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June, 2014 - Week 2

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Oregon

'Highly spiritual' Oregon high school shooter Jared Padgett wrote plans to kill 'sinners' in diary: police

Police found the alleged shooter's diary in his family's Oregon home. The 15-year-old's detailed plans did not name specific people as targets, police said. A leader at the teen's Mormon church said Padgett was 'highly regarded for his spirituality.'

by Meg Wagner

The 15-year-old freshman who opened fire on his Oregon high school Tuesday wanted to kill "sinners," the teen wrote in his diary.

Jared Padgett, an active member of an Gresham, Ore., Mormon church, shot and killed a student and injured a teacher during the attack on Reynolds High School before turning the gun on himself, police said.

While searching through the teen's home, officers found his journal, Portland's KGW reported.

In the diary, Padgett detailed plans to kill the "sinners" at his school, police said.

No specific students or teachers were named as targets. His writings did not outline how or when the killings would occur, police said.

Padgett was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Church elder Earl Milliron told the TV station that the 15-year-old was "highly regarded for his spirituality."

The teen, his brother and his father were all active in their Oregon church, Milliron said.

Milliron also said Padgett's parents' "tragic" divorce — which heavily affected the teen's dad — could have had an influence on the 15-year-old's mental health.

On Friday, the freshman's dad, Michael Padgett, released a statement to Oregon's FOX 12.

"We are finding it very difficult to put into words our state of mind and emotions," he wrote. "We are at a loss as to how and why this tragedy unfolded."

He continued: "Our family does not condone and has never promoted violence or hatred toward anyone. The values that we have taught our children are love in Jesus Christ, compassion, forgiveness, and patience."

On Tuesday, Padgett brought a rifle, a handgun and a knife — all of which had been locked up in his family's home — to school, police said.

He allegedly gunned down 14-year-old Emilio Hoffman in the school's locker room and shot and injured a teacher.

Police found Padgett's body in a school restroom with a self-inflicted gunshot would, officers said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/oregon-school-shooter-wrote-plan-kill-sinners-cops-article-1.1829711

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Pennsylvania

Will 'hot spot policing' take some heat off Harrisburg police?

by Matt Zencey

Harrisburg police are apparently feeling some heat about whether the department's ramped up crime fighting efforts are paying off.

They convened the media late Thursday morning to show off the fruits of some recent labor: $70,000 of cash seized in a drug raid last week, along with nearly a dozen confiscated firearms, various drug paraphernalia, and a truly scary looking hand-held contraption with razor sharp blades sticking out in four directions.

Referring to skeptics who apparently think HPD is cooking the numbers to show crime is down and is not really doing enough to protect citizens, Chief Thomas Carter said, "That kind of hurt because we have officers out there risking their lives every day to make these streets safer."

"We're not about talk," Carter said. "We're about action."

I don't doubt the bravery and dedication of his officers. They were the ones recently out at 4 a.m. tracking down a brazen mugger, while I was snoozing peacefully in my apartment blocks away.

The trend with crime is ...?

But I do wonder what's happening with crime trends, and the department has no answers ready at hand.

Day by day counts are posted on the city's web site. However, the city doesn't regularly publish summary reports on crime, with comparisons to the previous year, before the department started it new emphasis on community policing.

The department does compile regular summaries for internal use. The public needs that kind of information so it can judge how effective the new measures are and hold the relevant officials accountable.

As anti-crime activist and former mayoral candidate Nevin Mindlin recently wrote on PennLIve, "Anecdotal tidbits of data, such as number of arrests, are not performance measurements."

Nonetheless, Chief Carter is still confident things are moving in a better direction.

"The city needs to be cleaned up and we're cleaning up the city - with the help of everybody. It is a joint effort," he said Thursday.

"We're getting more cooperation from the public.... People are calling in.... they're giving us names ... they're even willing to testify."

During Thursday's media session, Carter's underlings rattled off statistics about their community policing efforts, which include 2,600 foot patrols and 1,700 checks on businesses.

Hot spot policing

That work goes hand in hand with "hot spot policing" – targeting officers' attention to areas where criminals have been busy.

The gold standard for how to go about "hot spot policing" was set in Lowell, Mass. According to the U.S. Department of Justice web site that compiles research on anti-crime strategies, a formal evaluation of Lowell's "hot spot" efforts concluded they were effective.

Harrisburg is cobbling together many elements of the all-out assault that worked in Lowell, but thin resources make it a challenge.

To identify the hot spots, Capt. Colin Cleary said Harrisburg police use a combination of hard data and other information. Officer Paula Trovy crunches the numbers from crime reports and tries to identify trends, "so we can try to do predictive policing," Cleary said. Other information comes in from the community, which, he added, "is always one of the best sources."

Restoring public order

In Lowell's hot spots, police worked to create a better sense of public order. They ramped up arrests for the kind of visible crimes that fuel public unease, like drinking in public and drug dealing, as well as carrying out foot patrols.

In a similar vein, Cleary said Thursday that Harrisburg police are making a point to go after complaints that may seem small, but affect a neighborhood's quality of life. Officers recently ran a curfew detail, taking minors home and issuing them citations. Loud music is a common complaint, Cleary said, and they take it seriously, recently issuing eight citations.

Another prong in Lowell's fight against crime was fixing up the physical environment. Better street lighting, video cameras, performing code inspections, cleaning up vacant lots, and razing abandoned buildings all help deter crime by signaling that the community cares and that criminals are better off going elsewhere.

Harrisburg's challenge

Harrisburg is trying to do many of those things – but with the skimpy resources at hand, the task is like using a teaspoon to empty a rain barrel. The city might get more noticeable results if all the attention were concentrated in a single area, but then everybody else would be complaining, "What about my neighborhood?"

In Lowell, the final piece was to bring in social services that can help interrupt the cycle of crime — adding more recreation for youth, getting homeless people into shelter and offering mental health treatment.

Harrisburg is, in varying degrees, trying many of the strategies that have worked elsewhere to bring down crime.

But it's largely an ad hoc approach, and Harrisburg's shortage of resources may well mean the effort falls far short of what is required to match the success seen in Lowell.

http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2014/06/hbgnext_crime_chief_carter_dru.html

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Ohio

Editorial

Put public safety first

Prohibiting red-light cameras would increase driving dangers

With Senate Bill 342, Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, wants to effectively ban traffic-safety cameras by requiring that every red-light or speed camera be attended by a police officer to witness motorists running red lights or speeding.

Of course, no community would use traffic-safety cameras under those restrictions; the whole point of the cameras is to hold speeders and red-light-runners accountable even when an officer can't be present.

Senate President Keith Faber, R-Celina, expects to see the Seitz bill approved when the legislature resumes in November. The House showed its colors a year ago, by approving a ban on traffic cameras by a vote of 64-32.

In 2006, when lawmakers passed a camera ban, Gov. Bob Taft vetoed it, calling it a “sweeping pre-emption of local control over our local streets.” He was right, and if lawmakers approve Seitz' bill, Gov. John Kasich should follow suit with his own veto.

The House and Senate bills are unconnected to a case before the Ohio Supreme Court that questions whether cities can handle traffic violations administratively rather than through the court system.

Naturally, people don't like getting traffic tickets, but there's a very simple way to avoid them: Don't speed, or run red lights, or roll through right turns on red.

Exercising that little bit of restraint — not to mention following the law — is a small price to pay for the safety benefits that traffic cameras yield. In 2012, the first year that Columbus had traffic cameras, there was a 73 percent drop from the year before in the number of red-light crashes at intersections with cameras.

Toledo has seen a 39 percent drop in fatal crashes involving red-light running.

Yet Seitz and other lawmakers, including Rep. Ron Maag of Lebanon, would toss these significant, tangible benefits aside and instead cater to the lead-footed and hotheaded. It is a running theme of sorts with Maag, who sponsored a bill last year to ban traffic cameras. He also pushed for the bill that raised the speed limit on sections of Ohio interstates and wanted to criminalize driving too slowly in the left lane.

One doesn't have to guess at the likely outcome if cameras are banned; other cities already have experienced it, and it wasn't pretty. Houston saw a 147 percent jump in collisions at intersections from which traffic cameras were removed, and red-light running went up by 584 percent in Albuquerque, N.M.

Should Ohio lawmakers succeed in taking cities' traffic cameras off-line and should cities see a similar increase in crashes, those lawmakers will be partly responsible.

Some complaints about traffic-enforcement cameras are legitimate; a few cities have used them inappropriately, targeting motorists excessively. But that's a good reason to establish reasonable regulation, not to ban cameras indiscriminately.

Ohioans would be much-better served by a bill sponsored by Sen. Kevin Bacon, R-Minerva Park, which would create regulations for operation and call for signs at each camera intersection, along with longer yellow lights and a safety study at each intersection where a camera is proposed.

Cities have embraced traffic cameras because they can afford only so many police officers, and curbing unsafe driving saves lives and reduces property damage. Collecting fines from violators long has been a part of enforcing traffic safety. Those who want to avoid fines have every opportunity to do so, by driving safely.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2014/06/15/put-public-safety-first.html

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From the Department of Homeland Security

Secretary Johnson Announces Process for DACA Renewal

WASHINGTON—Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson today announced the process for individuals to renew enrollment in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has submitted to the federal register an updated form to allow individuals previously enrolled in DACA, to renew their deferral for a period of two years. At the direction of the Secretary, effective immediately, USCIS will begin accepting renewal requests. USCIS will also continue to accept requests for DACA from individuals who have not previously sought to access the program. As of April 2014, over 560,000 individuals have received DACA.

“Despite the acrimony and partisanship that now exists in Washington, almost all of us agree that a child who crossed our border illegally with a parent, or in search of a parent or a better life, was not making an adult choice to break our laws, and should be treated differently than adult law-breakers,” said Secretary Johnson. “By the renewal of DACA, we act in accord with our values and the code of this great Nation. But, the larger task of comprehensive immigration reform still lies ahead.”

The first DACA approvals will begin to expire in September 2014. To avoid a lapse in the period of deferral and employment authorization, individuals must file renewal requests before the expiration of their current period of DACA. USCIS encourages requestors to submit their renewal request approximately 120 days (four months) before their current period of deferred action expires.

DACA is a discretionary determination to defer removal action against an individual. Individuals in DACA will be able to remain in the United States and apply for employment authorization for a period of two years. Individuals who have not requested DACA previously, but meet the criteria established, may also request deferral for the first time. It is important to note that individuals who have not continuously resided in the United States since June 15th 2007 are ineligible for DACA.

