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October, 2014 - Week 5

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Islamic State executes 50 members of Iraqi tribe

BAGHDAD (AP) — Islamic State group extremists lined up and shot dead at least 50 Iraqi tribesmen, women and children Sunday, officials said, the latest mass slaying by militants who have killing some 150 members of the tribe in recent days.

The killings, all committed in public, target the Sunni Al Bu Nimr tribe that the Islamic State group now apparently views as a threat, though previously some Sunnis backed the expansion of the group and other militants into the volatile province in December.

Meanwhile, a separate attack targeting Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad killed at least 14 people, authorities said.

Sunday's attack on the Sunni tribe took place in the village of Ras al-Maa, north of Ramadi, the provincial capital. There, the militant group killed at least 40 men, six women and four children, lining them up and publicly killing them one by one, Sheikh Naim al-Gaoud, a senior tribesman, told The Associated Press. The militants also kidnapped another 17 people, he said.

An official with the Anbar governor's office corroborated the tribesman's account. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to brief journalists.

The attack Sunday against Al Bu Nimr tribe comes after militants killed another 50 members of its members late Friday and 48 on Thursday, according to various officials who have spoken to the AP.

The militant Islamist State group has overrun a large part of Anbar province in its push to expand its territory across Iraq and Syria. Officials with the Iraqi government, as well as officials with the U.S.-led coalition targeting the extremists, repeatedly have said that Iraqi tribes are key elements in the fight against the Islamic State group since they are able to penetrate areas inaccessible to airstrikes and ground forces.

However, some Sunnis in Anbar supported militants — including the Sunni militants of Islamic State group — when they seized Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in December. That came after widespread Sunnis protests against the Shiite-led government in Baghdad for what they described as second-hand treatment.

Since the Islamic State group's major offensive in Iraq, a number of Iraq's Sunni tribes have been fundamental in stalling its advance, taking up arms and fighting alongside Iraqi security forces.

Ramadi has yet to fall in part because of key Sunni tribes in the city. The Jughaifi and al-Bunimer tribes have helped Iraqi special forces protect the Haditha Dam in Anbar. In the battleground town of Dhuluiyah, the al-Jabbouri tribe has been the sole resistance to an Islamic State militant takeover.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and his new government have vowed to create a community-driven national guard that would empower local tribes. Other tribes have not been won over, and have allied themselves with the militant group as a means for contesting the Shiite-led government.

In the vast province of Anbar, some 5,000 tribesmen back government efforts to take part in the fight and receive arms and financial compensation. With tribes often numbering 30,000 to 40,000 people, the effort still has a long way to go, however.

Meanwhile Sunday, a car bomb attack near tents serving Shiite pilgrims killed 14 people and wounded 32 in Baghdad, police and medical officials said. They said the bombing in Baghdad's Bayaa district struck as people delivered food to pilgrims heading to the holy city of Karbala to mark the religious holiday of Ashoura.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorized to speak to journalists.

Ashoura commemorates the seventh-century death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of Prophet Muhammad, and an iconic martyr among Shiite Muslims. Sunni insurgents frequently target Shiites whom considered as heretics.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/11/02/iraq-islamic-state-anbar/18367779/

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From the Department of Justice

Justice Department Reaches Agreement with the City of Albuquerque to Implement Sweeping Reforms On Use of Force By the Albuquerque Police Department

The Justice Department today announced it has reached a comprehensive settlement agreement with the city of Albuquerque that will bring wide-ranging reforms to the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) and its use of force against civilians. The Justice Department and the city have agreed to enter into a court-enforceable settlement agreement that will overhaul the way in which APD handles use of force by its officers following a year-long investigation into the department's practices and letter of findings released by the Justice Department in April 2014. Once the Albuquerque City Council considers the settlement agreement in a special session scheduled for the week of Nov. 3, the Justice Department and the city will file the settlement agreement with the United States District Court for approval and entry as an order.

"The overwhelming majority of our nation's law enforcement officials perform their duties with exceptional courage, integrity, and professionalism—risking their lives every day to keep their communities safe,” said Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. “But whenever a pattern of troubling conduct is uncovered, or that high standard is not met, the Department of Justice must and will take action. The far-reaching agreement we have secured in this case will transform the culture and practices of the Albuquerque Police Department. And I am confident that, with the cooperation of city leaders and brave law enforcement officials, we will take significant steps to restore trust with local citizens and build for Albuquerque's residents the stronger, safer, and more secure communities that all Americans deserve.“

In addition to use of force practices, The Justice Department's investigation found that officers routinely use deadly force and less lethal force in an unreasonable manner and that systemic deficiencies in policies, training, supervision, and oversight contributed to the pattern or practice. Following the release of the investigative findings, the Justice Department engaged in extensive community outreach to solicit feedback and recommendations on reform from a wide variety of stakeholders, including police officers, community leaders, mental health advocates, family members, and other Albuquerque residents. The feedback played a critical role in tailoring the settlement agreement to the unique needs of the Albuquerque community and APD.

“Today's landmark settlement agreement will begin the process of restoring trust and cooperation between the Albuquerque community and law enforcement,” said Vanita Gupta, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “Constitutional policing is key to building trust between police departments and the communities they serve, and trust is of course key to ensuring public and officer safety. The settlement agreement provides a blue print for sustainable reform that will foster continued collaboration and participation from the community. We thank Mayor Berry, Chief Eden, and all of the individuals who came forward to share their experiences concerning APD to make this historic settlement agreement possible.”

“We are extremely proud of our community and police department for coming together in a time of serious challenges to the city to offer their advice and recommendations on a path forward,” said Damon P. Martinez, United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico. “Reform will not take place overnight and it will take time to heal our community, but we are well on our way. Through the settlement agreement reached today, the city agrees to implement fundamental reforms in a transparent manner that will ensure that force is used in accordance with constitutional rights and that promotes greater trust among the hard working men and women of the Albuquerque Police Department and the residents they are sworn to protect.”

Under the settlement agreement, the city and APD will implement comprehensive reforms in nine substantive areas. An independent monitoring team will be selected jointly and will oversee the reforms, which are expected to be implemented within four years. The areas covered by the settlement agreement are:

•  Use of force: including requiring supervisors to report to the scene of uses of force; providing medical care to subjects of force immediately after an incident; improving the quality of force investigations; developing a force review board to detect and correct patterns and trends, and utilizing surrounding law enforcement agencies as part of a multi-agency task force to investigate officer-involves shootings to provide greater objectivity and accountability;

•  Specialized units: including measures that require clearly defined missions and duties for specialized tactical and investigative units; ensuring that officers are sufficiently trained to save lives in high-risk situations; and dismantling APD's repeat offender project to restore its core mission as an investigative, rather than tactical, unit;

•  Crisis intervention: including establishing a mental health response advisory committee; providing behavioral health training to all officers, police dispatchers, and 9-1-1 operators; and maintaining groups of specially-trained first responders, detectives, and mental health professionals that provide crisis intervention and ongoing support to individuals with serious mental illness or who are chronically homeless;

•  Policies and training: including developing clear and comprehensive policies on use of force, preventing retaliation, supporting officers who report misconduct, and improving the field training program to ensure that officers develop the necessary technical and practical skills required to use force in a lawful and effective manner;

•  Internal and civilian complaint investigations: including measures to eliminate arbitrary deadlines for the submission of civilian complaints; standards for conducting objective, thorough, and timely investigations; steps to ensure that the disciplinary system is fair and consistent; and protocols to protect officers' rights against self-incrimination;

•  Staffing and supervision: including completing a staffing and resource study to determine the appropriate allocation of resources; holding supervisors accountable for close and effective supervision; and providing guidance on the effective use of on-body recording systems to promote accountability and strengthen public trust;

•  Recruitment and promotions: including developing a strategic recruitment plan that includes clear goals, objectives, and action steps for attracting qualified applicants from a broad cross section of the community and ensuring that fair and consistent promotion practices are implemented;

•  Officer assistance and support: including measures to ensure that APD personnel have ready access to mental health services and that supervisors are trained in making referrals in a manner that minimizes stigma; and

•  Community engagement and oversight: including measures to strengthen the city's civilian oversight process; public information programs that keep members of the public informed of APD's progress toward reform; requirements on fostering community policing at all levels of APD; and establishing community policing councils throughout the city to ensure that meaningful feedback is obtained from the community.

