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September, 2014 - Week 3

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Washington

Secret Service arrests man who refused to leave White House gates — a day after an intruder made it in with a knife

The man first approached the presidential residence on foot Saturday, and then returned in a car and drove up to another entrance gate. The man's arrest comes on the heels of frightening breach Friday, when an intruder made it into the White House. Authorities found a 3 1/2 inch serrated knife in his pocket.

by Ginger Adams Otis

A man was arrested Saturday for refusing to move away from the White House — less than 24 hours after a knife-carrying intruder got inside.

The Secret Service ordered a review of its internal security procedures Friday night after Omar Gonzalez, 42, scaled a gate and ran inside the North Portico doors of the White House.

It also increased security procedures at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., putting guards on high alert when a man walked up Saturday afternoon and tried to gain entry.

He left to get his car when guards rebuffed him, then drove back to another gate. He refused to leave, and was arrested.

A bomb squad searched his vehicle and briefly closed the streets.

The First Family was not at home, having left for Camp David just before the frightening security breach Friday night.

Gonzalez, who said he was an Iraq vet, had a 3 1/2 inch serrated knife in his pocket when he jumped a fence at 7:20 p.m., ran across the lawn, and burst into the White House through the North Portico doors.

He was tackled by security and arrested. Secret Service found the black folded Spyderco VG-10 knife after searching him.

Gonzalez told cops he felt the atmosphere was collapsing and wanted to warn the President so he could get "the word out to the people," the criminal complaint said.

He was taken to an area hospital after complaining of chest pains.

Gonzalez, from Copperas Cove, Texas, was charged with unlawful entry into the White House complex.

Former neighbors in Texas described Gonzalez as an ex-military man who'd grown increasingly paranoid recently, according to the AP.

The Secret Service said it's a challenge to "ensure security at the White House complex while still allowing public accessibility to a national historical site."

Sharpshooters on the White House roof didn't fire at Gonzalez and agents on the ground didn't release the White House dogs because he appeared to be unarmed as he ran across the lawn, AP said.

The agency was sharply criticized last year for killing a 34-year-old dental hygienist who tried to ram her car through a White House barrier. The young mother, who had her 1-year-old daughter in the vehicle, led police on a tense car chase that ended with her death. Her daughter was unharmed.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/secret-service-arrests-man-refused-leave-white-house-gates-article-1.1946863

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A look at what makes American jihadis tick

A common assumption is that jihadist groups recruit members from poor, desperate populations. Why are young people who grow up surrounded by the comforts of the U.S. willing to die in the name of extremist Islam?

by The Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff

A look at four Americans who became jihadis, and what motivated them to fight:

Moner Mohammad Abusalha, who liked to cuddle cats, blew himself up in May in Syria. He was the first American suicide bomber in that civil war.

Abusalha, 22, was a community college student who grew up playing basketball in Vero Beach, Florida. But Abusalha, the son of a Palestinian father and Italian-American mother, became increasingly consumed with religious fervor.

He said he was influenced by a close, radical friend, according to a video he made before he killed himself and 16 others while fighting with the Nusra Front, al-Qaida's branch in Syria.

Both decided that jihad was for them, but when it was time to go, the friend backed out.

Before getting to Syria, Abusalha was in Istanbul, Turkey. He describes his time there as a low point in his life.

In the video, Abusalha says he saw a cat outside a Turkish mosque. "I see this beautiful cat and I start playing with the cat. ... Even though I'm sad, I still feel happy. I see this cat and I feel happy."

***

Shannon Maureen Conley, 19, a nurse's aide from suburban Denver, was arrested in April as she boarded a flight at Denver International Airport. It was to be the first leg of a journey to Syria, where she wanted to fight with jihadis. She believed it as her only answer to correcting what she saw were wrongs perpetrated against the Muslim world.

The Muslim convert told FBI agents that she wanted to marry an online suitor from Tunisia who said he was fighting with the extremists. She wanted to use her American military training from the U.S. Army Explorers to fight or be a nurse at the man's camp.

FBI agents became aware of Conley's growing interest in extremism in November 2013 after she started talking about terrorism with employees of a suburban Denver church. They had seen her wandering around and taking notes on the layout of the campus, according to court documents.

Her lawyer, Robert Pepin, said she was misled while exploring her faith.

Conley pleaded guilty this month to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. She is to be sentenced in January.

***

Mufid Elfgeeh, a 30-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen in Rochester, New York, was arrested in May after he bought two handguns and a pair of silencers that federal officials said he planned to use to kill U.S. veterans of the Iraq fighting and Shiites living in the Rochester area.

On Thursday, Elfgeeh, a Sunni Muslim who was born in Yemen, pleaded innocent to new federal charges that he tried to aid the Islamic State group. Court papers say the food mart owner tried to arrange for three individuals to travel to Syria to join Islamic State fighters.

He said he was thinking about doing something in New York to avenge the U.S. "killing machine."

Elfgeeh told an FBI informant in December 2013: "I'm thinking ... just go buy a big automatic gun from off the street or something and a lot of bullets and just put on a (bulletproof) vest or whatever and just go around and start shooting."

He once tweeted: "al-Qaida said it loud and clear: We are fighting the American invasion and their hegemony over the earth and the people."

***

They both were converts to Islam, and both ended up dead on extremists' battlefields halfway around the world.

Each had tattoos on the right side of their necks, marks that helped identify them once they were killed.

Troy Kastigar, 28, went first, leaving Minneapolis in November 2008. He had become friends with another man who was getting ready to join the al-Shabab terrorist group in Somalia. A year later he was killed there while fighting African Union troops sent to back the transitional government in Somalia.

"If you guys only knew how much fun we have over here -- this is the real Disneyland," Kastigar said in a 40-minute video released by al-Shabab that also showed his shrouded corpse.

His basketball buddy, Douglas McAuthur McCain, 33, of suburban Minneapolis followed him into the terrorism fight, ending up in Turkey, a frequent entry point to Syria. He was killed this year in Syria fighting with Islamic State.

McCain, who last lived in San Diego, once said in a Twitter feed that embracing Islam was the best thing he'd ever done. He was following Islamic State fighters on Twitter, but it's unclear what prompted them to join the fight.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=20263

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Massachusetts

Public Safety Neighborhood Walk With Boston Police

by Matt Conti

A late night public safety neighborhood walk around was held on Thursday night into early Friday morning, led by Boston Police District A-1 Captain Kenneth Fong and Neighborhood Council Public Safety Committee Chair David Marx. Also joining the walk were Sergeant James Chin, Officer Jenna Cullity and Officer Teddy Boyle as well as North End Neighborhood Services Liaison, Nicole Leo, from City Hall. As shown in the above photo, the group met up with the other BPD officers patrolling with the Suffolk University response car.

“We are trying to get out and meet as many residents and business owners as part of these walks, in addition to the regular meetings,” said Captain Fong. The Captain and Sergeant Chin are relatively new to managing District A-1 having taking over in Spring 2014. District A-1 includes the North End / Waterfront as well as Bay Village, Beacon Hill, Chinatown, Financial District, Leather District, West End, Wharf District and Charlestown.

Other than a few inebriated pedestrians, the night itself was relatively quiet. Police stopped at several late night gathering places including Caffe Pompei, Bricco, Artu, Bova's as well as around the Prado (Paul Revere Mall) and Gassy (DeFilippo Playground). Captain Fong noted that the North End is one of the few Boston neighborhoods with an assigned officer walking the streets in the overnight hours.

BPD management are emphasizing arrests which are up significantly in District A-1. The strategy shift is an effort to bring more suspects to the station and proactively prevent crime incidents. In addition to identifying those potentially involved with drugs or break-ins, the group also discussed recent enforcement of after hours trespassing in the Gassy and Columbus Park.

Getting a jump on City Hall's “walk every street” audit, Nicole Leo from the Office of Neighborhood Services investigated several lighting issues. If you know of street lights that are out or need repair, please contact Nicole at nicole.leo@boston.gov or by phone at 617-635-4987.

Another late night walk is expected to be scheduled on a Friday or Saturday night this Fall. In addition, the North End Public Safety meeting is open to the public on the first Thursday of the month, 6:30 p.m. at the Nazzaro Center, 30 N. Bennet Street. (See the Events Calendar for specific dates.)

Emergencies and timely issues should be reported to 911. For college student and loud party issues, residents can call the loud party hotline at 617-549-7503. For ongoing issues, the Boston Police District A-1 Community Service Office can be reached at 617-343-4627.

http://northendwaterfront.com/2014/09/public-safety-neighborhood-walk-with-boston-police/

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Washington

Secret Service investigates after man jumps White House fence, reaches front door

by Reuters

A man jumped over the White House fence and made it to the front doors of the executive mansion before being apprehended on Friday, sparking an evacuation within the complex shortly after President Barack Obama departed for the weekend.

Omar J. Gonzales, a 42-year-old white male from Texas, made it onto the grounds at 7:20 EDT, a U.S. Secret Service spokesman said. Gonzales ignored commands to stop and was ultimately caught, unarmed, just inside the North Portico doors of the White House, one of the building's main entrances.

The intruder's ability to get so far on the grounds before being apprehended is very unusual for a complex that is heavily guarded by Secret Service officers and snipers. He was arrested and taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation.

"The Secret Service will review the response to ensure that the proper protocol was followed,” spokesman Ed Donovan said.