Individuals may request DACA renewal if they continue to meet the initial criteria and these additional guidelines:

•  Did not depart the United States on or after August 15, 2012, without advance parole;

•  Have continuously resided in the United States since they submitted their most recent DACA request that was approved; and

•  Have not been convicted of a felony, a significant misdemeanor or three or more misdemeanors, and do not otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety.

The renewal process begins by filing the new version of Form I-821D “Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,” Form I-765 “Application for Employment Authorization,” and the I-765 Worksheet. There is a filing and biometrics (fingerprints and photo) fee associated with Form I-765 totaling $465. As with an initial request, USCIS will conduct a background check when processing DACA renewals.

USCIS will also host both national and local DACA informational sessions. USCIS will provide further information on these sessions during which USCIS officials will provide additional information on the DACA process and be available to answer your questions. For information on local DACA engagements, please visit www.uscis.gov/outreach

To learn more about the renewal process or requesting initial consideration of DACA, visit www.uscis.gov/childhoodarrivals or call the USCIS National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283.

http://www.dhs.gov/news/2014/06/05/secretary-johnson-announces-process-daca-renewal

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New York

City police, property owners discuss Middle Main issues

by Roberto Cruz

The City of Poughkeepsie could reinstate community policing as soon as next year, according to city police Chief Ron Knapp.

The low-cost policing strategy would allow police to dedicate resources to areas of the city that need them, such as Main Street, while building relationships with residents and property owners and increasing visibility, Knapp said. The police chief made the comments Friday at a meeting of property owners and nonprofit leaders, who gathered on Main Street to discuss issues facing the Middle Main neighborhood.

"We would love to have community policing back," Knapp said, about the program, which was cut in 2013 due to a lack of funding.

The department intended to fund the program using money from a state anti-gun violence grant, he said. However, the state chose not to fund it, he added. The plan is to incorporate the program into the city budget, he said, which he anticipates would have the support of the Common Council and the mayor.

Property owners gave a round of applause when an audience member Friday recommended a larger police presence walking the streets.

The group expressed concerns over the appearance of the Academy Street and Main Street corridor and crime in the area.

The intersection has had two fatal shootings in the last year.

"Instead of seeing a welcoming community on an upswing, (potential investors) see a stagnant or disinvested community," said Doug Nobiletti, a city property owner since 2001.

Knapp told the group the police department is applying for a Oriented Policing Services Office grant that would allow the department to hire for the first time in years. If successful, the department could fund additional community services and a school resource officer, he said.

The department has also secured funding to add two new cameras, likely in the city's business district, Knapp said.

The group discussed issues such as littering, loitering, drug dealing and youth involvement in the revitalization of Poughkeepsie. The goal of the meeting was get those situated in Middle Main Street to "band together and try to create change," Nobiletti said.

"We have to all work together, in unity," said Herman Shannon, 52, pastor at Spoken Word Outreach Ministries on Garden Street and captain of the Poughkeepsie chapter of the Guardian Angels.

Representatives from Hudson River Housing, the Common Council and the City of Poughkeepsie administration attended Friday's meeting.

On May 24, city resident Shiquan M. Krouser attacked seven-year city police Officer Renee Knapp with a box cutter at the intersection of Main and Academy streets.

Two-year police officer Zachary McKinnon fatally shot Krouser. Renee Knapp was hospitalized, but has since been released.

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/2014/06/13/video-city-police-property-owners-discuss-crime/10427891/

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North Carolinz

Crime Stoppers aims to make Asheville, community safer

Anonymous callers help Asheville police keep the community safer.

by Sabian Warren

ASHEVILLE – When 26-year-old Charles Keith Morgan Jr. was gunned down in a parking lot at Livingston Apartments in the early morning hours of June 1, police estimated about 30 people were present.

Two weeks after the crime, investigators still have made no arrests.

Asheville police officers, in a meeting with Livingston community members, expressed frustration that few leads had developed despite the large number of witnesses.

For their part, some residents have said privately they fear for their own safety if they speak with the media or offer information to the police. Others said they just didn't want to get involved.

But authorities say there is still a path forward. They are touting Crime Stoppers as a way for people who witnessed the crime — or any other crime, for that matter — to anonymously provide tips to police and ultimately make their community safer.

In 2013, Asheville-Buncombe Crime Stoppers received 379 tips that led to 30 arrests. Callers whose tips lead to arrests are eligible for rewards. Total cash rewards paid last year amounted to $7,300.

"It's important for people to come forward for their own safety and protection and their own quality of life," said Natalie Bailey, Asheville-Buncombe Crime Stoppers coordinator. "Crime Stoppers is a vehicle for people to do that anonymously and have an impact directly in the area they live in."

Asheville police Sgt. Dave Romick said help from residents is crucial to making neighborhoods safer.

"Crime Stoppers is an added resource that gives law enforcement the ability to solve crimes and, in some cases, remove dangerous individuals from our streets with help from our citizens," he said.

Bailey said she can sympathize with witnesses who may be reluctant to provide information, particularly in violent crimes.

"If people happen to live in an area where there is a high crime rate, there is the very real possibility that there might be some type of retaliation if they become involved in helping law enforcement. I can understand that.

"But I think it's important for people, especially if they are vulnerable and they're living in an area with a high crime rate, to understand that as hard as it may be to speak out and try and help law enforcement, that's the only way it's going to get better."

How the process works

When a call is made to the Crime Stoppers number — 255-5050 — the tip is routed to Bailey, who forwards it to the appropriate law enforcement agency for response.

Callers whose tips lead to arrests can receive rewards, typically $200 to $300 for a misdemeanor crime and up to $1,000 for a felony.

Once a month, Bailey presents information about tips and arrests to the Crime Stoppers board of directors. The board, composed of City Council and County Commission appointees along with members the Crime Stoppers board appoints, decides on the reward amounts.

To pay a reward, a meeting in a public place is arranged between a board member and caller. Callers are assigned numbers, which is how they identify themselves to board members, and rewards are paid in cash.

"We work to keep it anonymous," board of directors chairman Karl Katterjohn said. "We don't have any interest in knowing who the tipsters are."

Money for rewards is contributed to Crime Stoppers by city and county governments.

Crime Stoppers sometimes works with private donors in offering rewards. A donor recently offered a $1,500 reward for information leading to an arrest in the Thomas Wolfe House arson. Someone set fire to the historic landmark in 1998, a case that continues to stump investigators.

Success stories

While Crime Stoppers hasn't been able to generate a tip in the Wolfe House fire, the program has seen many successes. A tip to Crime Stoppers last month helped Asheville police solve a frightening string of armed robberies.

A man with a gun robbed employees at Ramada Inn on Fairview Road, then stole hundreds of oxycodone pills from Rite Aid on Riceville Road.

The same man was believed to have attempted to rob the Walgreens store on South Tunnel Road and Brookstone Lodge on Roberts Road.

Asheville police were unable to come up with a suspect — until a tipster called Crime Stoppers and provided a name..

Police quickly were able to find evidence linking 23-year-old Stanley Wells, of Asheville, to the crimes and arrested him on four felony charges.

Challenges ahead

Despite some successes, Crime Stoppers in Asheville still has a way to go in getting people to help police, Bailey said.

Particularly in minority communities, many people distrust the police. People also don't want to be seen as a "snitch."

"There is a very complex and complicated history between law enforcement and communities of color in this country," Bailey said.

"That's something both sides have to work on in order for communities to get better and for people to feel safer. Living in an area that's prone to violence and criminal activity, it affects everything. A kid can't concentrate on school if they don't feel safe at home. It's all interconnected," she said.

Crime Stoppers history

• Crime Stoppers began in 1976 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after a city police detective approached a television station with the idea of reconstructing an unsolved killing, along with offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. The re-enactment resulted in a caller identifying a car used in the crime and led to the arrest of three men involved in the death. Crime Stoppers emphasizes that people offering tips about crimes can remain anonymous and receive rewards when arrests are made. Crime Stoppers chapters today are active in cities around the world.

• Asheville-Buncombe Crime Stoppers is in its 31st year. Call the local program at 255-5050.

Crime Stoppers by the numbers

Statistics for Asheville- Buncombe Crime Stoppers for 2013:

379 - Number of tips received from community members.

30 - Number of arrests based on tips received.

$7,300 - Amount of cash paid to tipsters for information.

http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2014/06/13/crime-stoppers-aims-make-asheville-community-safer/10505543/

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North Carolina

Street code may prevent arrest in Asheville shooting

by Romando Dixson

The no-snitching mentality thrives in parts of Asheville and police are battling that culture as they investigate the death of a man who was gunned down with about 30 people nearby.

ASHEVILLE – Jonathan Crooks learned at a young age that you don't tell on your own and you don't snitch.

At age 10 or 11 in the early 1970s, Crooks, who is black, saw a another black kid stealing from the A&P grocery store and dragged him back to the white manager. He thought he did the right thing to stop someone from doing wrong.

The white manager of the store was thankful, but Crooks' parents were mad at him.

“I got a whooping, a beating,” he said. “I further learned later on that it's not good to tell on your own. That's what I got out of it. Even though it's wrong what your own is doing, it's still not good to tell.”

The no-snitching mentality was established long before Crooks was born 50 years ago on the Southside of Asheville, and it still thrives there today. Police have said they are battling that culture as they investigate the shooting death of Charles Keith Morgan Jr., who was gunned down June 1 with about 30 witnesses in the parking lot outside an apartment building near 21 Palmer St.

No arrests have been made, and police have publicly lamented the lack of cooperation from people who were in close proximity to the shooting.

“If nobody will talk to us at all — all these people that were there — about how this thing happened, what pre-empted it, what the argument was, what was happening, it's unlikely it's going to get solved,” Capt. Tim Splain said at a community meeting recently.

A snitch, residents say, is about the worst thing you could be labeled in parts of the Southside neighborhood, where police say gunfire has erupted several times in the past eight months. Some residents, especially the younger adults and teenagers, harbor animosity toward police, despite the department's attempts to build relationships in neighborhoods through community policing. The residents don't trust officers and think some policemen unnecessarily harass people in their community.

In some circles, the anger directed toward police only increased when news spread Wednesday that officers were unable to find the location of the June 1 shooting because a dispatcher misunderstood the address from callers. The miscommunication delayed police response. People were furious on social media.

