Safety Town' — which teaches kids to look both ways before you cross the street — e-Copp teaches kids to be cautious online and teaches them to avoid bad websites (particularly pornography and hate sites).

Created by Officers Kevin Owens and Tom Wetzel, the computer-animated program follows the adventures of Lil Copper and her dog Double Click as they share important Internet safety lessons with their friends.

Program Details
“Concerned about the dangers to children from online predators, we developed an educational Internet and stranger danger safety program for children called e-Copp, educational Children's online protection program,” Wetzel explained.

It started as a public project through one agency and then Owens and Wetzel incorporated Blue Knight Productions so they could reach a larger audience.

“The program teaches students how to be safe both while using the computer and how to avoid danger when away from it — it also addresses bullying. The program has been purchased by schools and police agencies and it can be used by parents who home-school their little ones.”

The group is multicultural to help connect with a broad range of students. Each character takes on the professional persona of a parent and wears clothing related to that profession.

“Education and awareness are critical components of the program,” Wetzel explained. “Teaching kids to recognize red flags and act on them. Emphasis is on communication with their parents, teachers and police officers. This special safety program is simple to use for the officers and it is inexpensive and easy on a police budget.”

Wetzel added that an important focus of the program is for children to communicate concerns they have to a parent(s), teacher or police officer.

“e-Copp provides direction for students and teachers on how to act if criminal activity is found. It also promotes harmony with police officers at a young age.”

eCommunity Policing?
Most agencies are looking for new ways to develop deeper connections with those they serve — particularly young people — throughout the country. A good step in that direction is getting more cops in schools as resource officers where they not only protect students but also are involved in teaching valuable safety lessons.

This is where e-Copp comes in — it allows them to nurture a relationship of trust at a young age.

“Police agencies and officers should also embrace more community policing efforts where the ‘server' and the ‘served' work together to solve problems and make their neighborhoods safer places to live and work. Because many agencies' resources are limited, administrations need to find ways to be more effective in their mission of protecting and serving. eCopp accomplishes this.”

Wetzel added that “e-Copp teaches kids to ‘think safe, act safe, and be safe.' Cops and kids go together naturally. Cops have always had a protective parent/teacher role with children when they meet them on the street. This effort is just a natural extension of that relationship.”

Pricing and Availability
The e-Copp system for schools — which also includes a DVD, 30 student workbooks, 31 wristbands, and a teacher's manual for the officer in the classroom — is about $180. The system for individual families has only a handful of workbooks and wristbands and is just under $30.

Departments can order e-Copp online or by calling 216-214-0132.

http://www.policeone.com/police-products/police-technology/articles/7209073-Community-policing-program-keeps-kids-safe-online/

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From the FBI

International Blackshades Malware Takedown

Coordinated Law Enforcement Actions Announced

Today, representatives from the FBI New York Field Office and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced the results of a cyber takedown, which included the unsealing of an indictment against Swedish national Alex Yucel and the guilty plea of U.S. citizen Michael Hogue, both of whom we believe co-developed a particularly insidious computer malware known as Blackshades. This software was sold and distributed to thousands of people in more than 100 countries and has been used to infect more than half a million computers worldwide.

Also charged and arrested in the U.S. were an individual who helped market and sell the malware and two Blackshades users who bought the malware and then unleashed it upon unsuspecting computer users, surreptitiously installing it on their hardware. So far during the takedown, 40 FBI field offices have conducted approximately 100 interviews, executed more than 100 e-mail and physical search warrants, and seized more than 1,900 domains used by Blackshades users to control victims' computers.

And that's not all. The actions announced at today's press conference are part of an unprecedented law enforcement operation involving 18 other countries. More than 90 arrests have been made so far, and more than 300 searches have been conducted worldwide.

Malware is malicious software whose only purpose is to damage or perform other unwanted actions on computer systems. Blackshades malware—in particular, the Blackshades Remote Access Tool (RAT)—allows criminals to steal passwords and banking credentials; hack into social media accounts; access documents, photos, and other computer files; record all keystrokes; activate webcams; hold a computer for ransom; and use the computer in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

We uncovered the existence of the Blackshades malware during a previous international investigation called Operation Cardshop, which targeted “carding” crimes—offenses in which the Internet is used to traffic in and exploit the stolen credit cards, bank accounts, and other personal identification information of hundreds of thousands of victims globally. We spun off a new investigation and ultimately identified one of the Cardshop subjects—Michael Hogue—and Alex Yucel as the Blackshades co-developers. Yucel, the alleged head of the organization that sold the malware, was previously arrested in Moldova and is awaiting extradition to the U.S.