Donovan said the fact that Gonzales had made it to the doors was "not acceptable to us and it's going to be closely reviewed."

Obama and his daughters had left the White House earlier, departing on the Marine One helicopter for Camp David, the presidential retreat in nearby Maryland.

First lady Michelle Obama was also not at home, having traveled to the retreat earlier, a spokeswoman said.

Armed Secret Service officers raced through the West Wing area of the White House during the intrusion and ordered journalists and staff members to evacuate.

Media and staff members were allowed back in some time later but a partial lockdown of the northwest side of the building remained in place for a few hours.

Video showed the intruder running across the White House lawn toward the president's residence.

The incident is the latest in a series of recent cases in which members of the public have made it over or though the White House gates, leading to lockdowns.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-white-house-being-evacuated-20140919-story.html

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Illinois

Gang members killed 9-year-old boy they thought was warning rivals

Gang members looking for their rivals shot and killed a 9-year-old boy because he yelled after seeing they had a gun, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said Friday.

At Chicago Police Department Headquarters, McCarthy said the shooting of Antonio Smith could have been prevented. He also said documented gang member Derrick Allmon pulled the trigger killing Smith.

“The shooter in this case, Derrick Allmon, was arrested for a firearm in 2012, plead guilty in March of 2013 and was sentenced to three and a half years in prison, yet was released on parole in August of 2013 and went out and committed this murder,” said McCarthy.

Police said Allmon shot the child after detectives say the young boy alerted rival gang members that Allmon was nearby and armed.

McCarthy described the exchange, saying Williams handed the gun to Allmon and told him to shoot.

“Believing that Antonio Smith was yelling a warning to his intended victims, Allmon shot Antonio Smith multiple times wounding him fatally,” said McCarthy.

They were four to 10 feet away from Smith when the fatal shots were fired, McCarthy said.

Allmon had just gotten out of jail in August after serving 18 months on a weapons charge.

“This didn't have to happen,” McCarthy said.

Smith is gone, but the outrage remains.

On Friday afternoon, all four were charged with first degree murder.

“We won't recover from this,” said Smith's father Kawada Hodges the day after Smith was killed.

“He was a good kid, he was a mama's boy,” said Smith's mother, Brandi Murry.

Now, more than four weeks later over the phone, Smith's mother told FOX 32's Tisha Lewis that Friday was an emotional day but provided some sense of closure while sparking more questions.

“The same firearm that was used to murder Antonio Smith was used in two other additional shootings so far this year, one of them being a murder,” said McCarthy.

“These individuals should have been in custody the night of this shooting or the next day. This shouldn't have went this long but my hat goes off to the Chicago Police Department who worked the streets,” said Andrew Holmes.

FOX 32's Tisha Lewis reports Superintendent McCarthy said Chicago's murder problem is a gun problem, and the gun used in Smith's shooting originated in Indiana. McCarthy said Allmon should have never been on the streets.

McCarthy credited the community for coming forward to help identify the shooters. The gang members were well-known in the neighborhood, he said.

The gun used to kill Antonio was found Thursday in nearby sewer, McCarthy said.

Williams was also charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon without a FOID card.

McCarthy credited the community for coming forward to help identify the shooters. The gang members were well-known in the neighborhood, he said.

The gun used to kill Antonio was found Thursday in nearby sewer, McCarthy said.

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/26579465/three-suspects-questioned-in-shooting-death-of-9-year-old-boy?clienttype=mobile

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Pennsylvania

Chambersburg's mayor wants to bring back community policing

by Jim Hook

CHAMBERSBURG -- Chambersburg Mayor Darren Brown has announced a plan that would put police officers on borough streets more often.

Brown wants to re-establish the police substation in the south end of the borough, possibly at Southgate, and reactivate the department's drug investigation team.

"Working hand-in-hand with the public is the foundation of this plan," Brown said.

The initial reaction from downtown business community has been positive.

Brown's announcement on Friday follows recent action by borough council to defund the police department's tactical and hostage negotiation team, a SWAT-like operation that failed to catch on with other local municipalities.

Brown set four priorities for the community police program:

— Reestablish the Crime Impact Team, which is primarily responsible for conducting drug investigations within the borough.

— Increase part-time foot patrols.

— Have police officers teach programs in schools.

— Have police officers attend community events to connect with the public.

"None of them are actually new because they have all been done, to some extent, in the past by this department," Brown said. "The difference is that they will all be enacted together as a unified community outreach. They will act as the four points of a compass."

Specific expenses have not been determined so the mayor is not sure exactly how much the program will cost. Discussions on the 2015 budget will begin soon.

The mayor oversees the police department, and council controls the purse strings.

A police substation operated for 14 years in the southwest section of Chambersburg. Council paid $100 a month or less to rent a storefront during the life of the program. It was abandoned in 2009, about a year after David Arnold was hired as chief.

The police substation was most recently located in the Southgate Shopping Center. At the time of the lease renewal, a beauty shop wanted the space that the Crime Impact Team was renting, Brown said. The borough and landlord were not able to come to terms. The borough opted to improve a newly acquired house next door to town hall as a Police Annex for the offices of the Crime Impact Team.

The Crime Impact Team, whose primary job is investigating drug dealing, was deactivated about a year and a half ago because of a lack of manpower, Brown said. One officer was assigned to the Franklin County Drug Task Force. Several other officers resigned at the same time.

A Crime Impact Team of two members was established in 1995 with a federal grant. The team grew to five members — three detectives and two bicycle officers before it was disbanded.

"If we can continue to hire in advance of officers retiring, the chief of police and I hope to re-establish the team sometime in 2015," Brown said.

Some council members have clamored for months to increase community policing.

Chambersburg police work about 50,000 hours a year, and 111 of the hours are identified as "community policing," according to Councilman Tom Newcomer.

More than 20 people in a recent Downtown Chambersburg survey indicated they did not feel safe downtown.

"People have a false idea that it's unsafe downtown," said Lisa Myers, owner of Merle Norman. "Maybe if there were more visible patrols people would feel safer. I think that would be a positive."

"We like it when we see foot patrols and bicycle patrols," said Andy Gartenberg, owner of Gartenberg Jewelry. "It makes people feel safe, and we want people to feel safe and come downtown. We've always tried to get more foot patrols."

Brown said he hopes to make the police department "an integral part of this community with familiar interaction among the public. In essence, it is the concept of winning hearts and minds."

"I think the Chambersburg Police Department does an excellent job with outreach to the community," said Jack Jones, manager of the borough's revitalization Elm Street Program. "I think it's an excellent idea to allow the police to interface with the community."

Community policing is about police establishing relationships with citizens, Brown said. Together they reduce crime. Officers try to assist citizens with safety tips and neighborhood problem-solving techniques.

Brown said he developed the framework for his plan after talking with police officers, Chief Arnold, borough council and Borough Manager Jeffrey Stonehill.

"The success of this new approach will be gauged by a combination of factors such as crime statistics and arrests," Brown said. "However, the primary gauge will be with the citizens of Chambersburg. As we continue to meet with them in neighborhood watch meetings and as our officers talk to them on the street, we will be able to paint a more detailed picture of the activity throughout town."

http://www.publicopiniononline.com/local/ci_26569640/chambersburgs-mayor-wants-bring-back-community-policing

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Justice Department aims to rebuild trust in police with community engagement initiative

from PBS

When Ferguson, Missouri, erupted after the police-involved shooting of an unarmed black teenager, the rift between the town and its protectors was laid bare. Ferguson is not the only community forced to bridge that chasm.

Today, the Justice Department announced a nearly $5 million plan, the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice, designed to better train police departments against bias and examine law enforcement procedures. The approach is known as community policing.

We are joined by two people who have studied it for years.

Tracie Keesee is the co-founder of the UCLA Center for Policing Equity, which is receiving some of the Justice Department funding. She's also a 25-year police veteran. And Ronald Hampton, former executive director of the National Black Police Association and for more than two decades a community relations office for the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. He now teaches criminal justice at the University of the District of Columbia.

Welcome to you both.

Tracie Keesee, today, the attorney general said that the goal of this new initiative is to ensure fairness, eliminate bias and build community engagement. You were there today at that announcement. Maybe you can tell us what exactly that means.

TRACIE KEESEE , Center for Policing Equity: Well, what it means is that the consortium that they have put together under the initiative, under the initiative, will look at and work with five different cities to actually enact and evaluate those five things that he's pointed out.

GWEN IFILL: What is — but for a lot of people who are thinking about their own towns and their own neighborhoods, what does that mean? Does that trickle down in any way, or is it only targeted to places where they have been problems?

TRACIE KEESEE: Well, it's not targeted to just places that have problems. So, it will be a voluntary call for folks who want to actually participate.

And so what this means for us is that most police chiefs will be progressive in saying, we want to get ahead what we think is going on or we just want to be progressive. So, this is not punitive in any way. And I don't want it to come off that way, that somehow this consortium of folks is going to come into a problem area.

It's actually there as a resource to help police officers and police departments to look at those issues of biased policing and legitimacy.

GWEN IFILL: Ronald Hampton, why is that important, and why shouldn't police departments be a little bit defensive about the idea that the federal government sees that they are a problem that needs fixing?

RONALD HAMPTON , Former Executive Director, National Black Police Association: Well, primarily, the federal government is an enormous resource for police departments.