It's just another obstacle as police try to convince residents that they want to help.

“We understand that in certain pockets of communities, there's a code. Snitching, you don't do it,” Lt. Don Eberhardt said. “But I've been asking myself ... where do we draw the line?”

The line, apparently, is not drawn with the killing of a well-known individual like Morgan, 26. Police said a dispute of some sort happened before the shooting about 3:10 a.m. June 1.

A woman who was hit twice in the foot at the scene did not tell police anything about the shooting when officers approached her at the hospital, according to police radio transmissions provided along with the 911 calls after a public records request from the Citizen-Times.

When responding to a violent crime, Eberhardt said he has trained himself not to ask, “Did anybody see anything?”

“Why have I conditioned myself? Because I know I'm putting you or I'm putting witnesses in a bad spot in doing that,” he said. “What I've also come to realize, give it about four hours. Give it about four hours and let things start to settle down. The phone calls will start coming in.”

Police say the lack of cooperation with detectives in a violent case opens the door for similar incidents. Crooks says the no-snitch code doesn't benefit the community. But he understands why people would be concerned about being a witness to a homicide.

“It's like a mob, gang mentality: ‘We'll take care of you if you tell on our boy. There will always be someone out there to get you,'” Crooks said. “You don't want that physical harm to come to anybody in your family. And then also you don't want to labeled as, ‘Man, you can't trust this dude. He's a snitch.' It's just like you've been marked with that for the rest of your life.”

In the wake of this violent incident, residents — via social media and at community meetings — have expressed concern there might be retaliation against whomever killed Morgan.

Crooks, 50, was born here and still lives in the neighborhood. He has a 27-year-old son and an 18-year-old daughter. He was not there the night of the shooting but has heard the rumors about what may have happened.

When asked if he would talk to police if he saw what happened to Morgan, he hesitated, weighing the potential repercussions for himself and his family.

“We say we want a safe community, and we say one thing but do another,” he said. “I think I would for the safety of my kids or somebody else's kids. We can't be just concerned for our kids anymore. It takes a village to raise everybody's kids. The village concept is gone.”

Crooks, a program leader at the Dr. Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Center, has worked with juveniles most of his adult life. He sees younger people in his community with their pants sagging and using the N-word.

“People of color gravitate to the negative part of society, and that's another one of the things we do,” Crooks said of not cooperating with police. “We think we can make a negative cool. We think we can make a negative a positive.”

Speaking to concerned members of the community last week, officers were frank about the rumors that have been going around in the community.

Splain and Eberhardt emphasized that police are investigating the case as diligently as possible to provide justice to the family. Tips have been coming in, although nothing has led to an arrest.

Many in the community doubt the case will be solved. Asheville police have made arrests in the two other homicides they investigated this year.

“When the only people we're hearing from is the street, and not from the folks that were here (at the scene), it's hard for us,” Splain said. “You know what the level of proof is in court to try to convict somebody of murder. And we need a lot of help.”

http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/crime/2014/06/13/street-code-may-prevent-arrest-asheville-shooting/10504859/

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Respect for 'people, homelands, culture' motivates Native American troops

by Mallory Black

Even with a family military background dating back to World War I, Shenandoah Ellis-Ulmer never considered while growing up that serving in the military might be the right choice for her, too.

But that changed in her sophomore year in college after she was placed on academic probation at the University of Minnesota — what she now says was a much-needed wakeup call to spur her to seek more purpose and direction.

Still unclear, though, was exactly what purpose she should pursue and what direction she should take.

Then she recalled overhearing two classmates in the National Guard talk about the opportunities that had opened up to them after enlisting.

And for Ellis-Ulmer, there was that purpose and direction.

Nearly 20 years later, Air Force Master Sgt. Shenandoah Ellis-Ulmer, now 40, is an intelligence analyst at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington.

She's also a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota, the first woman in her family to serve in the military and just one of thousands of Native Americans who are serving or have served their country in uniform.

Ellis-Ulmer, who has served in South Korea and the Middle East in addition to her various stateside assignments, said serving in the Air Force “has given my children, my husband and myself a different outlook on the world.”

“I want to give my children a different perspective on life because life is not what the reservation is,” she said. “Life is what you make of it.”

A tradition of service

The Defense Department reports a total of 27,186 American Indian and Alaska Native active-duty officers and reserves, and the Veterans Affairs Department reports more than 156,000 Native American veterans. They have served in every war in American history, and 25 have have received the nation's highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor.

At least 70 Native American and Alaska Natives have died during combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 513 others were wounded in those combat zones.

Native Americans traditionally have had a strong military presence because they have a strong sense of patriotism, said Clara Platte, executive director of the Navajo Nation Washington office.

“There's a deep tie to the land and our people and our culture, and being able to serve in the military is a way to honor that heritage,” Platte said.

But that doesn't mean the cultural transition from “Indian Country” to military base is always easy.

Army Lt. Col. Tracey Clyde, 47, a member of the Navajo tribe, spent most of his childhood with his grandparents herding sheep near the Sweetwater Chapter on the Navajo Nation reservation in New Mexico.

In high school, Clyde decided to set his sights on attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

But once there, he soon realized that adapting to the social norms might be a challenge — even in simple things like the slang cadets might use to greet each other.

“One of the things that I had to keep from getting mad at was when they talk to each other and sometimes say, ‘Hey chief,' ” Clyde said. “That's one thing I got mad at my roommate for, but then I noticed other cadets my age were saying the same thing to each other.”

Clyde quickly figured out the greeting wasn't meant to be derogatory and found his footing as an Army officer. Then while he was stationed in Seoul, South Korea, his Native American culture found him again.

A fellow officer who was also Navajo told him that her baby had just laughed for the first time. Navajos traditionally celebrate a baby's first laugh, so Clyde and other Native Americans on their base held a ceremony, asking for the baby to be blessed by generosity and kindness.

“All Native Americans — whether they were Navajo or not — met in her apartment and we had our ‘first laugh' party,” said Clyde, now assigned to the Army Human Resources Command at Fort Knox, Kentucky. “Even though we were far away from our homelands, we still took the opportunity to continue our culture regardless of where we were stationed.”

Throughout his 25 years in uniform, Clyde has taken every opportunity to help other Native Americans adjust to life in the military, so “they're not so culturally shocked with all the stuff they're thrown into.”

An honorable life

Ellis-Ulmer, who has deployed 15 times to the Middle East, said that for her, and for most Native Americans, serving in the military is considered an honorable life.

A survivor of childhood sex abuse and domestic violence as an adult, Ellis-Ulmer does her part to help other Native American women who have lived that life.

As a member of the Native American Women Warriors, an all-women color guard that supports Native American female veterans dealing with homelessness, sexual assault trauma and the transition back to civilian life, Ellis-Ulmer regularly speaks at powwows and community events to raise awareness of veteran issues.

“I don't think I've come across one Native woman who has said that they were not abused, whether it was by their husbands, their partners or their family members,” Ellis-Ulmer said. “Dealing with all these violent acts against Native women is my motivation because I don't want this mentality of abuse to perpetuate.”

As a way to show her appreciation for what the Air Force has done for her, Ellis-Ulmer speaks about military life as part of the We Are All Recruiters program, which allows active-duty members to recruit for the Air Force in their own communities.

Recently the Santee Sioux tribe honored her for her military service with a golden eagle tail feather.

“They told me to wear it turned down,” she explained, “Because now I'm a warrior to them.”

http://www.navytimes.com/article/20140613/NEWS/306130051/Respect-people-homelands-culture-motivates-Native-American-troops

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Australia

Opinion

Why cyber bullying must be outlawed

by Des Houghton

PROMINENT Brisbane doctor and MLA Bruce Flegg is rallying support for Queensland to criminalise cyber bullying.

And he deserves the backing of every Queensland parent. Some of the filth being pedalled by teenagers will shock you.

Dr Flegg's campaign follows his own investigations showing Queensland schoolchildren as young as nine are subjected to an avalanche of degrading sexual taunts.

He said cyber bullying was having a devastating, lifelong impact on large numbers of children – yet most parents were oblivious to the dangers.

He warned cyber bullying was a known trigger for depression and had already led to suicides.

Dr Flegg will also urge State Parliament to create new laws giving teachers “search and surrender” powers.

“This would give teachers the authority to legally search students' outer clothing and bags for phones, tablets or other devices and confiscate them if they contain bullying or offensive material,'' he said.

He said Queensland families would be repulsed by some of the cases relayed to him.

One was a degrading online exchange in which an 11-year-old girl from Rockhampton who was told she was a slut. In shocking language not possible to repeat here, the girl was warned she would lose her virginity “tomorrow”.

Flegg said sleazy texts and obscene pictures are routinely sent to children and teens.

Children are receiving messages like: “You have no friends. Why don't you kill yourself, you f…ing b. ch?”

Dr Flegg sent fellow MLAs disturbing research from the Australian Institute of Family Studies that showed up to 15 per cent of Australian students experienced cyber bullying more than once in a 12-month period.

He believes the figures may be worse with children unwilling to identify as victims.

Victimisation via the internet was the most common form of cyber bullying experienced by males students aged nine to 18.

One in five Australian teenagers from 12 to 17 said they had received hateful messages via their mobile phones or the internet.

In Victoria, researchers found 15 per cent of Year 9 students admitted they had engaged in cyber bullying.

Dr Flegg said cyberworld was a place where parents were increasingly powerless to protect their children.

“At the end of the day if you don't have any sanction against cyber bullying it can only get worse,'' he said.

“We have to help kids grow up as cyber safe as we can.

“If behaviour is utterly unacceptable we outlaw it, and I'm convinced we should do so as soon as possible.

“It is difficult for the legal system to deal with the safety of minors.

“There has to be age-appropriate penalties put in place — such as the confiscation of devices including mobile phones and iPads.''

Dr Flegg said he was alerted to the problem by school principals three years ago.

“I developed an interest when I was shadow education minister. Several principals I met told me cyber bullying was getting out of control.''

He said young children were “bombarded” with threats and sexual imagery.

“Parents are powerless,'' he said. “It's hard to go around and snot some kid who has been cyber bullying your daughter.''

Dr Flegg also wants sanctions against third parties who post offensive material online.

“If a schoolyard fight was recorded it should be an offence to post it online,'' he said.