Our investigation revealed that several different types of Blackshades malware products were available for purchase by other cyber criminals through a website; the popular Blackshades RAT could be bought for as little as $40. In addition to its low price, the Blackshades RAT was very attractive because it could be customized by the criminals who bought it, depending on their particular requirements.

Yucel ran his organization like a business—hiring and firing employees, paying salaries, and updating the malicious software in response to customers' requests. He employed several administrators to facilitate the operation of the organization, including a director of marketing, a website developer, a customer service manager, and a team of customer service representatives.

New York FBI Assistant Director in Charge George Venizelos said that today's announcement “showcases the top to bottom approach the FBI takes to its cases...starting with those who put it [malware] in the hands of the users—the creators and those who helped make it readily available, the administrators. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to bring to justice anyone who uses Blackshades maliciously.”

We're currently working with Internet service providers to notify domestic victims of the Blackshades malware. But in the meantime, we're providing information here on how to check your computer for a possible Blackshades infection.

Protect Your Computer from Malware

- Make sure you have updated antivirus software on your computer.

- Enable automated patches for your operating system and web browser.

- Have strong passwords, and don't use the same passwords for everything.

- Use a pop-up blocker.

- Only download software—especially free software—from sites you know and trust (malware can also come in downloadable games, file-sharing programs, and customized toolbars).

- Don't open e-mail attachments in unsolicited e-mails, even if they come from people in your contact list, and never click on a URL contained in an e-mail, even if you think it looks safe. Instead, close out the e-mail and go to the organization's website directly.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2014/may/international-blackshades-malware-takedown/international-blackshades-malware-takedown

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New York

City Council members demand end to gun violence; call for more police, community programs

by Jillian Jorgensen

CITY HALL - Citing recent examples of violence - including two separate shootings in Mariners Harbor- the City Council's Black, Latino and Asian Caucus called for "an end to senseless acts of assaults and gun violence" in the city.

"Violence has reached epidemic proportions," co-chair Councilwoman Rose Mendez (D-Manhattan) said Monday.

Her co-chair Andy King listed incidents of violence across the city in recent weeks across the five boroughs.

"On Staten Island, a woman was shot outside her apartment building," King said, referring to the shooting outside the Arlington Terrace Apartments in Mariners Harbor Saturday, before recounting the high-profile shooting in April of Richard Salvia, 50, the delivery man police say was lured to his death on nearby Grandview Avenue.

The caucus rejected the notion that changes to stop and frisk and other police policies could have contributed to the crime spikes, and focused on calling for more funding for anti-gun initiatives, greater involvement of community groups on the ground, and for the mayor to heed the City Council's call for 1,000 more police officers.

"That is not a lot to ask. We're talking about increasing precinct resources, increasing opportunities for law enforcement and communities to work together, going back to the notion of community policing that we have lost for far too long," Councilwoman Vanessa L. Gibson (D-Bronx), who has seen a spike in crime in her district.

Crime, too, has risen on Staten Island - the Advance reported a double-digit crime increase on Staten Island in late April.

Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore), a member of caucus who represents the Mariners Harbor neighborhood where the two mentioned shootings took place, couldn't attend the press conference because she was meeting with members of the Cure Violence initiative on Staten Island.

"Nothing has changed: The rise in violent crime is just not acceptable and the fact that we are the recipient of a Cure Violence program, whose focus is to eliminate gun violence in the targeted communities, I think is so important," Ms. Rose said in a telephone interview.

She said the Council's request of another 1,000 police officers was also key to communities who have experienced a spike in crimes. It would be important to combine law enforcement, mental health services, mediation, and other opportunities, she said. Other Council members, too, cited such programs as means to prevent violence.

Many of the Council members at the meeting spoke of an increase in gun crimes - King said his district had had eight fatal shootings in the last two weeks -- compared to just one fatal shooting for all of last year.

But members of the caucus - which strongly backed the Community Safety Act, aimed at reforming the city's use of stop, question and frisk - said those reforms, protested by police unions as liable to make the city less safe, were not behind the crime increase in their communities. They said the technique was still in use, just when constitutionally called for.