And community policing is a strategy that has several components to it. First, it's supposed to be a community-based strategy, one that gets the community and residents involved in developing strategies for public safety. Number two is, is that it's collaborative. Not only are citizens and neighborhoods going to be involved in that, but there are going to be other partners that's also going to be working with them to develop strategies around public safety.

And then, thirdly, it's about changing the police department, not only on the outside in terms of what it does every day and how it does it, but, more importantly, it's about changing the police department to facilitate what it does on the outside.

An example — one of the quickest examples would be that a police department, a traditional police department measures performance by, say, tickets and number of arrests and all of that. Well, in the community policing model, tickets and the number of arrests don't necessarily mean that a community and the people who live there feel safe.

So it's a more comprehensive approach to developing public safety strategies.

GWEN IFILL: The attorney general, Tracie Keesee, also spoke to this idea of mistrust. I'm not quite certain how $5 million from the federal government speaks to that issue.

TRACIE KEESEE: Well, it speaks through the initiatives that we will be implementing in the different areas.

And so it's about building community trust. In some cases, it's rebuilding community trust. And as Ron said, this is about, how do you measure that? How do you know when a community feels safe? And that's really what this is about, is what initiatives are in place or should be implemented where the community, it not only feels safe, but it trusts the enforcement that's happening in their community.

GWEN IFILL: Well, how do you measure that? It sounds awfully hard.

TRACIE KEESEE: Well, and that's — absolutely. And that's one of the reasons why we have the consortium of researchers that we have and the partnership between the community and law enforcement to begin to ask those questions. How do we know when there's trust, mistrust, or how do we know when we have built that partnership? So…

GWEN IFILL: Ronald Hampton, is this a new idea? Is this a new approach, or is it just something that's being reapplied again because of the latest incidents?

RONALD HAMPTON: Well, it's not new. Police departments for some time, those that are really serious about doing community policing and have really dug down deep to challenge the culture and the institutional nature of policing, have begun to change in terms of how they measure performance, have changed how they measure customer satisfaction.

In order to measure customer satisfaction, you have to ask the customer. If you ask the police officer, is policing doing what it's supposed to do, of course they're going to say yes, because they're doing it every day. But the real customer, the citizen, the person who lives in the community, the businessperson on the corner, they're the person who actually has to be asked and be a part of the evaluation about whether or not the public safety strategy is being used.

And that is not always the case, but, in community policing, that must be a part of it, because, at the end of the day, it's the customer who rates and has to be satisfied with what public safety looks like in their neighborhood. And that could be different demanding on the neighborhood, the city, as well as the state.

GWEN IFILL: Tracie Keesee, it is possible — take a step back from our noses to the glass, I suppose — is it possible to heal a fracture after the fact in this kind of case, in which there are so many preconceptions and there's so much defensiveness and basic misunderstanding?

TRACIE KEESEE: Well, I think that's going to take time.

And I think that it is possible to heal. And that's how you build that trust. The problem is, is, once you spend the resources, not just with the community and the police department, to make and build that trust, the question is how quickly it can erupt and break again.

So, for me, building that resiliency on the ground to make sure, when things happen, that trust is not completely broken — but can it be healed? It can be healed, but it takes time. This is something that doesn't happen overnight.

GWEN IFILL: Ron Hampton, there are 18,000 police departments across this country.

RONALD HAMPTON: Right.

GWEN IFILL: Is there a consistent way of being able to start this process, or is it something that is going to be ground-up and addressed in each individual place?

RONALD HAMPTON: Well, it's going to be — some of it is going to be ground-up, because the police departments are going to have to reach out to the very people that they serve every day to talk to them about, how do we build that relationship? Who are the collaborative partners that should be involved in that process in order for — to make it work?

And there are some examples. I mean, I have been around for an awful long time, and in my day of policing, I have seen — I remember in Philadelphia when Willie Williams was there, and they used community policing and the mini-city hall approach, where they decentralized the police department.

But they also decentralized government, and they had government representatives in the little city halls. They did it in Newport News. They sort of came up with a community — a community governance process, where government again was decentralized, because not every public safety issue is, foundationally, public safety. There are a whole lot of other factors that come into play in terms of the kind of things that are going on in our society, whether it's social justice, economic issues, housing.

All of those issues come into play. And if a police department is going to be serious about doing community policing, then they have to be serious about also what they can affect, what they can't, and who their partners are going to be when it comes time to work on those issues, because problem solving is a part of community policing.

GWEN IFILL: Sounds like biting off an awfully big chunk, but perhaps that's where you start.

Tracie Keesee, Ronald Hampton, thank you very much.

TRACIE KEESEE: Thank you.

RONALD HAMPTON: Thank you.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/justice-department-aims-rebuild-trust-police-community-engagement-initiative/

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California

How not to shoot civilians

9 community policing tips from a chief who got it right

by Dara Lind

On September 18th, the Justice Department rolled out a new federal program designed to help local law enforcement rebuild their relationships with the communities they police. The killing of several unarmed civilians by police this summer, and the use of military gear to put down protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after one of those killings, have made it clear that in many parts of America that relationship is broken. Furthermore, there's a deeper cultural divide between police and the public: police are allowed to use force, including deadly force, much more often than the public thinks they ought to be, and officers want to use force even more often than they're allowed to.

What can local cops do to fix this? They might want to look at Richmond, California. Richmond is a Bay Area town of 107,000 people; when we spoke to the police chief there, Chris Magnus, cops hadn't killed a civilian in five years. (A Richmond police officer fatally shot a civilian on September 14th)

Magnus cautions that "policing is local," and that what works for his department might not be appropriate for others. But here are some lessons he's learned about leading a department that doesn't use force as a first resort. The Justice Department might want to print out some copies.

1) Don't recruit cops by promising violence and adventure

"You have to be thinking, as a police administrator, about what kind of folks you want to attract to your department, and how you do that. You look at some departments' recruiting materials, and you see guys jumping out of trucks in SWAT gear and people armed with every imaginable weapon. There are clearly situations where that is a necessary and appropriate part of police work. But having said that, that is by far and away not the norm.

"My goal is to look for people who want to work in my community, not because it's a place where they think they're going to be dealing with a lot of violence and hot chases and armed individuals and excitement and an episode of Cops or something. I want them tactically capable to handle situations like that, but I want them to be here because they're interested in building a partnership with the community. They're not afraid to have a relationship with the residents that they serve, in terms of getting out of the car and talking to people. Those are messages that have to be sent early on, before people even get hired."

2) Train officers not just in what they can do, but in how to make good decisions

"It's important that officers have training that involves more than just being proficient in the use of a firearm. Obviously that's something they need to be able to do, but a big part of our training around use of force, specifically with use of firearms, is training in decision-making under stress. How and when do you consider the use of deadly force? What are the other options that were available to you?

"There are still a lot of police academies in this country, whether they're through police agencies, colleges, or other institutions, that are probably not as far along as they should be in some of these areas. As a field, we can do better."

3) Give cops extra training in interacting with mentally-ill people — and teenagers

"We've done quite a bit of training, with our school resource officers and our juvenile detectives, about some of the better ways to communicate with youth — what approaches might be most appropriate if you have to use force. Some of that's really about brain development, and we're learning that young people really do respond differently than adults do."

"We do a lot of training dealing with the mentally ill. We have officers on all of our shifts who have gotten even more detailed and involved training — crisis intervention training — dealing specifically with mentally-ill individuals. That covers understanding what the signs are that someone may be in a mental-health crisis, understanding about medications and the impact of those medicines that a lot of folks might be on, understanding what happens when they're not taking their medication, and getting better knowledge on how to interact or engage with people who are in crisis."

4) Training doesn't stop when you get out on the street

"Our officers go through what is anywhere between six and eight months of additional training once they hit the streets. That involves being teamed up with other officers who are trained as trainers, and who provide them with ongoing and regular evaluation about what they're doing and help them learn from their mistakes in a more controlled setting."

5) Remember that you can kill someone with a Taser

"Part of the problem with Tasers out in the community is, perhaps, this particular piece of law enforcement equipment has been misrepresented to suggest that it always can guarantee a good, less-than-lethal outcome. And that's not true. People have complicated health histories which you can't possibly know, most of the time, when you're dealing with them. There may be a lot of circumstances that complicate the use of a Taser that you couldn't know in advance.

"The vast majority of our Taser use involves displaying it and informing the suspect that resisting arrest will result in them being tased. In other words, we don't even necessarily deploy it. And that's enough, most of the time."

6) Be proactive in addressing officers who use a lot of force — before they become a problem

"We have a database in which we track each officer's history in terms of how they use force. If we see an officer who seems to be using force more than somebody else, we take a more careful look at that. That doesn't always mean that the officer is doing something wrong or that they're just predisposed to use force. It might have to do with the area that they're working, the incidents they've been dealing with. But it still never hurts that we look more carefully and try to be as proactive as possible in addressing a situation before it becomes, potentially, a problem."

7) Don't be afraid to fire someone who's not cut out to be a police officer

"It's hard when you've invested as much as a year or more into training somebody. But there are clearly some folks who can't multitask, they can't make good decisions under stress, they're not effective communicators. For whatever reasons, they're not cut out to be police officers. Part of the challenge of a professional police department is to make sure those folks are separated from service early on. So you have to be willing to do that — and to have the local political support within your city to do that."

8) When force really is needed, a little community trust goes a long way

"The use of force is something that, when people see it, they're horrified by it. Even though it may be completely legitimate and appropriate in a larger scheme, it's not easy to watch, and it's even more difficult to have to be part of.