“Once it's posted it's there forever; so it is often hard for the victim to get over it.''

He said cyber bullying caused depression in vulnerable teens.

“Kids are so impressionable at that age. If you damage them at that age it is often difficult for them to pick themselves up.''

Dr Flegg said offenders had to be taught the consequences of their bullying.

He said the perpetrator in the Rockhampton incident was known to the school but did not even receive a suspension.

He said up to 20 per cent of all children may be subjected to cyber bullying.

In a letter to parliamentary colleagues he wrote: “It takes many forms including threatening texts or emails; offensive posts on social media; posting or linking people to pornographic websites; or taking images of a person that are degrading or taken without consent and threatening to circulate or actually circulating them.

“There can be no doubt that cyber bullying is pervasive and has a profound effect on the psyche of the victim, particularly when it comes to juveniles. It is widely accepted that the mental health effects are as great or probably greater than traditional physical bullying.''

He said some researchers suggested girls may be targeted more than boys.

“Of 548 cases identified in a study by Boys Town, 447 victims were girls and 101 were boys,'' he said.

“Suicide is obviously the most extreme consequence, but it is by no means unheard of.

“I think it is important, particularly when it comes to juveniles, that we send a very clear message that this sort of behaviour is not acceptable and is in fact no more acceptable than the physical bullying of the past.

“One frequently seen method of cyber bullying is a third party filming or photography the bashing of a child on a mobile phone, followed by the actual or threat of posting of this footage on the internet. Other examples include an incident where a 15 year old girl committed suicide following a physical attack by a group of students that was subsequently uploaded onto Facebook; the withdrawal of two girls from a Sydney high school after they published defamatory content (including rumours of drug and alcohol use and sexual behaviour) about 31 other pupils on MySpace; and footage uploaded to YouTube of a 14 year old girl being repeatedly punched in the head and upper body, resulting in charges laid against three other teenage girls.''

A former Chief Justice of the Family Court, Justice Alistair Nicholson, recently called for custodial sentences for adult and juvenile offenders. “In his long experience in the family court he has seen the effects that this practice can have,'' he said.

Dr Flegg has support for a formal investigation by the Parliamentary Health and Community Services Committee.

The committee would accept public recommendations to help frame new laws. Dr Flegg said he had spoken to Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie who was deeply concerned with the problem.

Bleijie has called for an Australia-wide plan to tackle bullying after revealing in the Courier-Mail he was bullied at school.

Kids Helpline recently revealed it had 4000 requests for help about bullying in a single year.

Disturbingly, a number of schoolkids aged 12-17 were binge drinking to counter the hurt of cyber bullying, according to the Australian National Council on Drugs which surveyed 218 principals in Catholic, public and independent schools.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-why-cyber-bullying-must-be-outlawed/story-fnihsr9v-1226953795677

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U.S. in talks with Central American officials about immigrant children

by Cindy Carcamo, Rebecca Bratek

In an attempt to stem a crush of Central American children illegally crossing the United States alone into south Texas, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced Thursday that he was in contact with ambassadors in Latin America to discuss how to more quickly return those children to their home countries.

"Those apprehended at our border are priorities for removal," Johnson said during a Washington news conference. "They are priorities for enforcement of our immigration laws regardless of age."

Johnson, who said he was in discussions with officials in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico about faster repatriation, also announced several other strategies to address the surge of unaccompanied children entering the U.S. illegally. Though illegal immigration overall has been down in recent years, a rise in the number of unaccompanied minors has taken authorities by surprise.

Through May, 47,000 children have entered the country alone this year. That's already double from last year, and the number is expected to go high as 90,000.

Some of the initiatives announced by Johnson included beefing up staffing of federal officials to go after human smugglers and searching for additional facilities to temporarily house children who are fleeing primarily from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — countries with long-standing poverty and escalating violence.

Johnson said that increase correlates with an overall rise in illegal immigration into the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas. Most of those migrants are from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

Johnson's announcement came just as two state attorneys general — from Texas and Arizona — issued public letters to Johnson with several demands.

Texas Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott requested $30 million from Homeland Security to pay for state resources that can be rushed to the Texas border. The Border Patrol is "overwhelmed," he said, and needs the assistance quickly.

"With the Border Patrol's focus shifted to this crisis, we have grave concerns that dangerous cartel activity, including narcotics smuggling and human trafficking, will go unchecked because Border Patrol resources are stretched too thin," Abbott wrote.

Arizona Atty. Gen. Tom Horne's letter addressed a separate surge of single parents with children illegally entering the U.S. in southern Texas. Unable to house the influx of families, federal immigration authorities have been taking them to Arizona, where they have been released at bus stations in Phoenix and Tucson under orders to report to an immigration official in the near future.

Horne threatened a lawsuit, demanding that Homeland Security "cease and desist" the practice.

"There does not appear to be any lawful authority for such arbitrary and injurious actions," Horne said. "To the contrary, given that transporting an alien under these circumstances would be a federal crime … if done by a citizen, it is far beyond the federal government's discretionary authority to detain or release a removable alien under Title VIII of the United States Code."

Homeland Security officials did not immediately comment on Horne's letter.

At the news conference, Johnson did say that federal officials were doing their best to address the immediate needs of what he called a "problem of humanitarian proportion in the Rio Grande Valley sector."

Johnson took the opportunity to warn people against coming to the U.S. illegally, stating that they are not eligible for immigration relief under legislation before Congress. Nor are the newcomers eligible, he said, for an Obama administration deferred-deportation program that gives immigration relief to youth who came to the United States as children and stayed illegally.

Johnson, who said he first learned about the increase in unaccompanied minors last fall, also sent a special message to parents thinking about smuggling their children into the country.

"Of those who may have children in Central America that they want to reunite .. illegal migration is not safe," Johnson said. "Illegal migration through the south Texas border is not safe. A processing center is no place for your child. Putting your child in the hands of a criminal smuggling organization is not safe."

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ff-immig-children-20140613-story.html

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California

Richmond police Chief Chris Magnus to discuss his innovative community policing strategy

by Mike Aldax

Richmond Police Chief Chris Magnus, known nationwide for his innovative approach to community policing and creating culture that is sensitive to the needs of local residents, will discuss his strategies at the Richmond Public Library next month.

The event, titled “Changing the Culture of a Police Department,” is part of the Richmond Public Library Foundation Lecture and Event Series.

It will take place July 10 at 6:30 p.m. in the Whittlesey Community Room of the library at 325 Civic Center Plaza.

Admission is free, and light refreshments and door prizes will be provided. Also, a special prize will be given to the business or civic group with most members in attendance.

For more information please contact by email at info@rplf.org

http://richmondstandard.com/2014/06/richmond-police-chief-chris-magnus-discuss-innovative-community-policing-strategy/

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Colorado

Police adopt high-tech tool

by Ryan Severance

After a 45-day test pilot program with NewStart Solutions, L3C and its CrimeSuspect.net community policing platform, the Pueblo Police Department announced Thursday it has decided to move forward with a fully operational deployment of the crowd-sourced crime fighting solution.

The platform delivers a suite of crowd-sourced crime fighting tools for deploying community support services to equip citizens with information-gathering and communications tools to help law enforcement fight local crime, improve overall safety conditions in communities and increase offender accountability. “We were quite pleased with the innovation and responsiveness of the NewStart team and believe that the CrimeSuspect.net solution they have developed represents the future in community policing,” Pueblo Police Chief Luis Velez said. During the 45-day test pilot program over 1,000 items of property, stolen from almost every burglary that has occurred in Pueblo in 2014, has been entered into the website along with over 700 misdemeanor and felony warrants, according to police.

http://www.chieftain.com/news/2639523-120/police-community-newstart-pueblo

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Michigan

Talk crime, public safety with Dearborn police tonight

by Aysha Jamali

DEARBORN — Officers of the Dearborn Police Department will be on hand to take your questions at its Community Awareness Meeting 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Oakman Elementary School, 7545 Chase Road.

The free and open meeting will be in the school's cafeteria and will cover recent crime statistics in the city, how residents can report suspicious activity and information on topics like fireworks enforcement and traffic.

Attendees can also sign up for the Police Department's alert system on Nixle and stay for an open discussion on public safety in Dearborn.

http://www.pressandguide.com/articles/2014/06/13/news/doc5398877b3bdef391563339.txt

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Higher Ed Medical Facilities Becoming Health Havens for Refugees

by Helen Hu

Her eyes dark and serious, Antoinette Misago spoke with the doctor as her 2-year-old daughter fidgeted. “Can children get fat watching too much TV?” asks Misago.

“Try to keep it at a minimum,” Dr. Austin Baeth tells Misago, a refugee from Burundi who arrived in the U.S. five years ago.

“Children in the U.S. are becoming lazy,” he notes, warning that overweight kids tend to become overweight adults. Asian women around the table chime in, a woman from Burma occasionally translating.

“How about kids drinking soda or juice?” one mother asks, adding that she dilutes juice with water to reduce the sugar content. The others nodded.

Another woman says her mother couldn't sleep at night because her legs felt as if they were burning. Possibly a sign of diabetes?

“It could be,” the young physician says, jotting down a message to the mother's doctor.

Baeth, a second-year resident in internal medicine, is giving advice as part of a refugee health elective started recently at the University of Colorado Denver medical school.

While the school has offered a global health track for some time, it began offering this elective, interacting with the area's growing refugee community, in the 2010-2011 school year.

Interest in refugee health care is intensifying in the U.S., reflecting passage of the Refugee Act of 1980, which has led to a constant influx of people over the years from troubled spots around the world. Refugees have been resettled in 186 communities in 49 states, according to the U.S. State Department.

But medical schools have been too slow to teach this topic, critics say. Global health, taught at many medical schools, focuses on overall care of populations. It's different from helping people who may have spent years in camps before coming to this country.

“It's seen as a lot more exciting to do global health in Africa than to look at refugees in your backyard,” says Dr. Bill Stauffer, an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota.

Refugee struggles

Those who work with refugees are taking steps to organize and share information that can make a big difference in their patients' lives.

Treating refugees can be complicated and very challenging. Their English can be poor. They may have lived in camps — in crowded, squalid, dangerous conditions — for 10 or even 20 years. Some refugees, including many Iraqis, are victims of torture. Many of the women have been sexually assaulted.

Some of the refugees are unfamiliar with using electricity or a flush toilet. They may be malnourished. Some may have never seen a doctor before being screened.