"The stop and frisk policies never led to getting more guns off the street. The stop and frisk policies were unconstitutional," Ms. Mendez said.

And Councilman Jumaane Williams, an architect of the bill, said some of the years crime went down the most were when the number of stops also plummeted - arguing there has never been a correlation between the two.

"The whole city, from what I was told, was going to go to ruin if we started treating the Constitution like it was something that should be treated with respect," he said.

Ms. Rose said she expected critics of the Community Safety Act to blame it for any increase in crime, but that there was no correlation.

"I say this with all honesty -- if in fact the police officers are not actively working to get the guns off of the street, then they're not doing their job and it has no connection to the Community Safety Act," she said. "Their job is to make sure that the public is safe and to get guns off the streets and the Community Safety Act has nothing to do with that."

But King said his district has seen more shootings in two recent weeks than all of last year. He said he didn't attribute it to any recent police policies, but rather long-standing issues in his community, and the recent rise of "youth crews."

"Not because of any change in NYPD policies -- just because of economic opportunities and lack of services and options for our young people," he said.

http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2014/05/city_council_members_call_for.html

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Is Lead Exposure the Secret to the Rapid Rise and Fantastic Fall of the Juvenile Crime Rate?

by Dick Mendel

For the juvenile justice field, there is no larger question. It's the elephant in the room, the great mystery, the trend that has changed everything — and seemingly without explanation. Why have juvenile crime rates, once predicted to rise inexorably, instead been falling for two decades? Falling... and falling... and falling.

What if the answer was readily available? What if it mostly boiled down to a single element, hiding in plain sight, and we just refused to notice?

Well, compelling evidence suggests that much or most of the fluctuation in juvenile crime rates does boil down to a single element — a chemical element.

The element is lead, and a powerful body of research indicates that the recent declines in juvenile offending rates, like the rise in juvenile crime rates that preceded them, stem in large part from changes in children's exposure to lead paint and exhaust from leaded gasoline.

The idea may sound crazy, “like a bad science fiction plot,” quips Rick Nevin, one of the leading researchers documenting the link between lead exposure and crime. But the data don't lie and here's what they say.

For centuries it has been clear that lead is a potent poison. At extreme concentrations, lead poisoning causes anemia, blindness, renal failure, convulsions, abdominal spasms, insomnia, hallucinations, chronic fatigue and, ultimately, death. But only in the past four decades have researchers learned that lead exposure can severely damage the cognitive development of children, even at modest levels that produce no physical symptoms. And only through modern scanning technology have we learned that the lead molecule is perfectly designed to cripple young minds in ways that not only lower IQ, but also damage the very parts of the brain that oversee aggression, self-regulation, attention and impulse control.

As Kim Cecil, director of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, recently explained to the Chemical & Engineering News, “These are the parts of the brain that say, ‘Ooh, I've learned from before that I shouldn't steal that, or if I do this, then the consequences are that.'”

Even moderate levels of lead in the bloodstream of an infant or toddler significantly increase the odds that he will suffer behavioral disorders in childhood, and will engage in delinquency and criminal behavior later on. (Lead seems to affect boys more than girls.) A study published in 2008 tracked 250 children born in low-income Cincinnati neighborhoods between 1979 and 2004. It found that children with elevated levels of lead exposure (either in utero, or in early childhood) were significantly more likely to be arrested for both violent and nonviolent crimes than children with lower lead exposure. Earlier studies in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh also found a significant correlation between early childhood lead exposure and later conduct problems.

What makes this story important is that children in the United States and worldwide were exposed to massive concentrations of lead throughout much of the 20th century. Because leaded paint dries faster and is more durable, virtually all paint sold in the nation in the first half of the century contained lead. Some nations outlawed leaded paint as early as 1909, but the United States didn't prohibit the use of lead in interior paints until 1950 and didn't ban lead paint entirely until 1978.

In 1921, General Motors chemists discovered that tetraethyl lead vastly improved the efficiency of internal combustion engines. By the 1930s, lead additives were included in virtually all gasoline sold in the nation. Faced with increasing evidence about health hazards associated with lead, the Environmental Protection Agency began phasing out the use of leaded gasoline in the 1970s, and banned it entirely as of 1995.