"You have to have an underlying relationship with the community so that there's a level of trust and understanding and people are willing to hear you out about why force was used in a set of circumstances. And the community can trust that when mistakes are made — which sometimes happens — your department's going to learn from them so they're not repeated."

9) Police departments can't do sufficient training without resources

"It's totally appropriate and important that we have this national conversation about use of force. But I hope along with that is a commitment to the idea that it takes resources and financial support to do this kind of training. A lot of departments don't even have the personnel that they need to handle many of these situations. They certainly don't have the resources to commit to that type of training and equipment. So then you have cops that are really left with a knowledge gap and a resource gap. And I've worked in some smaller departments, where I've seen that it's very tough."

CORRECTION: This article originally said that the Richmond Police Department hadn't had any civilian deaths in officer-involved shootings. On September 14th, after this interview was conducted but before the article was published, a Richmond police officer fatally shot a civilian. The article has been corrected to reflect this event.

http://www.vox.com/2014/9/18/6111457/example-good-police-relations-cops-killing-outreach-culture-training

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California

School district police stock up free military gear

by TAMI ABDOLLAH

LOS ANGELES (AP) — School police departments across the country have taken advantage of free military surplus gear, stocking up on mine resistant armored vehicles, grenade launchers and scores of M16 rifles.

At least 26 school districts have participated in the Pentagon's surplus program, which is not new but has come under scrutiny after police responded to protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, last month with tear gas, armored military trucks and riot gear.

Now, amid that increased criticism, several school districts say they'll give some of the equipment back, while others plan to keep the rifles they received. Nearly two dozen education and civil liberties groups sent a letter earlier this week to the Pentagon and the Justice and Education departments urging a stop to transfers of military weapons to school police.

The Los Angeles Unified School District — the nation's second largest school district covering 710 square miles and enrolling more than 900,000 students — said it would remove three grenade launchers it had acquired because they "are not essential life-saving items within the scope, duties and mission" of the district's police force.

But the district plans to keep the 60 M16s and a military vehicle — known as an MRAP — used in Iraq and Afghanistan that was built to withstand mine blasts.

District police Chief Steve Zipperman told The Associated Press that the M16s are used for training, and the MRAP, which is parked off campus, was acquired because the district could not afford to buy armored vehicles that might be used to protect officers and help students in a school shooting.

"That vehicle is used in very extraordinary circumstances involving a life-saving situation for an armed threat," Zipperman said. "Quite frankly I hope we never have to deploy it."

Law enforcement agencies around the country equipped themselves during learner budget years by turning to the Pentagon program, which the Defense Department has used to get rid of gear it no longer needs. Since the Columbine school shooting in 1999, school districts increasingly participated.

Federal records show schools in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, Texas and Utah obtained surplus military gear. At least six California districts have received equipment, state records show.

U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said while there's a role for surplus equipment going to local police departments, "it's difficult to see what scenario would require a grenade launcher or a mine resistant vehicle for a school police department."

In Texas, Tina Veal-Gooch, executive director of public relations at Texarkana ISD, said the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, led the district to acquire assault rifles. The district has no plans to return the weapons.

In Florida, Rick Stelljes, the chief of Pinellas County schools police, said Wednesday that the county has 28 semi-automatic M16 rifles. They have never been used, and he hopes they are never needed.

But, he said, they are "something we need given the current situation we face in our nation. This is about preparing for the worst-case scenario."

School officials in Utah's Granite School District and Nevada's Washoe County School District, encompassing Reno, also said they don't have any immediate plans to give back the M16s they received.

San Diego Unified School District is painting its MRAP white and hoping to use the Red Cross symbol on it to assuage community worries, said Ursula Kroemer, a district spokeswoman. The MRAP has been stripped of weapon mounts and turrets and will be outfitted with medical supplies and teddy bears for use in emergencies to evacuate students and staff, she said.

Jill Poe, police chief in the Southern California's Baldwin Park school district, said she'll be returning the three M16 rifles acquired under her predecessor.

"Honestly, I could not tell you why we acquired those," Poe said. "They have never been used in the field and they will never been used in the field."

http://news.msn.com/us/school-district-police-stock-up-free-military-gear

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California

Ezell Ford family files federal suit against LAPD

by The Associated Press

The family of a black man killed last month by the Los Angeles Police Department has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the department and the two officers who shot him.

Lawyers for Ezell Ford's family filed the suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court. They also filed a $75 million claim — a precursor to a state lawsuit — against the city.

The 25-year-old was unarmed when police confronted him Aug. 11 on a street near his home in South Los Angeles. Officers said they shot him as he tried to grab a gun during a struggle.

Family members say Ford was mentally ill and was harmless. A friend has said she witnessed the confrontation and didn't see Ford struggle.

The killing inspired several protests in the city. In one demonstration, organized by BAMN (By Any Means Necessary), about 50 people gathered to chant slogans such as “No Justice, No Peace” and calling for police to release the names of the officers involved.

http://www.dailybreeze.com/general-news/20140917/ezell-ford-family-files-federal-suit-against-lapd

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Massachusetts

Public Figures Reflect on Policing, Media during Ferguson Unrest

by Ivan B. K. Levingston

In the wake of the conflict in Ferguson, Mo. this summer, police departments need to work even harder to build trust with their local communities, panelists at a John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum event said Wednesday.

The event, entitled “Reflections on Ferguson,” was moderated by Law School professor Charles J. Ogletree and featured panelists who included a former police chief, a current mayor, a reverend, and a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist.

One panelist, Lee P. Brown, a former mayor of Houston and NYPD commissioner known as the “father of community policing,” said that the initial response from the local law enforcement reminded him of police actions during the 1960s.

“I'm convinced that if Ferguson's police department had adopted community policing as their dominant style...the recent events would not have occurred,” Brown said. “First, the officer would have known Michael Brown.... Second, if a shooting did take place, the people would not have immediately assumed that the police were wrong.”

Speaking via Skype from her office, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake echoed Brown's concerns regarding both the militarization and lack of trust between the Ferguson community and police department.

“There is a time and place for military equipment and that is in response to a terrorist threat or after a natural disaster.... We don't ever think about using the equipment we have against our own citizens, certainly not because they were exercising their first amendment rights,” Rawlings-Blake said.

The conversation also focused on the media coverage as events unfolded.

“The media of course are always well deserving of bashing for a variety of things.... There was of course sensationalism...and people reporting erroneously,” said Alex S. Jones, the director of the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics, and Public Policy.

Jones compared the media reaction in Ferguson to that of reporters who covered the civil rights movement during the 1960s, highlighting how television was crucial in bringing shocking images of police militarization to the attention of the rest of the country.

“The media did a great service to us all by making those images something so vivid, they were vivid because that's what was happening,” Jones said. “The media has been successful at putting that issue [of police militarization] on the national agenda and that is part of the service that media in its imperfect way, can do.”

Reverend Ray Hammond '71 added that the incident has implications that reach far beyond Ferguson and urged everyone to take a closer look at the issue of race relations in community policing.

“Community partnerships have to be built before the crisis,” Hammond said. “This isn't law enforcement's job alone. I, you, all of us must be honest brokers between generations and across institutions.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/18/ferguson-panel-media-policing/

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Florida

Obama meets generals planning IS assault

by JIM KUHNHENN

Tampa -- Underscoring the multi-front challenges facing his administration, President Barack Obama is consulting with military officials about the US counterterrorism campaign against Islamic State fighters, just a day after boosting the US response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Obama is spending two days away from Washington to meet with the generals and the scientists charged with carrying out missions against two distinct national security threats, both of which are costing lives and threatening regional stability.

On Wednesday, Obama plans to visit US Central Command in Tampa, which oversees US military efforts in the Middle East.

The visit comes at a sensitive time in the planning against Islamic State militants, with a number of Western and Arab allies struggling to determine how to assist in the fight.

The president is then returning to the capital for a meeting on Thursday with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, drawing attention to tensions with Russia in yet another foreign caldron.

In three high-profile days, Obama is seeking to display resolve amid lingering questions about how quickly he has responded to crises and whether his deliberative approach has allowed military, diplomatic and public health hot spots to flare up.

Wednesday's appearance at Central Command came as Congress, in rare accelerated fashion, prepared to vote on Obama's request for authority to equip and train Syrian opposition fighters whom the administration deems as moderates in the Syrian civil war. Obama, determined not to deploy US combat troops against Islamic State fighters, wants to use US military airstrikes to weaken the extremists and rely on Iraqi and Kurdish forces and the Syrian opposition to carry out the fight on the ground.

The nation's top military official, Army General Martin Dempsey, introduced a qualification to Obama's plan, telling Congress on Tuesday that if it became necessary for US military advisers to accompany Iraqi troops into combat he might “go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of ground forces.”

Dempsey stressed that he didn't believe such a step was necessary now.

The White House, however, remained firm about Obama's view.

“What he's been very specific and precise about is that he will not deploy ground troops in a combat role into Iraq or Syria,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in response to Dempsey's comments.

In Tampa, Obama planned to meet with General Lloyd Austin, who will oversee the military campaign against the Islamic State group as the head of Central Command, and other military officers to discuss operational details about the mission.

He also planned to meet with representatives from the countries that fall within the responsibility of the Central Command to highlight his desire for an international coalition to take on the fight.

Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel was expected to join Obama, who was scheduled to make public remarks following his consultations.