Many suffer from depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from personal losses and witnessing or experiencing violence. Their emotional wounds may often be deeper than their medical problems and affect their health.

About 332,557 refugees were admitted to the U.S. — fleeing war and persecution — from fiscal year 2009 to 2013. The top five nationalities arriving in 2013 were Iraqi, Burmese, Bhutanese, Somali and Cuban. The number accepted has fluctuated greatly over the years, from more than 120,000 in 1990 and fewer than 30,000 in 2002.

Because the U.S. and other countries serve as somewhat of a last resort for refugees, after a crisis happens, five to 10 years may pass by before they arrive.

Medical aid

Refugees undergo a physical examination before entering the U.S. and are tested for communicable diseases such as tuberculosis. Some, such as cholera and diphtheria, require being quarantined. A second exam is recommended to look for medical issues, major depression and PTSD.

Not surprisingly, putting refugees at ease during a doctor's visit is a priority, says Dr. Joe Metmowlee Garland, co-founder and co-director of the Refugee Clinic at the Penn Center for Primary Care in Philadelphia.

Doctors should address a refugee directly with the help of a translator, rather than talk to the translator, he says. Patients should be told in great detail what to expect during the visit.

It's also important to listen patiently to refugees, who are often reluctant to talk about themselves, says Garland, who briefs residents about the political situations, common medical conditions and cultural norms of the countries that the patients are from.

It took Garland, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at the University of Pennsylvania medical school, a year to set up the refugee clinic, drawing heavily upon advice from resettlement agencies. It was a challenge.

“I didn't know what I didn't know,” he says with a laugh.

Linguistic and cultural issues loom in refugees' first encounters with the American health system. But working through them is rewarding for them and for providers, says Garland, who calls a refugee clinic an “incredible” way to teach young doctors.

In the Denver area, Dr. Jamaluddin Moloo and a state health department official established a primary care clinic for refugees in 2012, called the Colorado Refugee Wellness Center, with the support of the head of CU's Department of Medicine and an array of local support agencies.

Colorado takes in about 2,000 refugees a year. In recent years, most have come from Burma, Bhutan, Somalia and Iraq.

The Colorado Refugee Wellness Center displays a few handicrafts from the refugees' countries. As patients wait to be seen, they can pick up brochures on the cold and flu, violence in the home, drug and alcohol abuse and other topics in Nepali, Somali, Swahili and other languages.

The clinic is a teaching tool, where medical students and residents can see tuberculosis, intestinal parasitic infections, low weight or height among children, anemia, untreated hernias, hypertension, diabetes, musculoskeletal problems, and depression and anxiety.

Residents also do home visits, which Baeth says is a great way to bond with patients and see what remedies would work best.

Students also may take patients on the bus to doctor's appointments and help them buy groceries or sign up for Medicaid.

Stauffer says it's important for people in the field to talk to each other, relating a personal experience he had. He found Bhutanese refugees were suffering from Vitamin B12 deficiencies, a potentially serious health problem — only to discover later that a colleague in Salt Lake City had known about this issue for a while.

Stauffer has created a Listserv to share such information. During the 2014 North American Refugee Health Conference, to be held June 19-21 in Rochester, New York, some physicians will discuss creating an organization focusing on refugee health care.

The conference will cover topics including detecting emotional distress; screening for mental health issues; the Syrian refugee crisis; obesity, diabetes and hypertension after resettlement; health care providers' familiarity with female genital cutting; community-based efforts to help the Bhutanese; and the experiences of a center for survivors of torture.

An alarmingly high rate of suicide among Bhutanese men, a major concern among experts, also will be discussed.

Refugees inspire many of those who work with them. By definition, they are survivors, says Jim Sutton, co-chair of the North American Refugee Health Conference.

“You've survived whatever crisis there was in your country, and life in refugee camps can be as horrible as the crisis itself,” he says. “If you and I were resettled, not knowing the language, coming with nothing but the shirt on your back and a few pennies, we wouldn't survive. But they do. They figure it out.”

Dr. Anna Banerji, the conference co-chair, calls refugees “some of the most determined people I have seen in my life.”

“For them, it's life and death. They work very hard, study hard,” says Banerji, who is on the faculty at the University of Toronto. “You see these scrawny little things wasting away, and five years later, they're strong — and want to succeed in life.”

http://diverseeducation.com/article/64831/

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Oregon

Fatal Oregon high school shooting: 'This is not a drill'

by Dana Ford

When the shooting started at her high school near Portland, Oregon, early Tuesday, student Jaimie Infante didn't recognize the sound of a gunshot.

She thought maybe somebody had dropped a book.

In reality, a lone gunman had opened fire at the school, killing one student and forcing others to flee.

An assistant principal told students to go into lockdown mode.

At the end he said: 'This is not a drill,'" Infante told CNN.

A teacher, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries, was treated at the scene. The suspected gunman is dead.

According to multiple law enforcement officials, the shooter was a student at the school. The gunman appears to have died from a self-inflicted wound, the sources told CNN.

Speaking to reporters, Troutdale Police Department Chief Scott Anderson said he could not confirm how the shooter died. He identified the student killed as 14-year-old Emilio Hoffman, a freshman.

Anderson met with the student's parents Tuesday afternoon and "they want you to know that Emilio was a great kid and he was loved by all," he said.

Officials believe they know who the gunman was, but they are "not confident enough" to reveal details yet, Anderson said.

He added: "This is a tragedy that affects our whole community. This is not supposed to happen to any school or to any child, but we will get through this together."

'Could have been much worse'

The shooting happened at about 8 a.m. (11 a.m. ET) at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, about 12 miles east of Portland. The city has a population of 16,400 people.

When it started, student Hannah League ducked into a classroom, where she and others huddled in a corner with no lights -- hiding.

"I heard these pops and I thought they were firecrackers, but then I saw a teacher run out with his side kind of bloody," League told CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront."

"You don't think something's going to happen like that -- especially to your school. It's kind of, like, crazy," she said.

Details about what led to the shooting weren't immediately available. The gunman is believed to have used a rifle.

Anderson said the shooter entered the building that houses the school gym. Hoffman was shot and killed in a locker room. The shooter was found in a separate restroom, Anderson said.

He thanked officers for their quick response. He also thanked injured teacher Todd Rispler, who initiated the school lockdown despite being hurt.

"Without the quick and well-executed response, this tragedy could have been much worse," the Reynolds School District said in a statement.

Anxious parents waited for news that their children were safe. One couple, Craig Tuholski and Tawnjia Reimer, were talking with CNN affiliate KGW , about how agonizing the wait for news was, when Tuholski's cell phone rang.

"Is that Chris?" Reimer asked before letting out a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God."

"That's what we were waiting for," Tuholski said after hanging up.

About an hour after the shooting, Oregon State Police said the area was secure and the situation was contained.

Obama: 'Levels of gun violence off the charts'

The shooting, the latest in a long string of school shootings, sparked reaction nationwide.

"Our hearts go out to the Reynolds HS community. How many more students must we lose before committing to reduce gun violence in our schools?" Secretary of Education Arne Duncan asked on his Twitter account.

Speaking in Washington, President Barack Obama said the nation should be ashamed of its inability to get tougher gun restrictions through Congress in the aftermath of mass shootings that he said have become commonplace in America.

"Our levels of gun violence are off the charts. There's no advanced, developed country on Earth that would put up with this," he said in response to a question about gun violence.

Most members of Congress are "terrified" of the National Rifle Association, the President said, adding that nothing will change until public opinion demands it.

"The country has to do some soul searching about this. This is becoming the norm, and we take it for granted, in ways that as a parent are terrifying to me," Obama said.

CNN first learned of the shooting through reports on Twitter.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/10/justice/oregon-high-school-shooting/

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California

Police commission seeks public input on Chief Beck re-appointment

by Denise Guerra

The Los Angeles Police Commission is seeking public comment to inform its decision to give LAPD Chief Charlie Beck a second term at the head of the nation's third-largest police department.

Beck officially put in papers May 15 seeking a second five-year term, per city charter protocol. Beck announced to reporters in April that he planned to ask for a second term.

The five-member police commission – which supervises the police chief and sets LAPD policy – is seeking the public's opinion as it evaluates Beck's leadership and assesses how well he has met the city's goals and overseen reforms for the LAPD.

A series of public meetings, as required by the city's charter for community input, will begin June 11 at 6 p.m. at the Westchester Senior Center. A second meeting will be held in Canoga Park on June 12, with an appearance by L.A. City Councilman Bob Blumenfield. A final public meeting will take place in Lincoln Heights on July 8.

In his letter to the police commission in May, Beck wrote: “During my tenure, we have made tremendous strides in reducing crime and increasing police accountability, but there is still much left to do.”

The commission has until Aug. 20 to approve or deny Beck's re-appointment before it the request goes before the L.A. City Council and Mayor Eric Garcetti for a final vote.

Longtime civilian watchdog Joe Domanick, who has written extensively on the LAPD for two decades, gives credit to Beck for emphasizing community policing and limiting officer use of force despite issues with the commission over officer discipline.

“There's a great emphasis on engaging with the economically impoverished African-American and Latino communities that for-so long were downtrodden with the LAPD.” Domanick said, “Now they are partners with the LAPD.”

Domanick said that since the 1992 Rodney King beating, “the Police Commission has taken a firmer stand on the chief of police as reflected by the public's opinion.”

Beside the meetings, the public can also weigh in by email at: reappointment@lapd.lacity.org or by writing to:

Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners
100 West 1st Street, Room 134
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Beck's current term ends Nov. 17.

http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/06/10/44646/police-commission-seeks-public-input-on-chief-beck/

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Pennsylvania

To cut crime, reduce opportunities for criminals to strike: As I See It

by Jonathan Lee

Recent announcements from the city of Harrisburg highlight its strong will to fight crime. Although critics may quibble over other issues, the capital of Pennsylvania appears to have a promising future. Like a virus, however, crime is pernicious and evolving. For the city that just started to bounce back, it's imperative to reinforce its momentum from successful policing initiatives.

One area of potential improvement is "hot spot policing." Putting data from 911 calls into a geographic information system (GIS) would help identify areas of concern. Adding in analysis of other factors, such as time of the day, the day of week, the level of urban decay, and demographics of the suspect and complainant, would help predict which type of crime is most likely to occur where, when, and under what circumstances.