This heavy use of lead in paints and gasoline dramatically increased the amount of lead in children's bloodstreams. The average among preschool children nationwide rose from less than 5 micrograms per deciliter (ug/dL) of blood through the end of World War II to more than 15 ug/dL by the mid-1950s. Then, after a brief pause, average blood lead levels among U.S. preschoolers surpassed 20 ug/dL during the late 1960s and early ‘70s. The latest studies show that lead can cause permanent cognitive damage at 2.5 ug/dL (or possibly even lower).

Lead levels were especially high for inner-city black children due to both lead paint chips from older, dilapidated housing and high volumes of exhaust from urban roadways. Data from 1976-1980 show that 63 percent of black children 5 and under in central cities had blood lead levels of 20 ug/dL or higher, and 18.6 percent had levels above 30 ug/dL — a rate nearly five times the national average.

Then, in the 1970s, regulations were issued to limit and prohibit lead, and lead levels began falling for children of all races. They continue to fall until the present day, though racial disparities persist.

The full ramifications of this massive lead exposure began coming into view in the mid-1990s when Rick Nevin, a senior economist with ICF International, undertook a study for the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development examining the costs and benefits of removing lead from older homes in U.S. cities. For the study, Nevin dug up several decades of data on gasoline lead emissions and compared them with violent crime rates years later. The correlations were striking. For every type of violent offense, as lead emissions rose or fell there was a nearly identical change in the offense rate two decades later. Unwed teen pregnancies followed a similar pattern, Nevin found.

In 2000, Nevin pulled his data together into an article for a respected academic journal, Environmental Research. Seven years later, Nevin published a second article demonstrating that the lagged connection between early childhood lead exposure and subsequent criminality held true in a number of other nations as well. Changes in lead exposure, Nevin found, explained at least 63 percent of the variation in crime rates over time for each of nine nations studied. Meanwhile, another 2007 study showed this same correlation at the state-level within the nation, as states with sharper or earlier reductions in lead emissions demonstrated sharper and earlier drops in crime. Subsequent studies have found that the correlation also holds at the neighborhood level within cities.

Could these striking correlations between lead exposure and crime rates be coincidence? That's always a possibility, particularly in situations where the gold standard for scientific inquiry — a randomized trial — is unavailable. (Subjecting a random sample of infants to lead is obviously out-of-bounds.) Yet the strength and consistency of the findings linking lead exposure and crime trends, plus the wealth of corroborating evidence from other disciplines (such as brain imaging studies and longitudinal studies of small population samples in selected cities) creates what Kevin Drum, a widely-cited blogger and journalist who has written extensively on the lead-crime connection, calls “an astonishing body of evidence.”

“We now have studies at the international level, the national level, the state level, the city level, and even the individual level,” writes Drum. “Groups of children have been followed from the womb to adulthood, and higher childhood blood lead levels are consistently associated with higher adult arrest rates for violent crimes. All of these studies tell the same story: Gasoline lead is responsible for a good share of the rise and fall of violent crime over the past half century.”

By this point, readers of this column may be wondering: If the evidence linking lead exposure and crime is so strong, why haven't we heard more about it? The primary reason is that the research has been largely ignored by academics. In 2008, a 250-page report on U.S. crime trends by the National Academies of Science included only one paragraph about lead exposure, drawing no conclusions. Late last year, a National Academies roundtable on crime trends did hold a session on lead exposure.

But even in that day's session, the opening presentation — delivered by the renowned British criminologist, David Farrington — did not include a word about lead exposure. His talk on “Individual Differences in Antisocial Behavior, Delinquency, and Crime” discussed unemployment, parenting, poverty, family size, peer influences, substance abuse, and even an individual's resting heart rate — none of which has seen changes in recent times consistent with the larger rise and fall in crime rates. Farrington said nothing about the introduction and subsequent removal of massive amounts of a toxic substance with a powerful known link to subsequent delinquency and criminality.

Drum suggests that the lack of attention to lead exposure is natural, given that the theory is new and unproven. Indeed, some critics have raised legitimate questions about the research — citing the small number of studies, questioning methodology and suggesting that other factors beyond lead (such as demographics, shifting drug markets and more) may also play an important role in determining crime rates over time.