While one is distinctly military and the other medical, Obama's challenges in the Middle East and in Africa bear certain uncanny similarities. In both instances he has been accused of being slow to recognise a threat, and now he is responding with ramped-up efforts in both cases. He also has been pressured to offer reassurances that the primary threat rests in the Middle East and in Africa and that the risks from the militants and the virus to the United States are low.

Still, he has described the danger both present in stark terms.

Islamic State fighters are “unique in their brutality,” he said last week as he made references to slayings of prisoners, enslavement and rape of women and the beheadings of two American journalists.

Likewise, Ebola, he declared, is now an epidemic “of the likes that we have not seen before.”

“It's spiralling out of control. It is getting worse. It's spreading faster and exponentially,” he said.

In both cases he has issued a call for international action, warning that the threat of regional instability could spread.

To confront the Islamic State group, Obama has said he is relying on the US's military, its diplomats and its allies.

With Ebola on Tuesday, he had his national security team alongside top officials from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Declaring a “national security priority,” he said: “We're working this across our entire government, which is why today I'm joined by leaders throughout my administration, including from my national security team.”

It was about the fight against Ebola, but it could have been the Islamic State threat just as well.

http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/obama-meets-generals-planning-is-assault-1.1752257#.VBl6rs90ypo

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U.S. General Opens Door to Embed Troops in Islamic State

by Tony Capaccio

Reaction was swift to the Pentagon's top officer's testimony to Congress yesterday that he would support sending U.S. advisers to accompany Iraqi troops into battle against Islamic State if necessary.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “was referring to a hypothetical scenario” and the president does not believe “it would be in the best interest” of the U.S. in fighting the Islamic group. The comments came after Dempsey told a Senate committee that U.S. personnel would help Iraqi forces with planning, logistics and coordination as part of the campaign against Islamic State.

“If we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraq troops on attacks against specific ISIL targets, I'll recommend that to” President Barack Obama, Dempsey said in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Dempsey told lawmakers Iraqi forces are “doing fine” for now and don't need help in the field from U.S. advisers.

The Islamic State militant group yesterday released a 52-second video after Dempsey's testimony warning that its fighters await U.S. troops in Iraq if sent as the general suggested, the Associated Press reports. The video titled “Flames of War” shows footage of wounded American soldiers and militants blowing up tanks and includes text that says “fighting has just begun.”

Dempsey's remarks raised questions about whether U.S. ground combat forces eventually could be used against Islamic State -- something Obama said would not happen in his Sept. 10 address to the nation outlining his strategy for fighting the extremists. He spoke as Congress considers whether to pass a measure granting Obama's request to arm and equip Syrian opposition groups.

‘Case-by-Case'

As an example, Dempsey told lawmakers that he might recommend an expanded role for U.S. advisers assisting an Iraqi army counterattack to retake Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, which was captured by Islamic State this year. He said Obama has told him to come back on a “case-by-case basis” with questions about using American personnel.

In a statement later, Dempsey's spokesman, Air Force Colonel Ed Thomas, said such advisers might include “Terminal Air Controllers calling in airstrikes for Iraqi forces. The context of this discussion was focused on how our forces advise the Iraqis and was not a discussion of employing U.S. ground combat units in Iraq.”

Hypothetical Scenario

In response to Dempsey's remarks, Earnest said the general “was referring to a hypothetical scenario in which there might be a future situation in which he might make a tactical recommendation to the president as it relates to the use of ground troops.”

“The president does not believe that it would be in the best interest” of our national security to deploy ground troops in Syria, Earnest said while briefing reporters yesterday aboard Air Force One en route to Atlanta. “What the president has been very clear about is the role of American forces in Iraq,” where a “limited” number have served in an advisory capacity.

Obama will be briefed today on U.S. Central Command plans for airstrikes on selected Islamic State targets in Syria, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the panel. Earlier yesterday, the president met at the White House with retired Marine Corps General John Allen, who's leading U.S. efforts to build a global coalition against Islamic State.

‘Targeted Actions'

“This plan includes targeted actions” against Islamic State positions, including “command and control, logistics capabilities and infrastructure,” Hagel said. “General Dempsey and I have both reviewed and approved” the plan.

During his testimony, Dempsey emphasized that U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria won't be a repeat of the 2003 Iraq War's opening attacks, which were dubbed “shock and awe.”

Strikes of the size and scope executed against Iraqi forces and installations in March 2003 won't be done because “that is not how” Islamic State is organized, Dempsey said. “But it will be persistent and sustainable,” he said.

U.S. fighter aircraft conducted airstrikes yesterday against Islamic State forces in Iraq southwest of Baghdad and northwest of Erbil, according to a statement from Central Command. Those bring the total of American airstrikes in Iraq against the extremists to 167, according to Central Command.

Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh told reporters yesterday that the Air Force since missions were launched in August has flown 1,000 tanker sorties and 500 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance flights.

Last week, Obama announced that he would deploy an additional 475 U.S. troops to Iraq to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces. By the time they arrive, Hagel said, there will be about 1,600 U.S. personnel in Iraq responding to the Islamic State threat.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-09-17/u-dot-s-dot-general-opens-door-to-embed-troops-in-islamic-state

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Virginia

Police in Virginia investigating 1975 abduction of 2 young sisters from Maryland

by The Associated Press

Law enforcement officials say investigators are searching near Lynchburg, Virginia, in connection with the unsolved 1975 abduction of two young sisters from Maryland.

The Bedford County Sheriff's Office in Bedford, Virginia, said in a statement posted late Tuesday on its website that the office was investigating the kidnapping of 10-year-old Katherine Lyon and 12-year-old Sheila Lyon from Wheaton, Maryland.

The news release said Bedford law enforcers were investigating along with Montgomery County Police in Maryland, Virginia State Police and the Bedford County Commonwealth's Attorney's Office.

The release said recent developments had led authorities to the Taylor Mountain area of Virginia's Bedford County.

In February, Montgomery County Police said they had identified a convicted child sex offender in a Delaware prison as a person of interest in the case.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/09/16/police-in-virginia-investigating-175-abduction-2-young-sisters-from-maryland/

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Wisconsin

La Crosse Police say community policing is helping reduce crime

Rate of major crimes has dropped more than 20%

by Mark McPherson

LA CROSSE -- The day La Crosse Police Chief Ron Tischer was sworn in, he said one of his top priorities was community policing.

He believed getting the community involved would help reduce crime, and a new report shows he might be right.

The report by the La Crosse P.D. shows major crimes dropped 20% last year. It also shows more people in the community are calling the police for help.

It's a combination the police department has been hoping for.

"Over a 20% decrease in our part one crimes, which is the most serious crimes, homicide, robbery, rape, assaults, motor vehicle thefts, those all went down last year," said Lt. Pat Hogan from the La Crosse Police Department.

The drop coincides with an increase in calls to police, that means more people are willing to get involved. "We encourage that with everybody in the City of La Crosse, we want to hear about things when it's a minor issue, it's a lot easier for us to deal with when it's a minor complaint," said Lt. Hogan.

They also created four new community police officers for specific neighborhoods, two on the north side and two on the south. "Getting them in the community talking with the residents, the business leaders, the business community, the schools and that to get everybody involved," said Lt. Hogan.

But the department is the first to admit that this is just one year and the numbers mean nothing if the community doesn't feel like there's been a change. "You can say what numbers are, but we want the neighbors and the people in La Crosse to feel safe also so that's what we're also working with the community police officers not only hopefully reducing the crime, but making people feel safer in their neighborhoods," said Hogan.

Although there were no specific numbers on drug arrests, Lt. Hogan says the department is also making progress in that area. He feels the Heroin Task force has helped, as well as the increase in prescription drop boxes at locations around the county.

The numbers were part of a 36 page report that talked about everything in the department, from staffing to community outreach.

http://www.news8000.com/news/la-crosse-police-say-community-policing-is-helping-reduce-crime/28095654

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Indiana

Hospitals to offer free mental health counseling for public safety officials

by Chris Proffitt

INDIANAPOLIS - The City of Indianapolis is partnering with major hospitals to give free mental health counseling services to public safety employees.

Police officers, paramedics and firefighters are often exposed to traumatic events that can take a psychological toll leading to high levels of stress.

Nick Ball, executive director of the Indianapolis Public Safety Foundation said the program is a necessity.

"There's a culture among first responders. We're the strong people that protect weak people. We don't reach out, and maybe it's perceived as a weakness if we reach out for help and we're trying to change that culture," Ball said.

The city's Employee Assistance Program offers confidential counseling services to public safety workers. While the programs are used, they aren't being used by everyone.

Some question if seeking counseling services can affect their careers.

Starting in October, area hospitals will offer free counseling services to all city public safety employees.

"What we're trying to do is offer an optional phone number; so, if you do have that hesitancy and you need help, give it a try," Ball said.

In the last three years, the number of IMPD officers getting help on their own has increased by 300-percent.

During the same time period, disciplinary issues have dropped by 40-percent.

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/hospitals-to-offer-free-mental-health-counseling-for-public-safety-officials

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New Jersey

New Jersey expands gun buyback program for increased public safety

by Chris Eger

Garden State lawmakers in the New Jersey Assembly passed a bill Monday that would allow for an expansion of gun buyback programs, using public funds to reduce the number of firearms in circulation.

Under the measure, the attorney general would be directed to conduct nine ‘no questions asked' gun surrender events in various regions across the state. The bill, introduced by Assembly Democrats in March, easily passed the lower house of the state legislature on a 53-22 vote this week.