The independent monitoring team will oversee the implementation of reforms, provide technical assistance, and report on the city's compliance through periodic and public reports. The monitoring team will have access to all documents, personnel, facilities and information related to the settlement agreement and will engage with officers and community members on an ongoing basis. The monitoring team will also be responsible for conducting outcome assessments to determine whether the goals of the settlement agreement are being met through compliance indicators and objective measures. The settlement agreement requires two years of sustained compliance with the agreement before the agreement may be terminated.

For more information on the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, please visit www.justice.gov/crt. For more information about the United States Attorney's Office for the District of New Mexico, please visit http://www.justice.gov/usao/nm.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-reaches-agreement-city-albuquerque-implement-sweeping-reforms-use-force

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From ICE

ICE arrests 62 criminal aliens and immigration violators during 3-day central and south Texas enforcement operation

Tips from the public help enhance community safety

SAN ANTONIO — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers arrested 62 criminal aliens, fugitives and other immigration violators in central and south Texas during a three-day multi-city enforcement operation.

This operation, which began Oct. 28 and concluded Thursday, is the latest effort by ICE to prioritize the removal of criminal aliens and egregious immigration violators. Arrests were made in the following areas: Austin, San Antonio, Laredo, Waco and the Rio Grande Valley. The 55 men and seven women who were arrested are from the following five countries: Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Iraq and Nicaragua.

“The situation on the border has truly tested the limits of our ICE officers in central and south Texas,” said Enrique Lucero, field office director of ERO San Antonio. “However, the public can rest assured knowing that ICE officers work diligently on a daily basis arresting criminal aliens to help keep our communities safe, even with our recent unique challenges.”

Of the 62 individuals arrested, 54 had previous criminal convictions including: aggravated assault, drug possession, burglary, alien smuggling and drunken driving.

The other eight arrests included those who are immigration fugitives, those previously deported, or those in the country without authorization.

Following is a breakdown of those arrested per area during the operation: seven in Austin, five in Waco, 30 in San Antonio, eight in Laredo, and 12 in the Rio Grande Valley.

The following are case examples of individuals arrested during the operation (in accordance with Department of Homeland Security privacy policies, names are not included):

•  A 26-year-old Mexican national with previous convictions for illegal re-entry, delivery of controlled substance and criminal mischief was arrested Oct. 29 by ICE officers in Laredo.

•  A 55-year-old Mexican national whose convictions range from aggravated assault with a deadly weapon to multiple DWI's was arrested Oct. 29 by ICE officers in Laredo.

•  A 24-year-old Mexican national whose convictions range from assault with bodily injury to burglary of habitation. He was arrested in Austin Oct. 28 by ICE officers and remains in ICE custody pending a hearing before an immigration judge.

•  A 37-year-old Honduran national whose convictions include assault and battery, assault with bodily injury to a family member and alien smuggling. He was arrested Oct. 29 by ICE officers in San Antonio. He remains in ICE custody pending a hearing before an immigration judge.

•  A 40-year-old Mexican national whose convictions range from narcotics trafficking to DWI. He was arrested Oct. 28 by ICE officers in Harlingen, Texas, and remains in ICE custody pending a hearing before an immigration judge.

•  A 20-year-old Mexican national with previous convictions of injury to a child was arrested Oct. 24 by ICE officers in Waco, Texas. He remains in ICE custody pending a hearing before an immigration judge.

ICE encourages the public to call our ICE tip line (1-866-DHS-2ICE) to anonymously report those who may be illegally in the U.S. and considered a potential threat to public safety.

In fiscal year 2014, the six San Antonio Field Office Fugitive Operations Teams arrested more than 940 individuals. The San Antonio Field Office also set record removal totals. The San Antonio Field Office, ICE's largest field office in the country, removed more than 108,000 individuals of the nearly 316,000 removals nationwide in fiscal year 2014.

ICE is focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that targets serious criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities, such as those charged with or convicted of homicide, rape, robbery, kidnapping, major drug offenses and threats to national security. ICE also prioritizes the arrest and removal of those who game the immigration system including immigration fugitives or aliens who have been previously deported and illegally re-entered the country.

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-arrests-62-criminal-aliens-and-immigration-violators-during-3-day-central-and

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From the Department of Homeland Security

Cyber Crime and Law Enforcement

Crimes such as credit card fraud, identity theft, and sexual harassment are not new. The Internet, however, has made these types of crimes more prevalent and easier to carry out. Many crimes affecting individuals are increasingly conducted or facilitated through the Internet.

Department of Homeland Security components such as the United States Secret Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Transportation Security Administration, and the U.S. Coast Guard all uphold the Department's larger law enforcement mission of protecting and defending the Nation against all threats, including cyber crime.

Cyber crime can happen to anyone in any location, from any location—making it difficult to track them and stop them. But criminals are not the only ones using technology for their benefit. Many law enforcement agencies are taking advantage of technology to track down cyber criminals. Law enforcement agencies have released apps to help find child predators and have opened advanced labs to analyze malware. Law enforcement is also taking a major role in promoting cybersecurity for the general public, educating the public on how to avoid identity theft and fraud.

The Secret Service's Cyber Intelligence Section has directly contributed to the arrest of transnational cyber criminals responsible for the theft of hundreds of millions of credit card numbers and the loss of approximately $600 million to financial and retail institutions. The Secret Service also runs the National Computer Forensic Institute, which provides law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges with cyber training and information to combat cyber crime.

The Department of Homeland Security's Project iGuardian helps kids, teens and parents to be smart about online safety and stay safe from online sexual predators. Visit the Project iGuardian page for more information on how to request an iGuardian presentation at your school or organization or report a crime. ICE has also created a smartphone app, the Operation Predator App, designed to seek the public's help with fugitive and unknown suspect child predators.

Below are some tips you can use to protect yourself against the threat of cyber crime:

•  Protect all devices that connect to the Internet. Along with computers, smart phones, gaming systems, and other web-enabled devices also need protection from viruses and malware.

•  Do business with reputable vendors. Before providing any personal or financial information, make sure that you are interacting with a reputable, established vendor. Check website security. When banking and shopping, check to be sure the site is security enabled with “https://” or “shttp://”

•  Beware of unsolicited emails or suspicious websites. Never provide your credit card number, bank account information, or other personal information in response to an unsolicited email or suspicious Internet web site.

•  Report suspicious activity. Report online fraud to the Federal Trade Commission.

For more cybersecurity tips, visit the Department of Homeland Security's Cyber Crimes Center or the Stop.Think.Connect. Campaign.

Get Involved

Everyone has the opportunity to make a difference this October. To get started, replace your profile picture or Facebook cover photo with the National Cyber Security Awareness Month logo during October. Download the social media icons here. For more ways to get involved, visit StaySafeOnline.org.

The Department of Homeland Security encourages everyone to participate in the National Cyber Security Awareness Month events listed below. Visit the National Cyber Security Awareness Month page to learn more about events occurring during October. Additionally, you can follow the hashtag #NCSAM on social media throughout the month.

http://www.dhs.gov/national-cyber-security-awareness-month-2014-week-five?utm_source=hp_feature&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=dhs_hp

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Africa

Boko Haram: Kidnapped Schoolgirls 'Married Off'

by VOA News

The leader of Nigeria's Islamic extremist group Boko Haram says the 219 schoolgirls kidnapped in Chibok earlier this year have all converted to Islam and have been married off.

Abubakar Shekau said in a video the girls, who he says are now in their marital homes, have memorized two chapters of the Quran.

Nigeria had announced it was in negotiations with Boko Haram to release the girls. Shekau denied those claims, saying he did not know the man who claimed to represent Boko Haram in the negotiations.

Shekau said the issue of the girls is "long forgotten."

Human Rights Watch published a report earlier this week saying that Boko Haram is holding upwards of 500 women and young girls and that forced marriage was commonplace in the militant camps.

One former hostage told HRW she saw some of the Chibok girls forced to cook and clean for other women and girls who had been chosen for "special treatment because of their beauty."

HRW said the statements of witnesses and victims of Boko Haram abductions suggest the Nigerian government has failed to "adequately protect women and girls from a myriad of abuses or provide them with effective support and mental health and medical care after their captivity. The 63-page report says Nigeria has also failed to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the abuses.

http://www.voanews.com/content/boko-haram-kidnapped-schoolgirls-married-off/2504341.html

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New Mexico

Justice Department orders reforms, monitor for Albuquerque police

by Cindy Carcamo

Under a settlement agreement announced Friday by the Justice Department, federal officials will appoint an independent monitor to oversee the Albuquerque Police Department as it implements sweeping reforms to change how its officers use force.