For instance, Florida State University criminologist Eric Baumer, the designated discussant at the recent National Academies roundtable, noted that crime declined significantly in the 1990s among all age cohorts, not just youth and younger adults with reduced lead exposure. Baumer also noted that the share of youth and young adults in the population has been declining in most industrial nations since the 1980s, perhaps fueling the steady drop in crime rates. And he pointed to the fact that, although statistically significant, the increases in criminality associated with early childhood lead exposure were fairly modest in the Cincinnati youth study. Although Baumer accepted that the evidence yields a “persuasive case for a significant association” between lead exposure and crime rates, he raised the possibility that the connection might be “spurious,” and he questioned whether the lead effect — even if real — would be sufficient to explain large aggregate reductions in crime rates. Even with these caveats, however, Baumer described the lead research as “provocative and plausible.”

(Rick Nevin roundly rejects Baumer's critique of the lead research, noting that Baumer ignores some of the strongest evidence of the lead exposure hypothesis and uses inappropriate data to support his other criticisms. Bottom line, says Nevin: no other theory “has demonstrated any comparable predictive accuracy in forecasting ongoing international crime trends.” Click here for Baumer's presentation, and here for Nevin's rebuttal.)

Another factor behind the inattention to the lead exposure research is that most of the studies thus far have been conducted by economists and public health scholars, not criminologists, and the key papers have been published in environmental journals rather than criminology publications. Nevin also sees an element of self-interest: “Everyone has their own theory that they hold dear about why the crime decline has occurred,” he says. “There are a whole lot of people ... on both sides of the political spectrum who want to claim credit for this and don't really like hearing about this unrelated powerful force.”

Whatever the reasons, this lack of attention has left policymakers and juvenile justice practitioners unaware of lead's apparently pivotal impact on adolescent (and adult) offending rates over the past half century.

What does this connection between crime and lead exposure mean for the juvenile justice field?

First, it sheds light not just on the sharp rise and dramatic fall in national delinquency rates in recent decades, but also on a number of other previously unexplained trends as well. The stark racial and geographic disparities in lead exposure help explain how America's city's became havens of violence in the post-World War II era, and why crime rates in central cities have fallen so significantly since as lead exposure rates declined. The murder rate in America's largest cities (where lead exposure rates were highest) declined by two-thirds from 1991 to 2008, and is now equal to rates in small and mid-sized cities.

Declining lead exposure also helps explain why both arrest and incarceration rates are falling for adolescents and younger adults nationwide (who are benefiting from lower lead exposure), while rising for adults over age 35 (who were born at the height of the lead era). And why the U.S. teen pregnancy rate has fallen 51 percent since 1991. And it also helps explain why, despite continuing sky-is-falling media coverage of America's education system, fourth and eighth grade students in every major demographic group have significantly improved their test scores over the past two decades.

Second, just as the big drop in juvenile offending shredded the logic and underlying analysis of so-called experts in the 1990s who predicted a ticking time bomb of adolescent crime fueled by juvenile superpredators, the emerging data linking lead exposure and offending rates also injects a needed dose of humility for today's juvenile justice advocates and practitioners.

Across the country, as juvenile offending and custody rates have fallen, juvenile justice officials and some advocacy organizations have tried to claim credit — chalking up the progress to their own policies and practices. Of course, some reform efforts have made significant difference. Connecticut, Ohio, Louisiana, Texas and California have all dramatically reduced confinement in recent years after passing new legislation or embracing new policies to limit the range of offenses for which youth can be confined, boost investments in non-residential programming, or change the financial incentives to encourage localities to offer a stronger array of community - based services. And many sites nationwide have reduced detention populations as part of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. But looking across the country, game-changing reforms remain the exception in juvenile justice, not the rule.

For instance, juvenile justice scholar Jeffrey Butts has shown that U.S. delinquency courts were no less likely to incarcerate youth in 2009 than they had been in 1995. Nationwide, there was virtually no change in youth incarceration as a share of total delinquency cases (about 9 percent every year), all cases where formal charges were brought (about 16 percent every year), and all cases adjudicated delinquent (about 27-28 percent every year). Meanwhile, a new five-site study by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency released this spring found that youth adjudicated delinquent were actually more likely to be placed into correctional or other residential facilities in 2012 than in 2002. As the Casey Foundation put it two years ago, “it is less clear whether [recent trends in youth confinement] reflect a genuine de - incarceration movement, or rather signal that this is an opportune time to start one.”

Third, early childhood lead exposure has continued to decline steeply in recent years, meaning that youth entering adolescence over the next decade will have lower lead exposure than today's adolescents. As a result, juvenile offending rates are likely to sustain their downward trend for the foreseeable future. That's one more reason why now is an ideal time to initiate meaningful reforms in juvenile justice — including real reductions in the use of out-of-home placements.