“We realize a gun buyback program alone will not eliminate gun violence, but it can help enhance public safety by reducing the number of firearms in circulation,” Assemblyman John McKeon, D-Essex, the bill's sponsor, told the Cliffview Pilot.

McKeon's bill, A2895 would direct the state Attorney General's office to conduct nine annual buyback events, three each in the northern, central and southern regions of the state. The measure requires that at least one program in each region be held in an urban area with a high crime rate.

The funding for these surrender-for-cash programs would come from forfeited funds in the state's coffers, private donations made through an offsetting $2 million tax credit program, and other money made available to the attorney general's office.

According to testimony earlier this year, acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman said that his office conducted ten gun buybacks in 2013. These events netted 16,000 firearms including 2,000 classified by New Jersey law as illegal weapons. The guns were purchased for up to $250 apiece using funds allocated from criminal forfeitures seized by Hoffman's office.

The effectiveness of these programs is up for much public debate. For many gun owners, buyback programs are nothing more than ‘feel-good' political schemes , void of civic merit, that create the illusion of enhanced public safety while, at the same time, wasting taxpayer dollars, and in the end are ineffective at reducing crime.

Jon Vernick with Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research recently admitted that the guns typically received at the buybacks – revolvers and shotguns – aren't usually the ones used in violent street crimes. However, Vernick did contend that unwanted guns removed from circulation could contribute to lower instances of accidental shootings over the past decade.

The New Jersey bill is now headed to the state Senate for further debate.

http://www.guns.com/2014/09/16/new-jersey-expands-gun-buyback-program-for-increased-public-safety/

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As core al-Qaida weakened, its successors spread through Middle East, North Africa

by The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Osama bin Laden is dead and al-Qaida dispersed, yet the horrors keep coming.

Western hostages beheaded on camera. School girls abducted by gunmen in the night. Families fleeing their homes in fear they might be killed because of their religion. The news from much of the Middle East and Africa is relentlessly brutal.

The Islamic State group's rampage through Iraq and Syria has shocked the United States into launching expanded air strikes at a time when Americans were expecting to pull back from the Middle East after more than a decade of war.

Meanwhile, like-minded militants are gunning people down and blowing them up on a smaller scale in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia and beyond.

While the 13-year U.S. campaign against al-Qaida tamped down its core leadership, the terror group's followers, offshoots and wannabes have spread.

"They're attracting more troops to these individual jihads than al-Qaida was ever able to attract in the past," said Andrew Liepman, former deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center. "The movement is still alive."

A look at what happened:

WHY NOW?

The number of extremist Sunni fighters more than doubled from 2010 to 2013, said Seth Jones, author of a RAND Corp. study released this summer that tracked seven years of increasing violence.

Among the reasons:

— Weakened governments left nations vulnerable: Iraq failed to build a strong, unified government after a U.S.-led coalition defeated dictator Saddam Hussein. In Syria, President Bashar Assad's deadly crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators started a civil war. Tunisia and Libya have power vacuums that Islamic militants are exploiting.

— Extremists took advantage of chaos and lawlessness, especially in Syria and Libya, to establish safe havens from which to launch wider operations.

— They exploit YouTube, Twitter and other social media to spread their ideology and draw recruits. Al-Qaida didn't have anything like that when it was putting together the attacks on New York City and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.

— Actively promoting their causes as part of a broader religious war, or jihad — instead of battles for control within single nations — attracts recruits from around the world.

— The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 stirred resentments that drew new fighters to the extremist cause. Many of those who flocked to Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan to train and fight have since returned home, bringing with them military skills, ideological fervor and personal ties to militant networks.

— The historic rivalry between Sunni and Shiite Muslims further inflames the situation. The Islamic State group built its power partly by exploiting Sunni anger at the Shiite-dominated government of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

— The pace of the violence began to quicken after U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011. As the situation in Syria disintegrated last year, more violence washed across the border into Iraq. "Syria has just been the perfect storm," said Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University.

IS AL-QAIDA BEHIND THIS?

Al-Qaida is the inspiration, at least.

The terror group's core leadership has been diminished by American drone strikes and the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden two years ago. The group's affiliates operate more autonomously today.

Indeed, its most notorious offshoot — the Islamic State group that's seized a large swath of territory from Iraq and Syria — flatly refused to follow al-Qaida's lead and was formally expelled in February.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula cooked up the failed "underwear bomber" plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas 2009 and attempted to ship explosive devices into the U.S. on cargo planes in 2010. Analysts say that group, based in Yemen, is still plotting to strike the American homeland.

Al-Qaida's affiliate in Somalia, known as al-Shabab, stormed a shopping mall in Kenya last year, killing at least 67 people. A U.S. airstrike on Sept. 1 killed its leader and two other officials; the group has sworn revenge.

The Nusra Front operates in Syria, and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb operates in North Africa. Bin Laden's successor, Ayman al-Zawahri, recently declared that al-Qaida would expand its reach into India, which has a large Muslim minority.

Other groups have arisen that have ideologies similar to al-Qaida. Among them are Boko Haram, which grabbed the world's attention by kidnapping more than 300 schoolgirls in Nigeria in April, and Ansar al-Shariah in Libya, one of several militias fighting each other for control in that shattered country.

U.S. and other Western leaders also worry about "lone wolf" terrorists who aren't part of any group but take inspiration from al-Qaida's ideology or the Islamic State's Internet videos to carry out an attack on their homeland.

Another fear: Americans and Europeans drawn to the Middle East to join the fighting may come home as trained terrorists.

DO THEY ALL WANT THE SAME THING?

Al-Qaida, the Islamic State group and sympathetic militants share a common goal: creating a caliphate ruled under their extreme interpretation of Shariah, or Islamic law.

They generally are Salafi jihadis, an extreme minority of Sunnis who say they are the only true followers of the Prophet Muhammad, in the tradition of the earliest Muslims, and advocate holy war to advance their cause. They would severely restrict women, ban music and punish thieves by cutting off their hands.

They oppose democracy and secular dictators alike, because they believe laws are created by God, not kings or voters.

Most Sunnis aren't Salafis and reject extremist claims.

HOW DO THE GROUPS DIFFER?

The jihadists have different priorities.

Al-Qaida grew out of bin Laden's experiences organizing Muslims to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and its first order of business remains chasing Western powers out of the Middle East. That means striking Americans and other Westerners in their homelands or abroad. Establishing a caliphate to unite the world's Muslims under Shariah comes after that.

As its new name suggests, the Islamic State group is focused on seizing territory and setting up an Islamic state now. It already has declared the lands it seized this summer in Iraq and Syria to be a caliphate and started enforcing its strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Al-Qaida's leadership broke with the Islamic State group, which was its Iraq branch originally, because of the group's insubordination in pushing into the Syrian conflict and ruthlessly battling with other jihadi rebels for its own ambitions.

The Islamic State group videotaped its beheadings of a British aid worker and two American journalists and said the slayings were retaliation for U.S. airstrikes against its fighters in Iraq. Unlike al-Qaida, however, the group has yet to reveal a determination to attack within the U.S.

Some jihadists, such as Boko Haram in Nigeria, primarily want to take control of their own countries.

"Most of these groups consider the U.S. an enemy," Jones said of the various Salafi jihadists. "Most of them are not plotting attacks against the U.S. homeland or U.S. structures like embassies overseas. A few are."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/09/16/as-core-al-qaida-weakened-its-successors-spread-through-middle-east-north/

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Group of 26 countries vows to support fight against Islamic State

Military aid promised to Iraq at Paris conference for conflict with jihadists

by Lara Marlowe

Twenty-six countries, including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and 10 Arab states, as well as representatives of the Arab League, EU and UN, yesterday vowed to support the new Iraqi government against the extremist group Islamic State “by any means necessary, including appropriate military assistance”.

The conference on peace and security in Iraq was convened in Paris at the initiative of French president François Hollande, who travelled to Baghdad and Erbil on September 12th. Mr Hollande was the first western head of state to visit Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi, who took office on September 8th.

In their final communique, participants said Islamic State (IS) “is a threat not only to Iraq but also to the entire international community”.

The fleet of black Mercedes outside the French foreign ministry and the foreign ministers conversing in rooms heavy with silk brocade, gold leaf and crystal chandeliers were the response of the “civilised world” to the decapitation of British aid worker David Haines and American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

“Iraq faces a criminal terrorist movement,” said Iraqi president Fouad Massoum, who co-chaired the conference with Mr Hollande. “Its crimes are an expression of obscurantist, bloodthirsty thinking.”

Mr Massoum, who is Kurdish, accused IS of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity”.

Disagreement over name

Confusion reigns over the name of the extremists who stunned the world by seizing Iraq's second city, Mosul, on June 10th. Mr Hollande and his foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, now call it “Da'esh”, the Arab acronym for “Islamic State”, the name the group claims for itself.

“The Da'esh movement is not a state, nor are they representatives of Islam,” Mr Fabius said. But US officials persist in calling it by the acronym Isil, signifying Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, one of the group's former names.

Iraq's previous prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia Muslim, was accused of pushing Iraq's Sunni minority into the arms of IS. Mr al-Abadi will “implement a policy of inclusiveness, and ensure that all components are fairly represented within the federal institutions and all citizens are treated equally”, the final communique said.

Mr Hollande defined the goal of the conference as “providing the necessary political support to the new Iraqi authorities to fight the major threat called Da'esh”.