The consent decree lays out nine measures that are aimed at ensuring “constitutional and effective policing, promote officer and public safety, and foster greater trust among officers and the communities they serve.”

The main points call for disbanding a problematic tactical investigative unit that became something of an unofficial SWAT team, revision of when and how force should be used and implementation of a civilian police oversight agency to conduct independent investigations of all citizen complaints concerning the police force.

The move comes nearly seven months after federal officials released a damning report that found Albuquerque police have used deadly force more often than necessary, resulting in a series of unjustified fatal shootings.

The department becomes the 15th to enter into such an agreement with federal officials. Others include the police departments of New Orleans, Seattle and Portland, Ore.

Albuquerque Mayor Richard J. Berry has already agreed to the consent decree with federal officials. The City Council is expected to approve the agreement next week.

“With the release of our APD Settlement Agreement with the Department of Justice, I believe we are setting a new national standard for policing and police reforms,” Berry said at a news conference.

Since 2010, Albuquerque police officers have shot 37 people, 27 of them fatally. The shootings are what prompted the Justice Department to open its investigation.

Damon P. Martinez, U.S. attorney for New Mexico, said the landmark agreement with the police agency will ensure effective and constitutional police service for the city.

“It is also a road map for rebuilding the trust between the community and the police,” he said.

The Justice Department's report in April came on the heels of a string of fatal shootings by officers, including the March 16 death of a homeless, mentally ill man, James “Abba” Boyd, who was illegally camping in the Sandia Mountains. Boyd had been acting erratically and got into a confrontation with police before he was shot by two officers.

A video of the shooting touched off protests in the city, prompting calls for better police training, especially when it comes to interacting with the mentally ill.

David Correia, a professor at the University of New Mexico who writes about police violence and has been active in protests against the agency's use of force, said the dismantling of the department's Repeat Offender Program, a tactical unit, is significant. One of the police officers who shot Boyd was assigned to the unit at the time.

“It sends a clear message that aggressive, military-style policing has no role in community policing,” he said

Mike Gomez, who won a lawsuit against the city after his unarmed son Alan was killed by police in 2010, said he was “hopeful with the consent decree” because it requires officers to wear lapel cameras and calls for more civilian oversight.

In the Justice Department report on Albuquerque police, then Acting Assistant Atty. Gen. Jocelyn Samuels called for systematic change to address what federal officials called a long-ingrained culture of using deadly force.

The settlement calls for the Police Department to consider specialized responses that would minimize the need for use of force when officers are dealing with people in mental health crisis. The agreement also requires the department to establish a mental health response advisory committee, provide crisis intervention training to all officers and expand the number of detectives assigned to the crisis intervention unit.

City and federal officials have yet to choose an independent monitor but he or she will be responsible for assessing how the department is meeting the terms of the settlement, including filing public compliance reports every four months. After two years, the department will have to file such reports every six months.

The settlement stipulates that the agreement will not be terminated until the Police Department has maintained substantial compliance for two years. Still, Correia said, the effectiveness of the decree will largely rely on the independent monitor.

“Let's hope we get a tough monitor because it'll be a fight to make sure APD lives up to these things,” he said.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-albuquerque-police-20141031-story.html

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Pennsylvania

Marshals Capture Eric Frein, America's Most Wanted Fugitive

from The Daily Beast

Eric Frein eluded Pennsylvania police for seven weeks after he allegedly killed a state trooper with a sniper shot. Last night, his run ended—in the back of that trooper's squad car.

Kids in Northeastern Pennsylvania will be able to go trick or treating after all, now that that the real-life monster Eric Frein has been captured.

The 31-year-old self-described survivalist and military re-enactor was finally arrested Thursday by U.S. Marshals who spotted him outside his hiding place in an abandoned airplane hangar at a shuttered Pocono Mountains resort.

The marshals ordered Frein to get down on his knees and raise his hands. He complied, unable to get to the two guns he had nearby, a pistol and likely the same .308 rifle that was used seven weeks ago to kill 38-year-old Pennsylvania State Police Cpl. Byron Dickson and critically wound 33-year-old Trooper Alex Douglass.

“He was definitely taken by surprise,” Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan later said. “He gave up because he was caught and he had no choice but to give up.”

Frein was placed in handcuffs that belonged to the murdered Dickson. The suspect was then hustled out of the surrounding woods and placed in an armored vehicle before being loaded into the back of what had been Dickson's police cruiser. His only injury was a scratch on his nose.

“But he had that before we got there,” Noonan reported.

Frein sat in the murdered cop's car appearing tired and angry. He was dressed in black and he was as dirty as might be expected, but he had surprisingly little beard, apparently having paused to shave within the past few days.

“He looked healthier than I thought he would,” Noonan said.

The searchers had still not found Frein as Halloween neared. The town of Paradise told parents that trick or treating was “at your discretion.”

With lights flashing, the cruiser arrived at the Blooming Grove State Police barracks in Pike County. Dickson had been leaving there at the end of a tour and was heading home to his wife and two young sons on the night of Sept. 12 when he was gunned down by a sniper concealed in the darkened woods.

The two troopers who now led Frein inside 48 days later are said to have included Cpl. Derek Felsman, who had delivered the eulogy at Dickson's funeral at St. Peter's Cathedral in Scranton. Felsman had spoken of Dickson as an “impeccable” former Marine who took great joy in making wooden toys for his sons and great pride in wearing a trooper's uniform.

“A steadfast soldier of the law,” Felsman had said of his friend and comrade.

Frein had been a fantasy soldier who had apparently decided to draw real blood with real bullets. A search team after the shooting found two pipe bombs and an AK-47 that Frein had apparently abandoned, along with a journal. An entry bearing the date of the attack read:

“SEPTEMBER 12: Got a shot around 11 p.m. and took it. He dropped. I was surprised at how quick. I took a follow-up shot on his head, neck area. He was still and quiet after that. Another cop approached the one I just shot. As he went to kneel, I took a shot at him and [he] jumped in the door. His legs were visible and still.”

The entry was read aloud by Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens at a September press conference a few days later. Bivens then added some words of his own.

“I can only describe Eric Frein's actions as pure evil,” Bivens said. “Every so often, true evil rears its ugly head and we must deal with it.”

Bivens made a pledge.

“We will get Frein. It is a matter of time before we catch him.”

Bivens and Noonan and the other cops privately discussed using Dickson's handcuffs if they managed to capture Frein alive.

“We decided it would be fitting,” Noonan would recall.

As many as 1,000 law-enforcement officers joined the hunt, going night and day, their families knowing all the while that at any moment Frein could be peering through his sights, a trigger pull from killing another cop. The searchers used dogs and night-vision goggles and infrared sensors and helicopters and even tried deploying a small unmanned blimp equipped with a camera. They thought they spotted him on at least two occasions, but he was too far away for them to grab him.

At one point, they came upon Serbian cigarettes that DNA testing confirmed were Frein's. He was known to be fascinated by the Serbian army, in particular a unit called the Drina Wolves, which was infamous for massacring 7,500 Muslims in Bosnia in 1995.

A number of civilians also reported Frein sightings, once near the high school he attended. They described him as clad in black, his face smeared with mud. The searchers would flood the area only to be frustrated again. A woman noticed blood near a chicken coop, but a test proved it not to be Frein's.

Wanted posters bearing Frein's photo went up as far away as the New York City subways, but the searchers remained convinced that he was still in the patch of Pennsylvania where he had been raised. The hunt was said to cost more than $1 million a week. Nobody thought of abandoning it.

The searchers had still not found Frein as Halloween neared, and Barrett Township canceled what was to have been its 50 th annual parade, along with trick or treating. The town of Paradise told parents that trick or treating was “at your discretion.”

Then, shortly before 6 p.m. on the night before Halloween, a team of U.S. Marshals saw a black-clad figure in an open field outside the abandoned hangar at the Birchwood Resort. Frein was arrested before he could do anybody any more harm.

“I am very relieved that his ended peacefully,” Noonan later said.

Noonan notified Dickson's widow, Tiffany, as well as the wounded Douglass that Frein had been captured.