Finally, returning to the humility theme, the lead data suggest that perhaps the most important thing our nation can do to reduce juvenile crime — and also to boost youth success in general — has nothing to do with juvenile courts or corrections systems. Maybe our first priority should be lead abatement — finishing the job by removing the last remnants of our tragic 20th century fetish with this terrible toxin.

Dick Mendel is an independent writer and editor on juvenile justice and other youth, poverty and community development issues. He has written nationally disseminated reports for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, American Youth Policy Forum and Justice Policy Institute, among others.

http://jjie.org/analysis-is-lead-exposure-the-secret-to-the-rapid-rise-and-fantastic-fall-of-the-juvenile-crime-rate/106841/

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Holder Speaks Out Against Solitary Confinement of Mentally Ill Youths

by Gary Gately

U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. condemned “excessive” use of solitary confinement of children with mental illness in juvenile facilities.

“At a minimum, we must work to curb the overreliance on seclusion of youth with disabilities,” including mental illness, Holder said in a video posted on the Justice Department website.

“This practice is particularly detrimental to young people with disabilities, who are at increased risk under these circumstances of negative effects, including self-harm and even suicide,” the attorney general said. “In fact, one national study found that half of the victims of suicides in juvenile facilities were in isolation at the time they took their own lives, and 62 percent of victims had a history of solitary confinement.”

As JJIE reported in March, thousands of juveniles endure solitary confinement each year in the United States, often in tiny cells for 22 to 24 hours a day with little human contact, even though a growing number of experts say the practice causes irreparable psychological and developmental harm to youths.

Holder noted that in some cases, children were held in small rooms with windows barely the width of their hands.

“This is, to say the least, excessive, and these episodes are all too common,” he said.

“Across the country,” Holder said, “far too many juvenile detention centers see isolation and solitary confinement as an appropriate way to handle challenging youth, in particular, youth with disabilities. But solitary confinement can be dangerous and a serious impediment to the ability of juveniles to succeed once released.”

He pointed to a study released last year by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) showing 47 percent of juvenile detention centers reported locking youth up in some form of isolation for more than four hours at a time.

Holder said it may sometimes be necessary to separate a youth from others to protect staff, other inmates or the juvenile from harm.

“However,” he added, “this action should be taken only in a limited way where there is a valid reason to do so – and for a limited amount of time.”

Holder also said juveniles placed in isolation must be closely monitored and detention facilities must make “every attempt” to continue educational and mental health programming while a youth is in isolation.

“We must ensure in all circumstances, and particularly when it comes to our young people, that incarceration is used to rehabilitate and not merely to warehouse and to forget,” Holder said.

Amy Fettig, senior staff counsel with the ACLU's National Prison Project, praised Holder's statement.

“The ACLU commends Attorney General Holder for speaking out against the harmful practice of placing vulnerable youth in solitary confinement,” Fettig said in an e-mail to JJIE. “This action clearly signals that such practices should not be tolerated in our society and that jurisdictions across the country must stop placing children in solitary confinement.

“But,” Fettig added, “the attorney general needs to go further. He must speak out against using the practice on any child – not just children with disabilities. Thousands of kids in this country are subject to solitary confinement every year, and this practice harms each and every one of them.”

The Justice Department has taken action in recent months in response to what it said was use of solitary confinement of youths with disabilities.

In March, the department said it asked a federal court to prevent the Ohio Department of Youth Services from unlawfully placing boys with mental health disorders in solitary confinement at the state's juvenile detention facilities. The department alleged in a motion that DYS violated the constitutional rights of boys placed in solitary at all four of the state's juvenile detention facilities.

In February, the department's Civil Rights Division filed a statement of interest in response to what it called excessive reliance on solitary confinement of disabled youths in Contra Costa County, Calif. The statement alleged youths were held in solitary confinement up to 22 hours a day, often with no human interaction whatsoever.

And a task force commissioned by Holder, the National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence, concluded in its final report in December 2012: “Nowhere is the damaging impact of incarceration on vulnerable children more obvious than when it involves solitary confinement.” The task force recommended the practice be forbidden. Robert L. Listenbee Jr., now the OJJDP administrator, co-chaired the task force.