On the eve of the conference, US officials said several Arab countries offered to carry out airstrikes against the IS. The conference did not clarify military roles within the US-led coalition.

Mr Massoum asked for “airborne operations against terrorist sites.” The coalition “must not allow them to implant themselves [in northern Iraq]. We must cut their sources of finance and stop fighters travelling through neighbouring countries to join them,” he said.

Airstrikes but no troops

The US began airstrikes against IS in northern Iraq on August 8th and is likely to extend attacks to IS targets in Syria. French Rafale fighter aircraft based in the United Arab Emirates yesterday began reconnaissance missions over Iraq, and are expected to begin bombing missions within days.

France is also arming and training the Kurdish Peshmerga, who are fighting IS on the ground.

Australia too, has sent eight combat aircraft and 600 servicemen to the UAE. Germany has given the Peshmerga anti-tank missiles. Russia provided combat helicopters and fighter planes to Iraq in July.

Yet with the exception of Iran and Syria, who were excluded from the Paris conference, no one outside Iraq is willing to commit ground troops to fighting IS.

“Syria and Iran are our natural allies in the fight against IS,” the Russian foreign minister, Serguei Lavrov said, regretting their absence.

It is not clear whether the Peshmerga, who seek independence from Iraq, the Iraqi army, or “moderate” Syrian opposition groups have the will or strength to rout IS.

France is reluctant to bomb IS in Syria because it doesn't want to help Syrian president Bashar al Assad. Mr Hollande vowed that France will help “democratic opposition forces” in Syria.

Countries on the outs

In a behind-the-scenes policy debate, some influential voices argued that the coalition should join forces with Mr Assad against IS.

Iraq's three neighbours – Turkey, Iran and Syria – are crucial to the war on IS. Yet none of their roles were resolved by yesterday's conference.

Turkey is a Nato ally and attended the conference. But it refuses to contribute militarily, in part because IS holds 49 Turkish hostages.

Foreign recruits to IS have transited through Turkey, There the ruling AKP, which is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, says the “root cause” – the Assad regime – must be dealt with before IS.

Washington and Tehran yesterday sent mixed signals, after the US and Saudi Arabia vetoed Iran's participation at the conference. The State Department said it was open to a “diplomatic discussion” with Tehran regarding cooperation against IS.

However, Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, accused Washington of having ulterior motives. He called statements by US officials “void of meaning, hollow and opportunistic”.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/group-of-26-countries-vows-to-support-fight-against-islamic-state-1.1929826

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U.S. airstrike hits ISIS target near Baghdad, first in 'expanded efforts'

by Jim Sciutto and Catherine E. Shoichet

A U.S. airstrike near Baghdad on Monday marked a new phase in the fight against ISIS.

The airstrike southwest of the city appears to be the closest the U.S. airstrikes have come to the capital of Iraq since the start of the campaign against ISIS, a senior U.S. military official told CNN. And U.S. Central Command said in a statement that it was the first strike as part of "expanded efforts" to help Iraqi forces on the offensive against ISIS.

Monday's airstrike destroyed an ISIS fighting position that had been firing at Iraqi forces, Central Command said.

It occurred about 35 km (22 miles) southwest of Baghdad, another U.S. official said.

The United States began targeted airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq last month to protect American personnel and support humanitarian missions. Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama said new airstrikes would aim to help Iraqi forces on the offensive against the Islamist militants.

Obama also said airstrikes would include ISIS targets in Syria. And last week he also asked Congress for authorization to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels.

The authority comes under Title 10 of the U.S. code, which deals with military powers, and Congress could vote on granting it this week. Approval also would allow the United States to accept money from other countries for backing the Syrian opposition forces.

A senior administration official told reporters Monday that Obama has been making calls to Democratic and Republican members of Congress, asking them to pass the authorization.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry courted Middle Eastern leaders over the weekend to join a coalition in the fight against the Islamist militant group, which calls itself the Islamic State.

More than two dozen nations, the Arab League, the European Union and United Nations met in the French capital Monday, calling ISIS a threat to the international community and agreeing to "ensure that the culprits are brought to justice."

The United States has conducted more than 150 airstrikes in Iraq against ISIS, and Kerry has said nearly 40 nations have agreed to contribute to the fight against the militants. But it remains unclear which countries are on that list and the precise roles they'll play.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/15/world/meast/iraq-isis-us-airstrikes/

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Connecticut

Street gangs tone down use of colors, tattoos

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Nearly gone are the gang days of the 1980s and ‘90s, when the Bloods wore head-to-toe red, the Crips wore blue and Latin Kings wore black and gold.

Gangs from coast to coast have toned down their use of colors and are even removing or altering tattoos to avoid being easily identified by police and witnesses, law enforcement officials say.

Today, the most you might see is part of a red handkerchief hanging out of a back pocket or a gold and black baseball cap, said Johnmichael O'Hare, a Hartford police sergeant who monitors gangs.

“Many of them don't wear colors. They tell us they're not in gangs,” O'Hare said. “They're trying to avoid detection from law enforcement.”

Gang members also don't want to stand out because they are committing more white-collar-type crimes, such as credit card and identity thefts, authorities say.

“If you want to go into Macys or Neiman Marcus and use a fraudulently obtained credit card and you have all these tattoos, it's more difficult,” said William Dunn, a Los Angeles police detective and author of the 2007 book “The Gangs of Los Angeles.”

Another impetus: laws passed in several states making it easier for police to target gangs.

In Connecticut, officials can use racketeering laws once reserved for the mob to go after gangs. In Los Angeles, court injunctions allow police to enforce nighttime curfews and arrest people for hanging out in public and wearing gang colors.

“So we don't see so much wearing of the colors. We don't see so much of the tattooing,” Dunn said.

When it comes to going to prison, gang members also don't want to be identified because they'll be placed in more restrictive conditions for security reasons, officials say.

Wearing colors has long been a way for gang members to show solidarity, but the FBI says gang members are indeed shying away from displaying identifiers. Often the only time colors and other identifiers are now displayed is at gang functions and funerals, according to the FBI's 2013 National Gang report.

While gangs are showing their colors less, they have given police another way to identify them — their use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites.

“Today they declare themselves gang members on the Internet,” O'Hare said.

Still, he said, their detection-avoiding efforts on the street have made police officials' jobs a little harder. Hartford officers now have to get up close to identify gang members, he said. On a recent day, officers stopped a group of youths in commonplace T-shirts and shorts breaking a loitering law and made them all sit down.

O'Hare, interested in gathering information on gangs, got several of them to pull up their sleeves and pull down their shirt collars, revealing telltale tattoos of the Los Solidos gang — theater masks with the words “laugh now cry later” and the letters TSO for The Solid Ones, the English translation of their group's name. Officers then let the youths go — but kept their names and suspected gang affiliations in the event of future encounters.

In addition to well-established gangs like the Bloods and Latin Kings, police are dealing with smaller, neighborhood-based street gangs that can be just as violent and often wear no colors or tattoos at all, law enforcement officials say. The neighborhood gangs usually are friends who grew up together and claim several blocks as their territory, O'Hare said.

One such neighborhood gang in Hartford, Money Green/Bedroc, often wore the kind of athletic jerseys popular among kids nationwide, according to a state grand jury report issued in December.

The reputed leader, Donald Raynor, was arrested last year. Raynor, 29, is now on trial in state court in Hartford on a murder charge and awaits trial in five other cases involving attempted murder charges.

Police say he led the particularly violent gang, which sold drugs and had “hit squad” enforcers who were involved in shootings of rivals in 2007 and 2008.

Raynor has pleaded not guilty in all the cases.

http://www.omaha.com/news/nation/street-gangs-tone-down-use-of-colors-tattoos/article_893f3bee-3d85-11e4-a030-001a4bcf6878.html

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Why Community Policing Is Still a Good Investment

by Christopher Moraff

T his year marks two decades since the U.S. Department of Justice established its Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) to promote municipal-level police reform.

Fueled by billions in federal dollars, since the early 1990s, thousands of police departments across the nation took the DOJ's lead and implemented a range of policies designed to make officers more responsive to the communities they serve.

But despite some well-documented successes, even proponents of community policing are hesitant to call the COPS program a sweeping success. The recent police shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the response it elicited reflect the stark rift that continues to divide many urban law-enforcement agencies from the constituents they are sworn to protect.

Dennis P. Rosenbaum, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and an early researcher into the promise of community policing, says that while law enforcement has made enormous strides over the past 20 years in improving community relations, more work needs to be done.

“Not all police departments have adopted community-oriented approaches to policing, and some have lost sight of the importance of community engagement and problem-solving for public safety and police legitimacy,” he explains. “American policing has not yet moved away from the reactive, call-driven system that defined traditional policing.”

Indeed, a new meta-analysis of more than two dozen independent studies on the subject suggests that while many departments have adopted the “language of community policing,” few have incorporated all three primary facets of the strategy, identified as: community partnerships, organizational transformation and problem-solving.

“There is a feeling in the scholarly literature that to some extent it has been a buzzword rather than something that has been implemented,” says Charlotte Gill, deputy director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy at George Mason University, and a co-author of the report. “Because it is a philosophy or a set of principles rather than a defined model, we see a different level of engagement among police departments.”