“Relief and gratitude was the reaction,” Noonan reported afterward.

Frein was lodged in a holding cell at Blooming Grove barracks. Those who attended a press conference held nearby included Noonan and Bivens as well as Pike County District Attorney Raymond Tonkin, who announced that he would be seeking the death penalty.

Tonkin said that he expected Frein to be brought before a judge sometime on Friday, which happens to be Halloween. Officials at Barrett Township had already made known that the big parade was back on and that the kids would be able to trick or treat after all.

“Because Eric Frein was arrested tonight, the children can go on and have Halloween tomorrow,” Tonkin noted.

But the kids who should be foremost in everybody's mind are the Dickson boys, Bryon Dickson III and Adam. They were home with their lovingly made wooden toys and the Pennsylvania State Police hat one of the boys had worn at the funeral after a real-life monster murdered their father.

Just imagine how delighted Cpl. Byron Dickson would have been to take his boys out trick or treating, if only he had been able.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/31/marshals-capture-eric-frein-america-s-most-wanted-fugitive.html

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New York

Bratton: No credible threats against NYC Marathon

This is the second time the race has been run since the bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon. Security was stepped up last year, with organizers planning similar measures Sunday. Barriers were erected around Central Park, where the race ends, and spectators could enter only through a few designated checkpoints where bags were searched.

Chief James Waters, the commanding officer of the NYPD's Counterterrorism Bureau, said officials in New York scoured social media after last year's marathon to gauge runners' and fans' reactions to the increased security.

"They felt reassured by our police presence, and the presence of all the other city agencies," he said at a news conference with Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio.

More than 4,000 officers will be deployed Sunday, Bratton said. The NYPD also will use four airships and about 20 vessels in the waters around the city.

De Blasio and Bratton attended a meeting Wednesday that included various city agencies and the FBI to go over preparations.

Bratton, who succeeded Raymond Kelly as commissioner in January, spent time in Boston to see how the city handled security for April's marathon there, the first since the bombings.

After recent "lone wolf" attacks in Canada and in New York, where a man assaulted officers with a hatchet last week, Bratton emphasized the importance of vigilance by residents to report suspicious or concerning activities.

About 50,000 runners are expected for Sunday's race through the five boroughs.

De Blasio said there was no reason for concerns about Ebola in conjunction with the marathon.

"This year, the best professionals in health and safety have added their input to make sure things will go smoothly," he said.

Marathon organizers said Monday they have no runners signed up for this year's race from the three West African countries stricken by Ebola.

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/crime/article/Bratton-No-credible-threats-against-NYC-Marathon-5858697.php

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Colorado

In Colorado east African community, girls' attempt to join jihadis is parents' worst nightmare

by The Associated Press

AURORA, Colo. – The strange journey of three suburban Denver girls who authorities say tried to join Islamic State militants in Syria has many in their close-knit east African community worried about whether their own children will be the next to be lured to terror.

The girls' voyage has mystified many in the U.S., and has been even more troubling among Aurora's Somali and Sudanese immigrants, thousands of whom fled civil war and forged new lives in the Denver suburbs, where refugees easily find jobs driving cabs or working in the meat industry.

But while the girls' parents were working to give them a better life, being a Muslim teenager isn't easy in an American high school, said Ahmed Odowaay, a community advocate who works with youth. It's easy to feel like an outsider, even as a U.S. citizen.

Even his 10-year-old daughter gets taunts of "terrorist" when she wears her hijab in school, he said.

"This community is outcast. They feel like they don't belong here. They're frustrated," Odowaay said from his seat at Barwaaqo, a restaurant hidden in one of Aurora's low-slung strip malls, where other men dined on goat and spaghetti, a favorite east African dish. "I'm worried their frustrations will lead them in the wrong direction."

Young people in communities like this across the country are vulnerable to extremists in Syria and elsewhere who reach out to them online, promising the glory of battle, the honor becoming a wife, or just acceptance. Odowaay said it's easy for young Muslims to encounter recruiters while trolling Facebook. He said it's happened to him.

Family and friends saw the three — two Somali sisters ages 17 and 15 and their 16-year-old Sudanese friend — as typical Muslim teenagers who like the mall and movies, not fundamentalists.

It wasn't until they missed class that the 16-year-old's father realized they had been talking online to militants, who convinced them to steal cash from their parents, buy plane tickets and head to Syria with their U.S. passports. Authorities said one of the girls did most of the planning and encouraged the others to follow.

Alarm spread quickly as friends and relatives realized the girls were gone, and saw signs of their plans on their Twitter accounts.

"She asked her friends to pray for her ... and at that time, I just knew that something really bad was going to happen," said the father of a 16-year-old, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because he is concerned for the girls' safety.

He called the FBI and his congressman for help, and agents stopped them at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany.

The girls likely won't be charged with a crime and are safe now, but the father said he is still troubled by lingering questions about their intentions, who recruited them online and how they were so easily able to board a plane and head overseas. His daughter seemed not to have a clear idea of what she would be doing if she had made it there.

"They're just like, you know, stupid little girls," he said. "They just want to do something, and they do it."

At the girls' high school, the possibility that students might be lured to terror wasn't something they had previously considered, said Cherry Creek School District spokeswoman Tustin Amole. That's changed, and FBI officials spent the past week doing outreach, looking for friends who may have had similar intentions. Teachers encouraged students to come forward with concerns or if they see something suspicious.

"This was not a problem we were aware of," said Halimo Hashi, who owns an African fashion boutique. "If we knew, maybe we could have spoken to the right people."

Hafedh Ferjani of the Colorado Muslim Council said he is arranging meetings with Denver FBI officials and youth in the community, as they held several years ago after concerns arose that young men were returning to Somalia to join the terror group al-Shabab.

"If we learn what happened from the girls, we can avoid someone else doing that," he said.

As the community comes to grips with the dangers, things have changed for the girls' families, too. The sisters' father doesn't grasp the severity of the situation, said Rashid Sadiq, who leads the Somali Organization of Colorado and met the girls' father more than a decade ago.

As 16-year-old's father tries to repair his family, he has advice for those worried their children might be led astray.

"I just ask any parent to look for what their kids are doing online," said the father.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/10/29/in-colorado-east-african-community-girls-attempt-to-join-jihadis-is-parents/

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Ohio

Community policing operation conducted Tuesday

by The NewsJournal

MANSFIELD – The Richland County Community Policing-Probation-Parole Partnership conducted an operation with the U.S. Marshals Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force-Richland County Division on Tuesday.

Thirteen officers from Richland County Adult Probation, the Ohio Adult Parole Authority, Mansfield Municipal Probation, the Mansfield Police Department and the N.O.V.F.T.F. participated in the sweep. The focus of the operation was to check on violent, drug and sex offenders in the community to monitor their compliance with conditions set by the court.

During the operation, officers checked and made contact with over 30 residences. Officers issued misdemeanor summons to two people. Two offenders were arrested for technical violations. One offender was arrested on an outstanding warrant for her arrest after being located hiding in the backseat of a van. She lied to officers about her identity and was charged with falsification.

http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/story/news/local/2014/10/29/community-policing-operation-conducted-tuesday/18137479/

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Indiana

Public safety plan turns focus to helping ex-offenders

by Michael Henrich

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Advocates looking to increase public safety and reduce recidivism rates gathered in Indianapolis Thursday for the Marion County Conference on Re-entry.

The conference starts at 9 a.m. with remarks from nonprofit advocates, as well as Mayor Greg Ballard and Public Safety Director Troy Riggs.

Lena Hackett, with Community Solutions and the Marion County Re-entry Coalition, said official estimates show 5,000 people come back to Marion County from incarceration each year, but she believes that number is truly in the 8,000-9,000 range.

“We want to make sure that when they come back, they know how to be a strong family member, they know how to integrate back in to find employment and housing and be productive,” Hackett said, “so that they stay active in the community and build strong neighborhoods, rather than not have any options [and] perhaps commit a new crime and end up back in incarceration.”

Hackett said the conference will focus on bringing advocates together to learn best practices about methods of helping ex-offenders, how to recognize whether those methods are working and also how to advocate public policy changes.

http://fox59.com/2014/10/30/public-safety-plan-turns-focus-to-helping-ex-offenders/

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Iowa

Corporate tax dodging threatens public safety

by Dan Cougill

I'm usually a fan of the Whopper, but recently I haven't set foot inside a Burger King. In August, the company announced it would renounce its U.S. corporate "citizenship" to avoid paying its fair share of taxes.