In his role as OJJDP administrator, Listenbee stated in a July 5, 2013, letter to an American Civil Liberties Union official that “isolation of children is dangerous and inconsistent with best practices and that excessive isolation can constitute cruel and unusual punishment,” which is banned under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

http://jjie.org/holder-speaks-out-against-solitary-confinement-of-mentally-ill-youths/106853/

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How Skipping School Could Land Kids in Jail

by Staff

One 15-year-old was jailed overnight just after pleading guilty to truancy. Then she spent a week in a psychiatric hospital. Another girl was jailed twice for truancy probation violations—the second time after being arrested while attending classes at her high school.

Neither of these low-income teens in Knoxville, Tenn. had the constitutional right to appointed legal representation when they first set foot in court.

But before any jailing occurred, the girls certainly had a federal right to appointed counsel. Allegations that these and many other kids' rights were violated in Tennessee are part of broader national concerns that thousands of non-criminal “status offenders” are being funneled into courts—which don't always ensure that kids have defense attorneys, according to a recent piece by the Center for Public Integrity.

In Knoxville, a judge refused to allow pro bono lawyers to volunteer to offer counsel to truants as they arrive at court. And he refused to release detention records to attorneys who are suing to change the system—and want to know exactly many truants and other status offenders may have been declared delinquents and put into detention, perhaps without legal defense.

The story was also carried by takepart.com

http://jjie.org/how-skipping-school-could-land-kids-in-jail/106837/

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Washington

Campaign Urges Governors to Stop Putting Youths in Adult Jails and Prisons

by Gary Gately

The Washington-based Campaign for Youth Justice is leading an effort to urge U.S. governors to stop allowing youths to be placed in adult jails and prisons.

The campaign led by the nonprofit CFYJ – which seeks to end the practice of trying, sentencing and incarcerating youth under 18 as adults – comes as governors must report this week to the U.S. Department of Justice whether their states intend to comply with standards of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).

PREA, enacted by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2003, includes a “youthful inmate standard” that:

•  Bans the housing of youth in the general adult population in adult jails and prisons.

•  Prohibits contact between youth and adult inmates in common areas in adult facilities and requires constant supervision of youth by staff.

•  Limits use of isolation of youth in adult facilities. Isolation can cause or exacerbate mental illness and has been linked to youth suicides.

By Thursday, governors are required to report to DOJ that their states will use a portion of federal grant dollars toward coming into compliance with PREA standards.

The federal government also has devoted about $40 million to states, the District of Columbia and national organizations over the past two years to bring compliance with PREA.

The easiest way to comply with the youthful inmate standard would be to remove youths from adult facilities, Carmen Daugherty, CFYJ's policy director, told JJIE, reflecting her organization's philosophy.

“Kids are kids, and kids should not be in the adult system,” she said.

Moving toward compliance with the youthful inmate standard will put a lot of pressure on states that treat 16- and 17-year-olds as adults in the justice system to stop doing so, Daugherty said.

“The PREA standards will protect hundreds of thousands of kids prosecuted in the adult system every year, and get us one step closer to completely removing youth from adult jails and prisons,” Daugherty said in a news release. “We hope that as states implement these important standards, they use this opportunity to reconsider the practice of prosecuting and sentencing youth as adults overall.”

Each year, about 100,000 youth are held in adult jails and prisons, and they are significantly more likely than adults to be victims of sexual violence while incarcerated, CFYJ says.

CFYJ – with support of more than 100 juvenile justice, youth, civil liberties, human rights, religious, mental health and other organizations – has launched Facebook, Twitter and letter-writing campaigns urging governors to stop putting youths in adult jails and prisons.

After the enactment of PREA, the Justice Department established a PREA commission to develop regulations, and the commission held public hearings throughout the country during which it heard testimony from families and administrators.

The PREA standards were finally released in 2012.

http://jjie.org/campaign-urges-governors-to-stop-putting-youths-in-adult-jails-and-prisons/106831/

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At ‘Wit's End': Scared Straight Programs Remain Popular Among Parents Despite Warnings

by Elly Yu

“I feel like I'm at my wit's end,” says a mother about her two kids on the A&E reality TV show “ Beyond Scared Straight. ” It's a feeling many parents relate to before sending their kids to local “scared straight” programs.

Despite evidence that scared straight-type programs are ineffective and can even be harmful in the long run, many parents continue to turn to local jails for help when it comes to behavioral issues with their children.