What makes community policing look so good on paper is also what makes it difficult to implement in practice. By emphasizing a flexible, individualized approach to law enforcement, there is no single playbook for departments to follow. This can lead to broad variations in COP initiatives, some of which have little resemblance to what early theorists — like the late Robert Trojanowicz, founder of the National Center for Community Policing at Michigan State — had in mind.

Bruce Benson, a former colleague of Trojanowicz with decades of experience in police command roles, says the availability of federal COPS money has been a doubled-edged sword. While it has helped spread the message of community policing, he says it has also incentivized lowest-common denominator approaches.

“I've had police chiefs ask me what's the minimum they can do to get this money,” says Benson, who advises departments on establishing COP programs. “We'd have police departments host community picnics where they hand out hot dogs and soda to people and call it community policing, but once all those hot dogs are handed out, it's back to traditional policing practices.”

Benson says to be successful, community policing requires a complete reorientation of a department's command structure to place more power in the hands of frontline officers.

“You have to be willing to give up some of that top-down management and turn loose your officer on a long-term beat with the discretion to try out new things,” he says. “That can be challenging for police brass who are used to always holding the reins.”

Race matters, but not as much as you think.

According to a recent series of articles in the New York Times , municipal police forces in America suffer from a serious lack of racial diversity — with white officers significantly overrepresented in communities of color. Ferguson's nearly all-white police force has a long legacy of alienating the city's predominantly black residents. But proponents of community policing warn against drawing too straight a line between the racial composition of a police force and its relationship with its constituents.

“Looking like the community can certainly be beneficial, but it's not the key,” says Gill, adding that citizens' perceptions of law enforcement are far more influenced by how police behave than how they look.

As deputy chief of police for Flint, Michigan, in the early 1980s, Benson helped pioneer community-oriented policing with the help of funding from the Mott Foundation. The department began by breaking the city into 64 individual “beats” led by COP-trained officers with unprecedented autonomy to decide which crimes to prioritize.

“We told our officers, ‘we don't want you to patrol your neighborhood, we want you to go out and organize your neighborhood,‘” he recalled. “Instead of just taking calls, they could use their brain to tackle crime in their unique beat, they got recognition, kids got to know them. The neighborhood becomes theirs. We found after a while that race didn't matter.”

By the time he left the department in 1986, Benson says the city had experienced a 70 percent reduction in major felonies, a success rate he attributes almost entirely to the new approach.

“There is no way we could have done that with traditional policing,” he said.

Yet a comprehensive assessment of the data suggests that while community policing helps boost citizen satisfaction and trust in police — and reduces perceptions of neighborhood disorder — its impact on crime is harder to demonstrate. In their review of two decades of academic literature, Gill and her colleagues were unable to find a clear link between community policing and falling crime rates.

“It is plausible,” they write, “ … that COP has no effect on crime.”

But that may be the wrong way to measure the strategy's effectiveness. To use Ferguson as an example, a robust community policing program may not have prevented Mike Brown, or anyone else, from engaging in petty crime, but there's a very good chance it would have prevented his death and the turmoil it caused.

For that reason, Rosenbaum, of the University of Illinois, says it's better to think of community-oriented policing as a long-term investment.

“Think of it as money in the bank,” he said. “If a police department has accumulated sufficient good will in its bank account, it can draw on these assets when a crisis occurs.”

Christopher Moraff writes on politics, civil liberties and criminal justice policy for a number of media outlets. He is a reporting fellow at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a frequent contributor to Next City and Al Jazeera America.

http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/community-policing-efforts-success-failure

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From the Department of Justice

Attorney General Holder Records Message for Cartoon Network's “I Speak up” Campaign to Combat Bullying

The Justice Department announced Monday that Attorney General Eric Holder has recorded a video message as part of the Cartoon Network's “I Speak Up” campaign to combat bullying. The project urges young people to speak up in order to help bring bullying situations to an end.

The goal of the campaign is to collect one million user-generated videos that unite the voices of kids, parents, educators, celebrities and government officials all saying “I Speak Up.” Attorney General Holder joined other notable voices such as Education Secretary Arne Duncan, as well as actors and professional athletes, in recording a message for the campaign.

In his video, the Attorney General delivers the following message: “The violence of bullying has a devastating effect on young people. Help me defend childhood by speaking up for those who – too often – cannot speak for themselves. I'm Attorney General Eric Holder, and I am joining Cartoon Network to challenge one million people to speak up against bullying. Please go to StopBullyingSpeakUp.com to learn more.”

The full video of the Attorney General's message is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMH5Abirdaw

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2014/September/14-ag-981.html

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Washington

Holder announces plan to combat American militants

by Kevin Johnson

WASHINGTON—Attorney General Eric Holder announced a strategy Monday aimed at attempting to disrupt American extremists from joining terrorist groups, including those drawn to conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

"We have established processes for detecting American extremists who attempt to join terror groups abroad,'' Holder said in a video message on the Justice Department's website. "And we have engaged in extensive outreach to communities here in the U.S. – so we can work with them to identify threats before they emerge, to disrupt homegrown terrorists, and to apprehend would-be violent extremists.''

Holder said Justice was joining the White House, Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center to help local community leaders — public safety and religious leaders — identify those who may be seeking to join jihadist movements abroad.

U.S. officials estimate that more than 100 Americans have attempted to join fighting in the Syrian civil war, many of them aligned with the so-called violent ISIS group, who have claimed responsibility for the decapitations of two American journalists in recent weeks and have threatened to launch strikes against U.S. interests.

Since 2012, the Justice Department said, federal prosecutors have participated in more than 1,700 meetings in an effort to open lines of communications with local communities.

"This innovative new pilot initiative will build on that important work,'' Holder said, adding that the White House would be hosting a 'Countering Violent Extremism' summit in October.

"We must be both innovative and aggressive in countering violent extremism and combating those who would sow intolerance, division, and hate – not just within our borders, but with our international partners on a global scale,'' Holder said.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/15/holder-american/15655069/

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Gamers using police hoax on opponents

The calls to emergency numbers raised an instant alarm: One caller said he shot his co-workers at a Colorado video game company and had hostages. Another in Florida said her father was drunk, wielding a machine gun and threatening their family.

A third caller on New York's Long Island claimed to have killed his mother and threatened to shoot first responders.

In each case, SWAT teams dispatched to the scene found no violent criminals or wounded victims - only video game players sitting at their computers, the startled victims of a hoax known as "swatting."

Authorities say the hoax that initially targeted celebrities has now become a way for players of combat-themed video games to retaliate against opponents while thousands of spectators watch. The perpetrators can watch their hijinks unfold minute by minute in a window that shows a live video image of other players.

"It's like creating your own episode of Cops," said Dr John Grohol, a research psychologist who studies online behavior, referring to the long-running reality TV show that follows officers on patrol.

The players, who are often many miles away, look up their opponent's addresses in phone directories, sometimes using services that can find unlisted numbers. They also exploit online programs that trick 911 dispatchers into believing an emergency call is coming from the victim's phone or address. All the while, they conceal their own identities and locations.

Authorities spent an estimated US$100,000 to send more than 60 officers in April to the hoax in Long Beach, New York. Investigators said the caller was upset over losing a game of Call of Duty when he called police using Skype. SWAT officers found only a teenager wearing headphones.

In Bradenton, Florida, at least 15 officers showed up at the home of a professional video game player on August 31 after a caller posing as his young daughter phoned in a report that he was armed and drunk. Instead, they found him playing Minecraft for a live audience over Twitch.tv, an online network with millions of viewers.

"The officers responding do not know, other than the information they're getting over the radio, exactly what is going on," said Bradenton police Captain William Fowler.

Less than a week later, police received another bogus call routed through the man's phone that made it appear he had called in a bomb threat to a Bradenton gas station.

A Connecticut man was arrested September 10 on federal charges that he made swatting calls there and in at least four other states. Authorities say Matthew Tollis, 21, belonged to a group that referred to itself as TeAM Crucifix or Die. Other members live in the United Kingdom, according to the FBI, which is still trying to learn their identities.

Swatting captured headlines several years ago, when a series of celebrity homes were targeted in Los Angeles. Police were so concerned about copycat crimes that they stopped releasing any public information when a hoax occurred. Officers made at least one arrest, a juvenile who targeted Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher.

"You can literally do it from around the world," said Justin Cappos, assistant professor of computer science at New York University. "It can be very challenging (to solve) depending on the sophistication of the person doing it."

Realising the difficulty, police in Littleton, Colorado, sought help from FBI agents in Denver who are specially trained to solve cyber-crime.

Grohol, the psychologist, said the prevalence of live game-streaming might be one reason for the trend. As the victim in the Colorado case, Jordan Mathewson, put it to KMGH-TV: "They get to see all this go down right before their eyes and, you know, it's fun to them."

Intensely competitive war games that blur the lines of fantasy and reality could also contribute, said Dr Kimberly Young, a psychologist who directs the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery in Bradford, Pennsylvania.

"They want to win at all costs, including jeopardizing someone's safety," she said. "Real life becomes almost meaningless because they're so entrenched and involved in these games. Swatting, to them, seems like part of the game."

A video of the August 27 incident in Littleton posted on YouTube shows Mathewson playing Call of Duty when he hears officers approaching.

"I think we're getting swatted," he says, raising his hands as heavily armed officers shout for him to get on the ground. He drops, and officers handcuff and frisk him.

"That's live streaming," Mathewson tells the officers. "I guess a joker thought it would be funny to call you guys in."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/games/61268594/gamers-using-police-hoax-on-opponents