As a professional firefighter, I know that tax dodging by huge corporations can drain resources we need for firefighters, police, the military, and other important things. The more I thought about it the angrier I got. Now I've lost my taste for everything on the Burger King menu.

Burger King is just the latest corporation to exploit a loophole that allows an American company to transform itself into a foreign company while actually maintaining all its operations here. This make-believe move — called a "corporate inversion" — lets the company enjoy the privileges of operating in this country but dodge its responsibility to help pay for them.

When corporations duck out on their portion of the bill that pays for public services, the rest of us pay the price in higher taxes or slashed services. I know firsthand that federal aid to fire departments across the country has been cut in recent years, making all of us less safe.

Corporate tax dodging also hurts small business. Growing up in Aurelia, I watched my dad struggle to keep afloat his fuel delivery service and small gas station until a big chain finally forced him out of business. Huge corporations already have enough advantages over the little guy. They don't need offshore tax loopholes, too.

This being election season, I'd really like to know where the candidates we see in all those TV commercials stand on this issue. I have some sense about Bruce Braley, who has voted on these issues in Congress — usually on the side of ordinary people. But I want to hear more from Joni Ernst. She's signed a pledge from a group in Washington that would make it next to impossible to close tax loopholes so that the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

Most politicians pay attention to polls, and on this issue popular opinion is clear. Seven out of 10 Iowans are opposed to corporate inversions, and they specifically oppose Burger King's move, according to a recent poll. Clearly, the company's lack of patriotism isn't playing well in the heartland.

Iowans rightly understand that our tax system is rigged against them — and they want change. Seven out of 10 Iowans say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who wants to make sure corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. And more than eight out of 10 Iowans would support a candidate who wants to pay for better public services by closing corporate tax loopholes.

When such high numbers of Iowans agree on anything, politicians should pay close attention.

Some big-time CEOs claim that corporations pay too much in taxes. Then how do they explain 26 well-known corporations like General Electric, Verizon and Priceline.com paying exactly zero in federal income taxes from 2008 to 2012? You and I paid more in taxes in one year than all 26 of these companies put together paid over five.

When a corporation like Burger King discards its American identity like an old burger wrapper, I think about the brave men and women who have served our flag, here and abroad. I think about my son-in-law, who saw military service in Afghanistan and Iraq. Did they sacrifice so big American corporations could switch national flags to save a few bucks?

People like you and me helped build those companies: as consumers, workers and taxpayers. Not only have I downed my share of Whoppers, but when a grease fire gets out of hand, its folks like me who ride to Burger King's rescue. Burger King wants the firefighters to show up when they're needed, but it doesn't want to foot its part of the bill for that lifesaving service.

We need to close tax loopholes and require that corporations contribute their fair share. We have a say in the matter: We can demand that our elected officials put an end to these outrageous tax dodges. And if companies like Burger King insist on abandoning America to pad their bottom lines, we all can do something about it — eat somewhere else.

THE AUTHOR

DAN COUGILL of Sioux City is president of the Iowa Professional Fire Fighters.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/10/30/corporate-tax-dodging-threatens-public-safety/18155309/

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Mississippi

Pipeline to Prison: Special Education Too Often Leads to Jail for Thousands of American Children

Part One

by Jackie Mader and Sarah Butrymowicz

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news website focused on inequality and innovation in education, in partnership with the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, the only national news outlet reporting the juvenile justice issue daily. Read more about efforts to improve education in Mississippi.

GRENADA, Miss. — Cody Beck was 12 years old when he was handcuffed in front of several classmates and put in the back of a police car outside Grenada Middle School. Cody had lost his temper in an argument with another student, and hit several teachers when they tried to intervene. He was taken to the local youth court and then sent to a mental health facility two hours away from his home. Twelve days later, the sixth-grader was released from the facility and charged with three counts of assault.

Officials at his school determined the incident was a result of Cody's disability. As a child, Cody was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He had been given an Individual Education Program, or IEP, a legal document that details the resources, accommodations and classes that a special education student should receive to help manage his or her disability. But despite there being a medical reason for his behavior, Cody was not allowed to return to school. He was called to youth court three times in the four months after the incident happened, and was out of school for nearly half that time as he waited to start at a special private school.

Cody is one of thousands of children caught up in the juvenile justice system each year. At least one in three of those arrested has a disability, ranging from emotional disability like bipolar disorder to learning disabilities like dyslexia, and some researchers estimate the figure may be as high as 70 percent. Across the country, students with emotional disabilities are three times more likely to be arrested before leaving high school than the general population.

When the special education system fails youth and they end up in jail, many stay there for years or decades. The vast majority of adults in American prisons have a disability, according to a 1997 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey. Data hasn't been updated since, but experts attribute the high percentage of individuals with disabilities in the nation's bloated prison population — which has grown 700 percent since 1970 — in part to deep problems in the education of children with special needs.

In Mississippi and across the country, the path to prison often starts very early for kids who struggle to manage behavioral or emotional disabilities in low-performing schools that lack mental health care, highly qualified special education teachers and appropriately trained staff. Federal law requires schools to provide an education for kids with disabilities in an environment as close to a regular classroom as possible. But often, special needs students receive an inferior education, fall behind and end up with few options for college or career. For youth with disabilities who end up in jail, education can be minimal, and at times, nonexistent, even though federal law requires that they receive an education until age 21.

“A lot of times, it's a major setback,” said Elissa Johnson, a staff attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center. She added that some transgressions are serious, and it's behavior that needs to be addressed. “But when you're dealing with students with disabilities, youth court referrals are harmful.”

Experts say that students with emotional disabilities can be impulsive, inattentive or aggressive, behavior that gets them in trouble. “When we're talking about emotional or behavioral disabilities, we're really talking about kids with serious mental health needs,” said Reece Peterson, a professor of special education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Learning disabilities can also land special needs children in trouble more often than their peers. “Kids with learning disabilities that are not properly remediated in a school setting start to dislike school, or act up at school, or do things to distract from the fact that they're not doing well,” said Diane Smith Howard, senior staff attorney for the National Disability Rights Network.

More than 14,600 youth were involved with Mississippi's juvenile justice system in 2012, but it's unknown how many were in special education since the state does not track that information. (According to a Mississippi Department of Education [DOE] official, both the DOE and the Public Safety Office believed the other department was responsible. The official said the DOE will begin to collect that data this year.)

Although numbers fluctuate as students move in and out of the system, some federal data show that kids with disabilities are overrepresented in the state's detention facilities. In 2011, 13 percent of students in the state's public school system qualified for special education. But at the Oakley Youth Development Center, about 27 percent of students had disabilities, according to a federal Office of Civil Rights survey. Officials at the Rankin County Detention Center say 50 percent of the children they've had this year qualify for special education.

Many of these kids enter the justice system shortchanged by schools and far behind their nondisabled peers. In the 2012-13 school year, only 13 percent of eighth-grade students with disabilities scored proficient or above on the state's language arts exam, compared to 58 percent of nondisabled students. According to a previous Clarion-Ledger review of data, during the 2011-12 school year, less than a quarter of special education students in Mississippi received a regular diploma, far lower than the national average of 64 percent in 2011.

“Young people who generally end up in trouble were not prepared from the beginning educationally,” said Oleta Garrett Fitzgerald, director of the Children's Defense Fund's Southern Regional Office. A 2013 report by the Minneapolis-based PACER Center, a parent training center, warned that one of the biggest reasons students end up in the corrections system is “school failure.”

Many kids across Mississippi also lack access to prekindergarten, meaning they may start behind academically, socially and emotionally, and can miss a critical time period to identify disabilities and begin treatment. Only about 17 percent of children under 5 in Mississippi receive a screening for developmental or behavioral problems, compared to the national average of about 31 percent.

“Early education and nurturing is absolutely critical,” Fitzgerald said. “Children whose needs are met at an early age are able to go to school ready to learn. … They're much less likely to be discipline problems in the classroom.”