“The programs are popular because parents think it's a quick fix,” said Lt. Terron Hayes, director of intervention at the Dougherty County Sheriff's Office in Georgia.

Dougherty County administers its own youth intervention program, which has been featured several times on the A&E show. Since its television debut, Hayes says the Sheriff's office has had an influx of calls from parents who want to sign up their kids for the program. He says he's had kids come in from other counties and even from other states across the Southeast.

Gladys Davis, of Bronwood, Ga., said she heard about the program through her adult son. Her 14- and 15-year-old sons had been fighting with each other.

“I tried everything I could do as a parent,” she said. She first tried reaching out to her local youth detention center, but was told the program there were more for youth who had committed more serious offenses. After hearing about Dougherty County's program, she sent her sons to make an appointment with Hayes at the sheriff's office in February and said they haven't been back since.

“I'm just trying to get things under control so they won't get too serious,” she said.

Hayes knows that the program won't get federal or state funding, and says that the jail tours are only part of his program. He says he incorporates counseling sessions with both the parents and the children, and that following-up is essential.

He says that when parents call, they are often at a weak point in their relationships with their child.

“I have parents saying, ‘I can't do this anymore, you'll need to come get her, come get him – I don't want him anymore,' Hayes said. “Because a parent has lost control, the parent is out of resources, what do they have left?”

Anthony Petrosino, senior researcher at WestEd, has done extensive research on scared straight programs and conducted meta-analysis studies looking at them. He said the message that these types of programs don't work isn't getting out to parents.

“We found that scared straight, on average, has a harmful impact,” Petrosino said. “There's a disconnect between who's getting the information and who isn't.”

“The other thing is TV is powerful,” he said.

“Beyond Scared Straight” has had some of the highest ratings on the network and is now in its sixth season.

Petrosino says would he also receive calls from parents, uncles and pastors about how to get their children into a scared straight program, despite being a researcher. The parents weren't reading his reports.

“When you do a Google search, my name comes up,” he said. “I said, ‘I can't in good conscience recommend scared straight for your child.'”

He says he tries to direct them to local resources, but there's a lack of awareness among parents on how to reach them.

“There's a missing gap there. They shouldn't be contacting me,” Petrosino said.

The program continues to remain attractive not just for parents, but for local county jails because they're relatively cheap to run, he said. The inmates aren't being paid for these programs and the jail tours often take groups of kids each time.

Many scared straight programs are also free, as it is in Dougherty County, which makes them appealing for parents who might not have a lot of resources.

Petrosino also mentioned in his report the “panacea phenomenon,” which researcher James Finckenauer studied in scared straight programs. He said it's the public and media's “latching on for cure-alls” in something so complicated like crime.

“It's very hard to come with a cure that's going to turn them around,” he said. “These are complicated problems with complicated origins.”

Scared straight programs also fall in line with “tough on crime” mentality in the justice system, said Jeffrey Butts, director of research and evaluation at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and expert on criminal behavior.

“It's a strong thing in America that we believe that being tough on people, punishing people, coercing them – basically forcing them to behave the way we want them to behave – it will somehow work,” he said.

He says that the scared straight programs might work if the person that's trying to “scare” them is someone the young person trusted and loved.

“The basic flaw in the program is there's no relationship formed,” he said.

Programs that have been proven to be ineffective, however, still continue, and scared straight programs aren't the only ones. The D.A.R.E. drug prevention initiative, for instance, continues to be taught in certain schools despite the evidence it doesn't work, Butts said.

Parents turning to local law enforcement to address behavioral problems aren't uncommon, said Maj. Steven Strickland, director of field operations at the Richmond County Sheriff's Office in Georgia. Richmond County doesn't have a scared straight program, but Strickland says he'll often get calls from parents not knowing what to do with their child.

“We get a lot of folks that will bring their kids by and say kind of the same thing,” Strickland said. “They'll say ‘I can't make this kid do anything, you guys need to scare them.'”

But he says that law enforcement officials aren't counselors.

“We're acting out of our league sometimes,” Strickland said. “If you have a kid and he's 10 years old and he's troubled, there's only so much we can do in 20 to 30 minutes.”

He says if a child has chronic issues, they need to be addressed over time by professionals who aren't in law enforcement.

“Where we make our greatest impact, if there really is an issue, is getting them to the resources,” he said.

http://jjie.org/at-wits-end-scared-straight-programs-remain-popular-among-parents-despite-warnings/106811/