Further analysis can assess police response time, which is also crucial information to reasonably estimate the number of officers the city needs to hire more. After all, the city needs to have scientific evidence to ask for more officers and to later prove that it made a difference.

In the meantime, the city can survey the residents and see how they report the prevalence of crime in the neighborhood. It may or may not corroborate the "hot spot" findings from the geographic analysis of 911 calls.

If there's a discrepancy, it would suggest citizens are underreporting crime to the authorities, which would need to be investigated further. Understanding any underreporting would help lead to more efficient, more focused policing.

Juxtaposed to hot spot policing is community policing, a philosophy which is based on reducing the social distance between residents and the police. Building a sense of empathy and familiarity would boost citizens' satisfaction and cooperation with the police.

Community policing and hot spot policing may sound contradictory, but they are mutually reinforcing. The residents become eyes and ears of the police, while the police can deliver efficient and effective intervention on crime.

In many cities across the U.S., efforts such as citizen police academy have been made to bring together the residents and the police to solidify the shared sense of ownership of the community. For another example, Teen and Police Service Academy promotes a congenial relationship between the police and youths by introducing them to police work and mentoring.

Although this may sound stale, community residents are not free of responsibility. They need to understand that the police are dealing with limited resources and personnel for a large volume of crime and other problems.

A criminal is not completely irrational. In some ways, criminals are smarter than law-abiding citizens. They know the black market value of goods, the police patrol pattern or response time, or whether the community is passive and even tolerant of their wrongdoings. That is why a blighted neighborhood attracts criminals, whereas a community in which members to intervene in anything from trifling incidents to heinous crimes deters criminals.

There are ways to show that the community is engaged and concerned. Residents can team up with the city and various organizations to clean up the neighborhood. They should willingly and swiftly report suspicious phenomena to the police.

Crime is a product of motive and opportunity. Motive is shaped by a person's interaction with family and friends. But even a highly motived criminal still needs an opportunity, which requires a suitable target and the absence of capable guardianship. The presence of police or an effective community can discourage motivated criminals from committing crime.

An average criminal is not bold enough to ignore the community's efforts to fight disorder. Recent federal and state crime prevention initiatives focus on reducing crime opportunities, rather than trying to intervene in individuals' lives and reduce their motive to commit crimes. Further work to identify the community conditions and specific locations that foster crime in Harrisburg can be an important part of the effort to make the city safer.

Dr. Jonathan Lee is an assistant professor of criminal justice at Penn State Harrisburg.

http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2014/06/to_cut_crime_id_hot_spots_comm.html

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57,000 Vets Still Waiting for VA Care

The scandal that took down the VA secretary shows no signs of slowing.

Right now, there are more than 57,000 veterans who've been waiting at least 90 days for their first visit with a VA doctor. That's according to a report released Monday. And it means the VA scandal that already took down its secretary is still growing.

The latest rundown of the VA's woes is more comprehensive than the recent Inspector General's report, focused on the VA's troubled hospital in Phoenix. The new document presents an even more daunting set of problems. It comes out of an audit conducted by the VA itself that included site visits at medical facilities across the country and interviews with more than 3,500 VA employees.

Over the past decade, another 64,000 veterans enrolled in the VA system and requested medical appointments but never received them. Contacting each of those patients and getting them their overdue medical care is now the VA's top priority according to acting Secretary Sloan Gibson, who took the VA's top post after Eric Shinseki's resignation. To that end, Gibson said Monday, the VA had already reached out to 50,000 veterans to move them off of waiting lists and into appointments and was working to contact another 40,000. The problems identified in the VA's report “demand immediate action,” Gibson said.

In addition to uncovering ten of thousands of veterans who now need to be scheduled in an already taxed system, the report also underscored the point, reported by The Daily Beast, that VA supervisors coached scheduling clerks to falsify wait times. Thirteen percent of VA schedulers contacted in the audit said they had been directed by their superiors to cheat the scheduling system. Another eight percent of schedulers admitted using secret lists to track veteran's appointments that kept wait times off the books. Overall, some evidence of scheduling fraud was found in 76% of the 731 VA facilities reviewed for the audit.

It took the VA a long time to acknowledge that widespread reports of records manipulation and lengthy patient delays were more than just ‘isolated incidents' but outbreaks of a systemic problem. Now, on paper at least, the VA is going further and confronting the root causes—both structural and cultural—of its systemic issues. Those issues, according to the report include: staffing shortages, outdated scheduling software, inadequate training, and an institutional “culture which allowed this state of practice to take root,” and “must be confronted head on.”

But that analysis doesn't go far enough according to Army veteran and former high-ranking Pentagon staffer Phillip Carter.

“The manipulation of waiting lists masked a much larger problem with the allocation of clinical resources to veterans,” Carter said.

“The VA must dig deeper,” according to Carter “to see clearly the resourcing issues that lie at the heart of this problem, and answer basic questions like whether the VA has sufficient resources, whether the VA spends those resources in the right places, whether the VA has sufficient numbers of medical personnel, and what wait times are achievable given what the VA has on hand. Carter added, “the VA must move quickly to answer these key questions, which in many ways are more important than assessing blame for what did or didn't happen in Phoenix,” the hospital where the VA scandal first skyrocketed to national attention.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/09/57-000-vets-still-waiting-for-va-care.html

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Nevada

Vegas police killer decried government on YouTube

by MICHELLE RINDELS

LAS VEGAS (AP) - His face painted to look like the comic book villain the Joker, a man who would months later gun down two Las Vegas police officers and a good Samaritan punctuates his political rant with manic glares at the camera. In another online video, Jerad Miller warns that police can't be trusted.

"What better way to kill and rape, after all, if you're wearing a badge," he says. "When law enforcement and government are the criminals, they will fear an armed and educated people."

Investigators in Las Vegas are studying those videos and a range of other social media posts by Miller, 31, as they try to untangle what led him and his 22-year-old wife to gun down two police officers and a civilian before taking their own lives.

Capt. Chris Jones of the Las Vegas Police Department's Southern Nevada Counter-Terrorism Center identified Miller as the man in the videos, which decry what Miller sees as a tyrannical American government.

The couple left a swastika and a "Don't tread on me" flag on the body of one of the two officers they killed and promoted an ideology shared by "militia and white supremacists," including the belief that law enforcement was the "oppressor," authorities said Monday.

Their views were apparently too extreme for anti-government protesters who faced down federal agents earlier this year at a Nevada ranch.

The Joker videos were posted on YouTube with a time stamp just before the 2012 presidential election, a few months after Jerad and Amanda Miller married.

Authorities believe they came to the Las Vegas area in January. This spring, they went to the ranch of Cliven Bundy, who along with armed supporters thwarted a roundup of Bundy's cattle by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which wants to collect more than $1 million in grazing fees and penalties.

Militias at the ranch kicked the Millers out after a few days, according to Ammon Bundy, one of the rancher's sons.

"They were very radical, you know, and did not align themselves with the reason that the protesters were there," Ammon Bundy said. "Not very many people were asked to leave. I think they may have been the only ones."

On Sunday, the two Las Vegas police officers were having lunch at a pizza buffet in an aging strip mall about 5 miles northeast of the Las Vegas Strip when the Millers fatally shot them. The attack at a CiCi's Pizza killed officers Alyn Beck, 41, and Igor Soldo, 31, both of whom were husbands and fathers of young children.

About 100 people attended a candlelight vigil for the slain officers at CiCi's Pizza on Monday night, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported (http://bit.ly/1uOYPSo).

According to Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill, this is how Sunday's events unfolded:

The Millers left a neighbor's apartment where they had been staying around 4:30 a.m. and walked for hours until they reached the strip mall about 5 miles away.

Around 11:20 a.m., the Millers went into the restaurant, where the two officers were sitting in a booth. Jerad Miller fatally shot Soldo; as his partner tried to react, Miller shot Beck in the throat. Amanda Miller then pulled her own gun, and both shot Beck several times.

Police believe that while the Millers wanted to target police, the choice of Soldo and Beck was random.

The couple took the officers' guns and ammunition and left on Beck's body a yellow flag featuring the phrase "Don't tread on me." The flag, with its roots in the American Revolution, is a symbol for anti-government groups. Police said they believe the material with a swastika printed on it that was also left on the body was intended to paint police as Nazis.

The couple went next to a Wal-Mart across the street, where Jerad Miller entered, fired one round and "told the people to get out and this was a revolution and that the police were on the way."

In the frenzy, shopper Joseph Wilcox decided to confront Jerad Miller. Wilcox, 31, went from the returns area to Miller and pulled his concealed firearm. But before he could fire, Amanda Miller shot him in the ribs and Wilcox collapsed.

By now, police had arrived, and two five-officer teams entered the massive store.

As police closed in, Amanda Miller shot her husband several times with a handgun, killing him. She then shot herself in the head.

Police found hundreds more rounds of unspent ammunition in bags the Millers carried.

Jerad Miller had been convicted of felony vehicle theft and other offenses in Washington state between 2001 and 2003, according to a Washington State Patrol database. He also had a criminal record in Indiana.

Although police believe the shootings were an isolated act, not part of a broader conspiracy to target law enforcement, Sheriff Doug Gillespie said Monday he was pairing officers together for safety. For now, 300 will be on patrol at any given time - twice what is normal.

Asked about worries that more officers may be targeted, he responded: "Is that weighing? Sure, there's no doubt about it."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20140610_ap_6d67dd04d4e147cfb5aa19efe277495b.html

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Ohio

Slender Man strikes again? Girl, 13, allegedly stabs mom to honor horror character

by John Luciew

Police in Ohio are dealing with what they say is another Slender Man-inspired attack by a teen girl, this time on her mother. The girl, age 13, is accused of stabbing her mother with a kitchen knife while wearing a white mask.

According to the New York Post, the suburban Cincinnati mother suffered multiple minor injuries, including a puncture wound on her back. The girl is facing charges as a juvenile.

"I came home one night from work, and she was in the kitchen waiting for me, and she was wearing a mask, a white mask," the mother, who was not initially named by authorities, told a local television station. "She was someone else during the attack."

The incident comes on the heels of another Slender Man-inspired attack by a pair of 12-year-old girls on their 12-year-old classmate, who was stabbed and then left in a Wisconsin park.

The victim, who was stabbed 19 times, survived and is now recovering at home. Her alleged assailants, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, face first-degree attempted intentional homicide charges as adults.