First step — suspension

To an outsider, Cody seems like any other 14-year-old boy. He's soft-spoken around strangers and spends his free time playing with his baby sister, hunting with his dad and building things outside in the family's wood shop in their modest rural home near Grenada Lake. He aspires to be an underwater welder, like his father. But from a young age, Cody has struggled to manage his anger. He has outbursts when he argues with others, especially with other children. If he is touched while angry, he tries to get away, even if that means hitting someone else. His parents say he especially tends to clash with “bullies,” which can spiral into heated fights.

In his 2013-14 IEP, it was recommended that Cody receive individual instruction, be placed in a small class with other students with emotional disabilities and have daily therapy sessions. His teachers set short-term goals for Cody, such as “develop the ability to identify impulsive thoughts and consequences” and “develop the ability to identify and express feelings of anger and distress in socially acceptable ways.” In his IEP, his teachers also detailed his academic abilities: He was reading nearly at grade level, but his math and writing skills were several grades behind. They wrote that Cody “tries to do his best work and desires to learn.”

Robert Beck, Cody's father, said he also explained to Cody's teachers the tactics he found to work best in calming Cody down, such as speaking in a calm voice and refraining from making physical contact.

Still, from a young age, Cody was suspended for behavioral incidents and missed more than a dozen days of school in the months leading up to his arrest. When asked about the fighting, Cody said he loses his temper when other kids tease him, or when he hears “people talking about my parents, telling me I'm stupid.”

For many students with disabilities, suspensions are often the entry point in the pipeline to the criminal justice system. Statewide, more than 8,000 students with disabilities received an out-of-school suspension, and nearly half of those received more than one in the 2011-12 school year, according to estimates by the federal Office of Civil Rights.

“Many of those kids get in further trouble out of school,” said Reece Peterson, “and they end up in the juvenile justice system.”

Several special education students who have been arrested said in interviews that their trouble with the law was preceded by frequent suspensions for fighting or “talking back.” One 16-year-old special education student at Oakley Youth Development Center, a long-term center for incarcerated youth, said in the past, “loud noises and childish people” would set him off. A 15-year-old student at Oakley who qualifies for special education said she was incarcerated after assaulting a police officer. She had already been suspended from school numerous times for things like “playing in the hall” during class or talking back to teachers.

School discipline policies often do not take into account students with disabilities. They may, for example, include zero tolerance policies not only for serious behavior, but also for disrespect or noncompliance. Experts say this can lead schools to disproportionately suspend special education students, whose actions may be manifestations of their disability.

A 2013 report by several nonprofits found that some Mississippi school discipline policies include vague or subjective language, like expulsion for “any action which is deemed disorderly conduct or misconduct.” In Caledonia, Miss., several parents interviewed said deputies who work in the nearby Lowndes County School District respond in extreme ways, such as pulling out a Taser gun when kids, including those with behavioral or emotional disabilities, act out in school. (Officials from the district said that no Taser guns have been used on children at school, but police officers on the campuses do carry them. The district's security guards do not.)

Not enough teachers, not enough counseling

One of the main reasons special needs children are jailed more often than their peers is because teachers aren't trained in how to manage kids who are insubordinate or disruptive, according to the 2013 report by the PACER Center. For years, Mississippi has experienced a shortage of highly qualified special education teachers, especially in the lowest-performing schools. (Nearly one-third of Mississippi's districts are considered “critical needs” districts by the state.)

Reece Peterson says discipline needs to move to a more “teaching-based” approach so that students explicitly learn correct behavior. “If [a student] has a disability that has characteristics of being aggressive and acting out, we can't simply punish him for that,” Peterson said. “We would want to provide some sort of service or intervention for it.”

But these resources are lacking in Mississippi. During the 2011-12 school year, only about half the children ages 2 to 17 who have problems that require counseling received mental health care, compared to more than 60 percent nationwide.

Paul Bowen, administrator of the Rankin County Youth Court, said he sees many youth who have untreated mental health problems. The detention facility provides counseling while the youth are incarcerated, but few continue once they get home. “Many of these children would respond positively,” Bowen said. “But they're dependent on adults to get them there and many families can't afford those services.”

There have been some efforts to find solutions. In 2013, administrators at the Rankin County Detention Center rolled out a new behavior management program called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, or PBIS, which aims to teach and reward positive behaviors, rather than focusing on punishment and negative behaviors. Bowen said that since the program launched, the detention center has seen a 65 percent decrease in incidents related to behavior. Some states, like Minnesota, have rolled out this program in all schools.

In the absence of school-based efforts and resources, a handful of nonprofits have launched programs to keep the most at-risk students out of the justice system. In the Delta town of Ruleville, Alfonso Franklin, a project manager at the Mississippi Center for Justice, runs a program aimed at helping boys transition out of the system, or keeping them out from the start. He frequently tracks down students who are absent from school, checks in with their teachers and organizes speakers to talk about the impact of getting arrested.

“I'm trying to be proactive,” Franklin said, adding that there are few recreational activities or resources in rural Mississippi. “Everything we talk to them about is about not becoming a victim to the system.”

Efforts like these are critical, experts say, since preventing an arrest in the first place is much easier than helping kids stay out of jail once they've spent time there. Dennis Daniels, superintendent of the Oakley Youth Development Center, said Oakley sees so many students with disabilities because communities and schools tend to “deal with the behavior before they deal with the disorder.”

“There's nobody dealing with their disabilities,” Daniels said. “If you don't get them help in the community, they get locked up.”

No way back

After an arrest, families say they often encounter districts that are reluctant to let those children return to school, or schools that are ill-equipped to handle them. “The school district might say ‘I'm uncomfortable with you returning to school, we're going to put you in an alternative program,' ” said Smith Howard.

After his arrest, Cody's team of special education teachers and school officials decided to send him to the Millcreek Day Treatment center, a privately run facility in the northwest Mississippi town of Batesville, which is accredited by the state as a “special non-public school.” There, Cody's parents say he was mixed with “a lot of problem kids and the schoolwork wasn't challenging.” Cody said he was frequently given worksheets and word searches.

One of his assignments as a seventh-grade student was to read and complete a 68-page packet called “How I Learned to Control My Temper,” which is written at a low-elementary level and tells the story of a boy who learns different ways to handle his temper. It includes several pages of activities, like drawing pictures and playing tic-tac-toe.

Megan Williams, a therapist at Millcreek who the school provided for comment, said that although she can't speak about any former or current students, she guesses the packet was “not from the teacher, but from the therapist.” (At Millcreek, Cody had daily access to a special education teacher and a therapist.) Regarding the classwork, Williams said that “each classroom is different,” and she was not able to speak about the academic program at the facility.

In dozens of daily reports sent home by Millcreek, Cody's behavior seemed to improve, although there were still a few behavioral incidents that resulted in time out of school. For several stretches of time, he received perfect or near perfect scores for “respecting others,” “following directions” and his individual goal to “stay positive.” On several reports, teachers commented that Cody “did all class work” and “ignored negativity.”

After an incident last October, however, Millcreek referred Cody to a behavioral treatment center in Tennessee. When he was released, his father and stepmother asked the school district to move Cody back to the public school, where they wanted him to do more challenging work. Instead, school officials offered to put him on a “homebound program” where he would complete work sent home every day, and spend two hours twice a week working with a teacher at a regular school. In the future, they said, he could possibly transition back to the regular school.

Officials at Grenada Middle School said they couldn't discuss individual students. Bea Colbert, director of special education for the Grenada School District, said the decision to put a child on a homebound program “depends on the individual circumstances.” The amount of time a child spends homebound also varies by child, Colbert said, but could be based on how well the child has been working with the academic teacher, “how much time [in school] they're able to tolerate” or how well the child is doing in counseling sessions.

“Our ultimate goal for every child is to be in their least restrictive environment and to earn a traditional diploma,” Colbert said. “But for some children, that may not be a realistic goal.”

Cody's parents said they were torn, since they knew he might not be ready to handle a large class, but they didn't want him to be isolated. In April this year, they agreed to keep him at home, but said his education now consists of him spending most of his days alone, teaching himself the material that is sent home from school. When teachers at Grenada Middle School wanted to move him on to eighth grade this year, his parents argued that he had missed too much school, and had not learned enough, to move on. This year, Cody is repeating seventh grade.