Background according to the Post: Slender Man is a computer demon created by paranormal enthusiasts, is said to be a lanky, faceless creature in a suit who terrorizes and kidnaps children.

A spokeswoman for Slenderman creator Eric Knudsen and an administrator for creepypasta.wikia.com where the meme was published, have apologized since the first attack and said Slenderman does not teach children to be violent.

"I am deeply saddened by the tragedy in Wisconsin, and my heart goes out to the families of those affected by this terrible act," Knudsen said in a statement.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/06/slender_man_strikes_again_girl.html

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Delaware

Wilmington gunshot detection system to go live

by Yann Ranaivo

A new gunshot detection system that is expected to help Wilmington police capture shooting suspects will go live this month, the city's new police chief said Monday.

Police Chief Bobby Cummings updated City Council's Public Safety Committee on ShotSpotter, which uses sensors to find the origin of a gunshot within a few feet then alerts dispatchers and patrol cars. The system was slated to go live June 20, but was pushed back about a week to address safety concerns over the initial placement of the equipment, he said.

Earlier this year, council members OK'd a three-year, $415,000 lease for ShotSpotter, which was developed by Newark, California-based firm SST. Money for the system came from the city and state, but Cummings on Monday couldn't say how much each entity contributed.

ShotSpotter won't replace an existing gunshot detection system called SENTRI, but is expected to be much more effective in alerting police to shootings, several city officials have said.

While SENTRI – Sensor Neural Threat Recognition, has been criticized by council members as a waste of taxpayer money, Councilman Mike Brown, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said the city will need the previous gunshot detection tool to assist police.

"We paid for it [SENTRI]," he said after the meeting Monday. "We throw away money like water sometimes, but we can't afford to do that here."

Cummings said the placement of ShotSpotter sensors was adjusted to detect gunshots in all of Wilmington's hotspots. The sensors, which cover a 3-square-mile radius, were mainly installed in West Center City, he said. The location tweaks addressed some council members' concerns that system missed some hotspots.

SENTRI detects a gunshot and prompts cameras to pivot toward the sound, zoom in and take images of suspects, victims, witnesses or a fleeing vehicle. That system, paid with a $250,000 federal grant awarded to the state, has failed to record any shootings since it was installed in 2012.

Earlier this year, Cummings conceded that ShotSpotter won't allow police to immediately stop a shooter, but will more accurately pinpoint the location of an incident. He expects the new system will allow police to begin investigations sooner, therefore significantly increasing the chances of arresting shooters.

Brown said he's been told that cameras will accompany the ShotSpotter sensors, but declined to say how many will be used.

Some council members said the cameras could be covered with $1 million the city received from the state for cameras in 2013.

Some Wilmington residents are confident the new technology will help the city combat crime, but said crime reduction is a multifaceted effort.

Cassandra Marshall, president of the Quaker Hill Neighborhood Association, has been a strong proponent of increasing community policing, which she says would allow residents to build a relationship with officers and be more willing to assist when serious crimes occur.

"Whatever tool they can bring to try to catch these people, it's certainly important. I think that will generally be great," said Cassandra Marshall, president of the Quaker Hill Neighborhood Association. "I don't think that obviates the need to get more police into the neighborhoods.

Marshall is a proponent of community policing in the neighborhoods to allow residents to build relationships with officers, who can be helpful in quelling violent and nuisance crimes.

"ShotSpotter isn't going to do anything about [prostitution], but police officers engaged in that problem would certainly help to fix it."

http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2014/06/09/gunshot-detection-system-go-live-wilmington-month/10265433/

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Indiana

Public safety volunteers may apply for higher education scholarship

by april mccampbell

The state of Indiana is accepting applications from public safety volunteers who are pursuing a degree at an Indiana college or university for a scholarship award up to $2,000. Criteria includes volunteering for fire, law enforcement, emergency management or emergency medical services. State employees or special appointees are not eligible. The process to apply includes contacting the coordinator for the Indiana Grants Management System for access, followed by submitting the application online. The deadline to submit the application is July 1, 2014. For the official program instructions, visit the IDHS website.

http://wane.com/2014/06/09/public-safety-volunteers-may-apply-for-higher-education-scholarship/

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Nevada

2 police officers ambushed, killed at Vegas restaurant

by William M. Welch

Two Las Vegas police officers were killed in a lunchtime ambush Sunday by a man and a woman who later killed a third person before turning weapons on themselves in a Walmart.

Sheriff Doug Gillespie said the officers were eating lunch at a restaurant, CiCi's Pizza, when they were shot by two assailants. One of the officers was able to return fire, Gillespie said.

The suspects then killed a third person at a nearby Walmart, he said.

"It appears the female suspect shot the male suspect, then took her own life,'' Gillespie said.

Killed were Alyn Beck, 41, a Las Vegas officer for more than a dozen years, and Igor Soldo, 31, an officer for eight years. Beck leaves behind a wife and three children, and Soldo is survived by a wife and baby, police said.

"What precipitated this event we do not know,'' the sheriff said. "My officers were simply having lunch.''

The shooting spree that left five people dead began around 11:30 a.m. when a man and woman walked into a pizza restaurant and shot two officers eating lunch, Las Vegas police spokesman Larry Hadfield said.

One of the suspects yelled, "This is a revolution," but the motive for the shooting remains under investigation, Hadfield said.

The two fled to a Walmart across the street, where they shot a person inside, Hadfield said.

"We don't know anything about the suspects yet and are trying to learn more,'' he said.

Pauline Pacheco was shopping at Wal-Mart when she saw the armed man and grabbed her father to escape, KLAS-TV reported.

"We saw when the man was walking, he was shouting, yelling bad words, and suddenly he had a gun," she told the station. "It was terrible, it was terrible. That man was crazy."

Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill said the male suspect yelled "everyone get out" before shooting at Wal-Mart. The suspects then walked to the back of the store, he said.

Gov. Brian Sandoval said he was devastated by the deaths of the two officers and an innocent bystander in an "act of senseless violence."

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman called the killings a "cruel act" and praised the officers for dedicating "their lives to protecting all of us in our community."

Wal-Mart expressed its condolences in a statement and that the company is working with police on the investigation. Cici's Pizza said in a statement the company was deeply saddened by the shooting and would keep the location closed until further notice.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/08/3-dead-in-shooting-at-vegas-restaurant-walmart/10204227/

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Connecticut

Homeless Beat Boosts Community Policing

by Diana Li

As midnight approached and her fellow cop Becky Fowler grabbed coffee inside Dunkin Donuts, Elizabeth Chomka listened out on the Church Street sidewalk to a man named Gregory talk about love.

“Love,” Gregory reflected. “It's one of the greatest feelings in the world, but it can really hurt you.”

“You're the wisest man I know, Gregory,” Chomka replied.

Fowler joined them, fresh coffee in hand. Then she and Chomka, two Yale University patrol cops, embarked on their own mission of love. Love, and community policing.

Chomka and Fowler set out to distribute plastic bags with deodorant, flush wipes, water, socks, Slim Jims, and granola bars to the homeless people they've gotten to know while on their beat.

They've been making these rounds monthly when the weather's warm enough for people to sleep outside. In the process, they've developed bonds with many of downtown's homeless people—and worked with them to solve problems.

Gregory, who was homeless for four years on the streets of New Haven before he found housing, used to receive the plastic bags from Chomka and Fowler. Now, even though Greg no longer takes plastic bags from them, he still comes by Dunkin Donuts often at the same time they do and offers to buy them coffee.

“These women are really inspiring,” Greg said. “I was out here for four years, and they've done such a great thing. They really come out here and support us, provide us a lot of comfort, get us coffee and chat with us. They give us a lot of emotional support.”

One recent night, Fowler and Chomka started out at 11:30 at Church and Center streets, where they gave out bags to people inside and in front of Dunkin Donuts, some old friends and some new acquaintances. They moved on to the bus stops down the street on Church Street and near the Green, before driving to other spots they've become familiar with over the years of finding and helping homeless people.

“Thank you, thank you a million times,” said one man outside Dunkin Donuts who received one of the 15 plastic bags in total handed out that night.

The supplies for the plastic bags, which Fowler and Chomka pay for themselves, usually cost about $100 each run. They distribute them about seven to eight times a year.

Beyond the plastic bags, they buy and distribute food: coffee, Subway sandwiches, Insomnia cookies (a “huge hit,” according to Fowler). They also distribute clothing, such as socks, handwarmers and socks, in cooler weather.

During their rounds, street people continually approached the two officers and greeted them on a first-name basis. Over the past two years, they estimated they have interacted with almost 100 homeless people on the beat; they see about 30 regularly.

“Lots of people move on, but there are always new people, and we're always looking to gain their trust,” Chomka said.

First, Talk

Fowler and Chomka have walked an overnight downtown beat together for the past four and a half years. They found themselves often dealing with homeless people violating trespassing laws, urinating on property, sparking complaints from neighbors.

Instead of arresting them, the duo decided to start talking to them about where they could and couldn't stay, asking them about what they needed, and giving them supplies. The donations evolved into the plastic bags, food, and clothing they now hand out regularly.

“A lot of people are really shocked when they see cops in uniforms asking them what's wrong and trying to help them instead of arresting them,” Fowler said. “We try to build trust, and our reputation gets out.”

After spending her first three years as a police dispatcher, Fowler became a cop three and a half years ago. Originally from Iowa, she moved to New Haven when she was 12 and worked a number of jobs before joining the Yale force , from security at the Hospital of St. Raphael to bartending. Chomka, who hails from Clinton, is the daughter of a Yale cop and the granddaughter of a New Haven cop. She joined Fowler on her beat three years after Fowler started.

“We want to help them instead of arresting them all the time,” Chomka said of the homeless. “They just want food, and lots of them are looking for jobs.”

The homeless people they've helped have returned the favor.

“One time, a large fight broke out at a bar here downtown. It was huge, but all the guys showed up there immediately making sure we were safe and that no one was going to hurt us,” Fowler recounted. Whenever there are incidents, some of their homeless friends inevitably show up to check on them.

“They protect us, and we watch them,” Greg said. He said he has seen the pair's work help decrease crime in the area where homeless people tend to hang out.