“What they're doing now is not providing him with an education,” said Bobbi Jo Beck, Cody's stepmother. She said she fears that if he doesn't learn how to interact with others and control his temper, future incidents could lead to more arrests and jail time, which is something she sees frequently at her job as a nurse at a county jail. “It scares me,” Bobbi Jo said. “I don't want that to happen to him.”

http://jjie.org/pipeline-to-prison-special-education-too-often-leads-to-jail-for-thousands-of-american-children/107820/

~~~

Mississippi

Pipeline to Prison: How the Juvenile Justice System Fails Special Education Students

Part Two

by Jackie Mader and Sarah Butrymowicz

CALEDONIA, Miss. — Toney Jennings was illiterate when he was arrested at age 16. In the six months he spent at the Lowndes County Jail in eastern Mississippi, he says he played basketball, watched TV and “basically just stayed to myself.”

A special education student, Jennings qualified for extra help in school. Those services should have carried over to the justice system, but Jennings said he never even attended class while in jail. Now 20, he is still unable to read or write.

Each year, thousands of Mississippi teens cycle through the justice system, where experts say the quality of education is often low. Incarcerated juveniles have the same educational rights as those outside — five hours of instruction a day that meet their learning needs, including special education. The state does not currently track how many of those juvenile offenders are entitled to extra education services, but according to a 2010 federal survey, 30 percent of youth in custody of the juvenile justice system have a diagnosed learning disability — six times the amount in the general population. Following several lawsuits, Mississippi has worked to improve the quality of education for all students in the system, with some successes.

Still, many of the kids who need help the most, like Toney, aren't getting it, experts say. These students tend to already be academically behind, and encounters with the justice system early on only increase the likelihood that they'll drop out of school or end up incarcerated as adults.

“Every day they're not getting a real education, then that's a day that we've lost,” said Sue Burrell, a staff attorney at the San Francisco-based Youth Law Center. “The kids that are in juvenile justice cannot afford to lose those days.”

Once arrested, male and female juveniles in Mississippi first go to detention centers to await trial. They can also be sentenced to these facilities for short periods of time. For longer stays — of several weeks or months — youth go to the Oakley Development Center, 30 minutes west of Jackson. All facilities are expected to provide classes on site with certified teachers.

The Mississippi Department of Education has budgeted $1 million in state funds per year for educating juveniles in 15 detention centers. In the 2011-12 school year, Mississippi spent an additional $844,000 in federal money educating more than 1,000 minors in juvenile and adult longer-term correctional facilities, according to federal data.

Although centers may monitor the number of special education students that pass through their doors, no state department has collected or analyzed that information. When reporters from The Hechinger Report asked the Mississippi Department of Education and the Office of Public Safety about the number of special education students in detention centers in the state, both agencies said that they believed the other entity was tracking those statistics. The Department of Education said it will track those numbers in the future.

To comply with the federal law that requires extra educational services for any student diagnosed with a disability, a school will create a legal document known as an Individual Education Program (IEP). This might include one-on-one time with a teacher or additional time to complete assignments. A student's right to an IEP extends to juvenile justice and adult correctional facilities. But experts around the country say that the legally mandated services these students need are rarely provided once they enter the criminal justice system.

“Kids with special needs are not being served well,” said David Domenici, director of the Center for Educational Excellence in Alternative Settings. “My take is a lot of facilities don't thoughtfully look at the IEP.”

Lawsuits bring change

Jennings, now 20, was raised by his grandmother, Cornelia Glenn, in Caledonia. She said he rarely got in trouble as a child. He loved fishing and dreamed of playing football professionally. He was diagnosed at age 8 with a learning disability and by the time he was in high school, he was placed in a classroom of only special education students for “behavioral issues” that weren't part of his diagnosis, according to his IEP.

Aware of how far behind he was, Glenn agreed to send him to an alternative school that was recommended by school officials who said the smaller class sizes could help him academically.

In 2010, Jennings was arrested on a charge of statutory rape. He was convicted as an adult and first sentenced to Lowndes County Jail. Lauderdale County Sheriff William Sollie, who oversees the jail, said it does not provide education to inmates because it's a primary short-term holding facility. For the few who are sentenced to long-term stays, GED classes are offered. Jennings did not take them.

After several months at Lowndes, Jennings was sent to the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility. At the time, the prison, a privately run facility an hour northeast of Jackson, was the only place for youths age 13 to 22 who had been tried as adults. Although the facility did have a school, a 2010 lawsuit by the Southern Poverty Law Center alleged that, among other things, fewer than half the 1,200 inmates there attended classes.

Jennings, who is currently out of prison on appeal, unemployed and living with his grandmother, said he took GED classes at Walnut Grove, but did not get the extra help he needed. Before going to prison, he read at a kindergartener's level, according to his IEP. His math skills were that of a first-grader. But he'd been making progress at the alternative school, where teachers gave him more individual help.

“If he hadn't gone to prison, I think he'd be reading by now,” Glenn said. “He would have learned more. [Now] he'll always be dependent.”

As a result of the lawsuit, a new private company took control of the jail and Walnut Grove was converted into an adult facility. Current Walnut Grove warden Lepher Jenkins said he could not speak about the specifics of Jennings' case because he was not in charge at the time. But he said Walnut Grove has always placed an emphasis on education and that any learning disabilities should be identified as soon as youth are admitted, and addressed in class.

Now that Walnut Grove serves adults, minors who are convicted as adults will go to the 2-year-old Youthful Offenders Unit at the Central Mississippi Correction Facility. The unit's school, which was accredited in May, teaches all core subjects and offers vocational programs in lawn care, barbering and custodial services. The Mississippi Department of Corrections denied a request to visit the school.

The Walnut Grove lawsuit was one of many brought against Mississippi facilities. Legal action by the Southern Poverty Law Center and other groups about general conditions and abuse have also forced the closure of two detention centers, where teens go for shorter stays immediately after being arrested, and one youth development center, where those who are sentenced go for longer periods.

The one remaining juvenile correctional facility in the state only recently got out of legal trouble. In 2003, the Oakley Youth Development Center was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for violating youths' civil rights with “staff violence and abusive institutional practices, unreasonable use of isolation and restraints, and inadequate medical, mental health and educational services.” In 2005, Oakley entered into an agreement to carry out reforms. The facility's school was accredited in 2012 and this fall, the lawsuit was dismissed.

At first glance, Shirlinda Robinson's second period English class at Oakley looks like a typical classroom, save for the guards who occasionally peer through the window. The room is decorated with posters detailing the parts of speech and giving tips on how to write a “satisfying paragraph.” On a Tuesday morning in September, Robinson walked her students, six high school-aged boys, through the standards they would be expected to meet during her next unit, like being able to analyze the theme of a passage. The students readily volunteered answers to questions and took notes.

Several students in Robinson's class have IEPs. At Oakley at any given time, nearly a third of students qualify for special education. The majority of teachers are dual certified in special education, which makes it easier for them to directly address students' needs. A special education coordinator keeps track of students' IEPs and ensures they're getting the services required, even if it means contracting with outside therapists or psychologists.

Robinson said for many of her students Oakley is the first time they've regularly attended school in years. Several students said they enjoyed the classes more than at their former school, and many also said they were learning more.

That was not true, however, of the detention centers where they stayed while awaiting sentencing. General and special education students at Oakley who were interviewed by The Hechinger Report said they learned little while in those facilities. One student said he was given easy worksheets. Another said his classes abruptly stopped when a teacher quit. He said it didn't matter, though. His classes usually devolved into fights. Several students said they spent their school hours on computers, taking classes online but also surfing the web to play games or check fantasy football scores.

“It wasn't really school,” one said.

A 2006 report found that education for all students at juvenile detention centers in Mississippi varied greatly. Two centers, in Jones and Lauderdale counties, provided no academic instruction, and one relied only on volunteer tutors. (The Lauderdale County center has since closed.) Just five out of 17 centers provided the legally required five hours of instruction per day with a certified teacher.

A subsequent law mandated that state-employed monitors (there are currently three) visit each detention center four times a year and make public reports about conditions at each center. According to those reports, education is now provided at all centers but one, and 12 of the 15 have a certified special education teacher. But even proponents of the original legislation say that the monitors' reports have been superficial.

Donald Beard, head of the monitoring unit, said criticism of the reports is likely deserved, but that there are legal limits on what they can include. Complaints and other issues investigated by the monitoring unit are confidential. “I probably did not put a lot of effort into it,” he said. “Nobody ever read that stuff.”