Fowler and Chomka explained that they don't rely on the homeless as confidential informants. But they do help steer them to spots needing attention. Chomka recalled one time that a homeless woman they often help came up to them to tell them she saw a Yale student being harassed down the street. She was pretty sure the student was about to be mugged; sure enough, Chomka and Fowler found a student and stopped the harasser before anything happened.

When Fowler and Chomka report to crime scenes, their reputation sometimes precedes them: People will recognize them and be more willing talk to them and give them information.

“They know everything that happens in the city, and they have their own little network,” Fowler said. “It's amazing to me.”

Makeshift Shelters

At the bus stop right by the Dunkin Donuts, William Fuller helped deliver one of the plastic bags to another homeless man down the street before coming back to spend time with Fowler and Chomka.

He said he spends every day at the Yale Medical School library, where he uses their computers to apply for jobs. He said he has done that for the last year and a half. He spends his nights on a school porch on Union Avenue, but has to pack up each morning before the students arrive for class.

Fuller used to live with family in New Haven and still gets coffee with his sister every morning downtown. He said he left home because he could tell he was “wearing out his welcome,” even though they didn't say anything.

“I spent 14 years in prison for stealing cars and stupid stuff. But when you grow older you realize that you don't live forever and that you want something out of life, you don't want to go to prison anymore,” he said. “I realized I didn't want to go back. I got there in 1995 and got out in 2009. I've had no contact with police since 1995.”

“Except positive contact,” Fowler added with a laugh. Fuller received a plastic bag with supplies from Fowler and Chomka and met Fowler while she was on her daily Dunkin Donuts run.

In a bus shelter down the block were two other men, Ben and Nick. Nick, who just found housing at Safe Haven after being homeless for two and a half years, met Fowler and Chomka for the first time on last week's run.

Nick is deaf. He and Fowler ran through the alphabet in sign language together. Fowler had a deaf friend when she was younger and learned some sign language.

“You know how to say, ‘I love you' in sign language?” Nick asked Fowler. She did.

After Nick found housing, he went to visit his daughter and two granddaughters in Rhode Island to celebrate. “They love me to pieces but I never force myself on them,” he said.

As Fowler and Chomka prepared to move onto the next bus stop to continue handing out bags, they wished the men good night and said they didn't want to encroach upon their space.

“You never interrupt us anyway,” said Ben with a smile.

Next stop: a bus shelter at Elm and Temple. Unlike at the lively and chattering group at the bus stops on Church, this bus stop had three people covered in blankets, sleeping as the cops arrived at around midnight.

One woman awoke as Fowler and Chomka dropped off plastic bags. As she raised her head from underneath her scarf, it became clear she was a frail-looking elderly woman. The officers were in and out in less than a minute.

“You find all kinds of people in these shelters. People sometimes don't think about it, but many of them are the elderly,” Fowler observed.

Though homeless shelters are an option for some of these people, Fowler explained that when the weather is nice and when they can stay outside, many of them prefer to. The shelters are often overcrowded. People sometimes get things stolen from them while they are asleep. While shelters try their best, there is inevitably some petty crime. Living conditions are also “not really ideal,” she said.

Shelters are also first-come, first-serve. One of the homeless men by Dunkin Donuts complained that he has often been turned away by shelters that are already full to capacity by the time he arrives.

As the cops drove around, they discussed with specificity the usual spots they pass. They know the locations of some of the regulars they visit, like the Tyco lot on Broadway, or under a specific tree, or behind the FBI building at State and Grove.

Mutual Respect

At one of their last stops, outside the state courthouse at Church and Wall streets, two people slept under blankets. It was a quarter past midnight.

Fowler and Chomka didn't recognize them. They quickly tiptoed over. Without saying a word, they dropped off two plastic bags, the turned around to leave.

One man jerked awake. He pulled the blanket back over his face after Chomka explained quickly that she was giving him a bag of supplies.

The officers then returned to their cruiser and drove away to drop off the rest of their bags. Once again, they were in and out in less than a minute.

“We never wake anyone up if they're sleeping. We try not to bother anyone,” Fowler said. “We're just here to help.”

When Fowler and Chomka give out supplies and clothing, they don't try to decide who is deserving of them. They don't ask questions about prison history or whether recipients are looking for a job. They merely ask recipients their first names and whether they need some help.

“We learn that some of them can help themselves more, but we don't judge. We don't want to feel like we're interrogating them,” Chomka said. “We just want to have a mutually respectful relationship.”

Fowler explained that some of the shelters require people to carry out tasks and chores to stay in them, and that some homeless people may not be in the mental state to handle those tasks. She said her work has taught her to think more about the connection between homelessness and mental health problems.

The homeless people they encounter come from different backgrounds. One homeless man to whom they refer as Mr. Watts is a Yale graduate in his 60s. “He's a genius that's so smart, too smart to function in society,” Fowler put it. Others give up their apartments just so they can try to put money in the bank and save up to move somewhere else for better opportunities.

Fowler recalled encountering one man one person who had a construction job during the day. He would spend his nights behind 53 Wall St. (between Temple and Church) because he could get access to wireless Internet there. After his construction job, he would spend his nights on his computer trying to look for other jobs to get ahead. They encountered another man on the rounds last week who runs a hot dog stand during the day and sleeps on the streets at night.

“These guys here, we try to help each other out whenever we can. I try to give them a coffee or some food if I ever have any extra,” the man told the officers. “But this homeless thing … We really have to fix it. People have to talk about it. We have to come up with a solution. I'm starving here on the streets looking through garbage just for something to eat.”

The two cops emphasized that they never want to violate people's trust or invade their space. They've often gotten unfriendly reactions to trying to hand out supplies, but they continue to carry out their work.

“There's no easy solution to homelessness,” Chomka said, “but we're doing what we can.”

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/a_two-woman_crusade_against_homelessness/id_67917

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Florida

Gilbert says city shifting to community policing

by Michelle Hollinger

MIAMI GARDENS – Miami Gardens Mayor Oliver Gilbert on Tuesday side-stepped a blistering news report on heavy-handed police action against residents as he gave his state of the city address.

But Gilbert pledged that the state's largest black municipality is shifting its focus to community policing and winning back the trust of the people.

“We have invested heavily in policing and far too little in prevention,” Gilbert acknowledged as he spoke to an estimated 750 guests who turned up for the speech and the ceremonial opening of a new 70,000-square-foot city hall.

The policing tactic of “zero tolerance” aimed at curbing one of the nation's highest crime rates was first reported by The Miami Herald last year.

The controversy surfaced even more substantially on May 29 – just days before Gilbert's address – when Fusion, an online publication, reported that officers stopped and questioned a total of 65,328 people – in a city of about 100,000 – between 2008 and 2013. They were listed merely as “suspicious” and not arrested.

Fusion said it followed up on The Herald's story by analyzing some 30,000 documents obtained from the police department. In the story, reporters Alice Brennan and Dan Lieberman said the residents listed in the “field contact” reports identifying them as “suspicious” included 8,489 children – among them a 5-year-old child – and 1,775 senior citizens, including a 99-year-old man.

“Children were stopped by police in playgrounds. Senior citizens were stopped and questioned near their retirement home,” the Fusion story said.

Fusion said its reporters were told by two officers – who were not identified – that department brass ordered officers to meet quotas through stops and arrests. “One officer said he was ordered to stop all black males between 15 and 30 years of age,” the report said. Some 76 percent of the population is black.

Fusion followed up with Earl Sampson, an employee at the 207th Street Quickstop which was at the center of The Herald's story.

Fusion said officers stopped Sampson more than 200 times. He was listed in field contact reports 181 times and was arrested 111 times – including 71 times for trespassing at his job site.

Store owner Alex Saleh was so outraged that he installed video surveillance cameras in his store just to record police action. Attorney Stephan Lopez has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city on behalf of Saleh and several other people, claiming violation of their constitutional rights. Depositions are to begin this month in the lawsuit, Fusion said.

Fusion reported that the city received 15 federal grants to help pay for police overtime work as part of the “zero tolerance” policy. It also said it found widespread instances of falsified field contact reports and extensive duplication.

However, no connection was drawn between the grants and the voluminous number of reports suggesting sustained policing.

Fusion said both the police department and the city have denied in court papers that officers engaged in unlawful conduct.

Gilbert on Tuesday emphasized the new thrust of the police department.

“Interactions between residents and officers can be frequent and not forced,” he said. “Those conversations don't have to be quantified. Their measure will be the relationships that are created and their dividends will be the reduction of crime. It's OK to speak and be polite – let them know that you don't just work for them; you want to work with them.”

Gilbert said that, in addition to ensuring that all officers are trained in community policing, they will also have “… a full and complete understanding of my and this city council's position that we're safer when we work together. That requires us to trust each other. That requires us to respect each other.”

An attorney, Gilbert added that, “we are all the same – equal under the law, all subject to its prohibitions and all protected by its safeguards.”

In the city's effort to reinforce its commitment to community policing, Gilbert announced that of the 11 additional police officers being hired, eight are Miami Gardens residents.

“That means when they're not at work their cars will be parked in front of their houses in Miami Gardens deterring crime,” he said.

Police Chief Steven Johnson, who took over the department in April after the abrupt resignation of his predecessor in the wake of The Herald story, is already seeking to win over community trust.

Earlier this year, at a community forum, Johnson gave residents his cell phone number and encouraged them to call him with concerns. The 30-year law enforcement veteran also has roots in Miami Gardens, buying his first home and raising his children in the area.

“He will keep us safe; he will safeguard our rights and he will help guide us into a new day of city of Miami Gardens policing,” Gilbert said.

The mayor called attention also to other initiatives that he argued will have a bearing on the safety of residents, such as a bond issue to upgrade city parks, a building to house STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) programs, a facility to expose youth to careers and interests behind the scenes in entertainment, a culinary institute and an alternative sports center.

“As a city, we're going to offer all of these activities to try to energize the interests and occupy the time of the children of the community ... We will collectively do all of these things in an effort to make this community safe but, understand this, the single greatest factor that will impact the safety of the residents of the city won't wear a uniform or be on a park, it won't involve cameras or computers, it won't have sirens or handcuffs,” Gilbert said.

“The future of our safety and in some ways the future of our society depends in large part, on whether parents will begin again to parent their children. We used to do it. Actually spend time with your children, talk to your children, and help them do their homework. Listen to them, and if necessary, discipline them. It's going to be easier for you to discipline them, than for us to,” he said.

http://www.sfltimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16220&Itemid=199