Although the Department of Public Safety monitors the centers, school districts are directly responsible for providing education. Mississippi Department of Education spokesperson Jean Cook said the department supports the districts, adding that those “that don't provide quality educational services are subject to sanctions.”

While teachers may have the right credentials to teach special education students, it doesn't necessarily mean students are being taught well, said Jody Owens, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “What you continue to hear is that people are qualified special education teachers, but we just don't feel the services are being provided,” he said. “You go into a classroom and you'll see a computer that looks like it hasn't been used or see students who tell you they play games all day.”

In 2011, the Southern Poverty Law Center sued Jackson's Henley-Young Detention Center, which can hold youths for up to 89 days. The suit, which alleged that youth were verbally abused by staff and regularly isolated in cells for up to 23 hours a day, came just two years after the monitoring unit called Henley-Young “a facility that can be a model for other centers not only in Mississippi but the entire Southeast.”

Following the suit, a federal judge appointed juvenile justice expert Leonard Dixon to make public recommendations on how to improve the center. Dixon has repeatedly called for an outside evaluation of the school, but it has not happened.

“The center doesn't have the trained staff or money to adequately deal with mental health issues or teach special education students,” Dixon said. “They're not prepared. That's as plain as I can put it.”

Henley-Young did not return requests for comment.

At Rankin County Juvenile Detention Center, which experts consider a model detention center, teachers make an effort to meet students' individual education plans, which about half the youths have.

But it can be difficult. Teens continually cycle through the facility, and some stay just a week or two. An inmate's previous school is supposed to send the student's information and work immediately, but it can take several days, or longer, to collect documents from the more than 30 districts that send kids to Rankin County's facility. And even then, the center often doesn't have the same textbooks or workbooks, meaning students may fall behind peers in their regular school.

The center's three teachers use an assessment that students take within 24 hours of arriving to tailor their lessons to their ability levels. Like Jennings, some might be on a kindergarten level, while others will be able to handle high school work. Teachers cater to the majority by teaching lessons at or close to a fifth-grade level, but also spending one-on-one time going over lessons sent from the students' home schools.

“We get kids in every day. Every single day is different,” said Meggan Freeny, a special education teacher at Rankin. “We can't guarantee that what we do in the classroom today is going to work tomorrow.”

Freeny works with the schools that the youth attended in order to access their IEPs and starts following them immediately at Rankin. For instance, if the plan requires a student to be in a regular classroom for 80 percent of the day, Freeny will pull them out and work with them individually the other 20 percent.

The center has also invested in nonacademic programs, like a reward-based behavior incentive program, where students can earn the right to work in the center's greenhouse or a chance to play musical instruments. Every school day wraps up with an hour of character education. On a recent afternoon the girls' classroom was writing “I am” poems, while the boys' room discussed positive influences. One boy said that his mom “always taught him to do right” and that she was disappointed he'd been arrested.

“How are you going to fix that?” his teacher, Daniel Wilburn, asked.

“Don't come back,” he answered.

“That's the part of the day I look forward to the most is trying to mold these kids,” Wilburn said. “We're not going to save them all but if we can save a few, it's worth it.”

http://jjie.org/pipeline-to-prison-how-the-juvenile-justice-system-fails-special-education-students/107827/

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Washington D.C.

Russia reportedly suspected of being behind breach of White House computers

by Fox News

Hackers suspected of working for the Russian government breached the White House's unclassified computer networks in recent weeks, according to a published report.

According to The Washington Post, the attacks resulted in temporary disruptions to some services while cybersecurity teams worked to contain the incursion. Anonymous White House officials told the paper that the intruders had not damaged the system and there was no sign that the classified network was breached.

The Post reported that the FBI, Secret Service, and National Security Agency are all involved in an investigation of who was responsible for the hack. It was not immediately clear whether any data was stolen.

A White House official told the Associated Press Tuesday that "activity of concern" was detected while assessing numerous possible cyberthreats that the Executive Office of the President is made aware of daily. The official said that the situation was dealt with immediately and work continues, although the new measures have led to temporary outages and loss of connectivity for some White House employees.

The Post reported that the White House officials discovered the breach earlier this month after being alerted to it by an ally. The paper reported that some staffers were asked to change their passwords and Intranet or VPN access was periodically shut off.

The intrusion became public hours after The Wall Street Journal reported that investigators for a private security firm discovered malicious code within the internal network of a firm harboring U.S. military secrets. The investigators noted that the code was programmed on Russian-language machines and built during working hours in Moscow.

In the report, a U.S. official told the Journal that it is often difficult to determine whether cyberattacks are backed by the Kremlin or merely the work of unaffiliated criminal groups.

Earlier this month, another cybersecurity firm reported that Russian hackers were exploiting a previously unknown flaw in Microsoft's Windows operating system to spy on NATO, the Ukrainian government, and other sensitive targets.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/29/russia-reportedly-suspected-being-behind-breach-white-house-computers/

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Washington D.C.

DHS increases security at federal buildings over terror concerns

by Fox News

The Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday it has increased security at federal buildings across the country, citing terror threats and recent attacks in Canada and elsewhere.

The announcement was made by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who said Federal Protective Service officers are providing the increased security.

Officials said the move was a “precautionary” step and not made in response to any specific threat. But they cited last week's violence in Canada and Islamic State threats. Additional security will be put in place in Washington, other major U.S. cities and unnamed locations across the country.

“The reasons for this action are self-evident: the continued public calls by terrorist organizations for attacks on the homeland and elsewhere, including against law enforcement and other government officials, and the acts of violence targeted at government personnel and installations in Canada and elsewhere recently,” Johnson said in a statement. “Given world events, prudence dictates a heightened vigilance in the protection of U.S. government installations and our personnel.”

A senior U.S. official added: “The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the Nusrah Front have both publicly threatened to retaliate against the West. We are taking all necessary measures to protect U.S. interests overseas and at home.”

Johnson also said the increased security will move among locations and will be “continually re-evaluated.”

The changes follows three such attacks last week.

On Wednesday a Canadian soldier was killed when alleged gunman Michael Zehaf-Bibeau stormed the county's national war memorial and fatally shot a soldier, then entered the Canadian Parliament before being killed by police.

The attack in Ottawa came two days after a man described as an being an Islamic State “inspired terrorist" ran over two soldiers in a parking lot in Quebec, killing one and injuring the other before being shot to death by police.

The man had been under surveillance by Canadian authorities, who feared he had jihadist ambitions and seized his passport when he tried to travel to Turkey.

Muslim leaders say Zehaf-Bibeau once complained that a Canadian mosque he attended was too liberal and inclusive. They also said he was kicked out of the mosque after repeatedly spending the night there against officials' wishes.

Zehaf-Bibeau's motive remains unknown, but Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called the shooting a terror attack. And the bloodshed raised fears that Canada is suffering reprisals for joining the U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria.

Zehaf-Bibeau, whose father was from Libya, was not being watched by authorities. But a top police official said he may have lashed out in frustration over delays in getting his passport.

On Thursday, Zale Thompson, a reclusive Muslim convert who ranted online against America, attacked two New York City police officers on a busy Queens street before being shot down by two uninjured officers.

Thompson has no clear ties to international extremists, and no motive has been established. But city police Commissioner William Bratton is calling the incident a terror attack.

Johnson has said in recent weeks that such lone wolf attacks are now the country's biggest domestic terror concern.

House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul said in a statement Tuesday that he "commended" Johnson's decision.

"ISIS is waging a campaign of war over the Internet to incite homegrown violent extremism in the United States," McCaul, R-Texas, said. "We must do everything we can to protect every American abroad and at home."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/29/dhs-increases-security-at-federal-building-over-terror-concerns/

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Texas

You can't say Police Chief David Brown doesn't understand community policing

by Jim Mitchell

Well, this certainly is transparency. I'm surprised – and impressed – by Dallas Police Chief David Brown's decision to put 12 years of officer-involved shootings on the Web.

It is bold. I'm sure some attorney advised against it, knowing that no show of vulnerability goes unpunished. If I were in the chief's shoes, I don't know that I would revisit history.

Still, this decision is yet another indication that Brown understands community policing and the all-important neighborhood-police relationship. His most impressive moment came after a shooting in 2012 nearly sparked a riot in Dixon Circle. Brown got involved in the most hands-on way possible, which helped to put a lid on a rumor mill that was on the verge of running amok with misinformation about how the shooting occurred.

Now, the website should pull back a bit more of the curtain. The Dallas department plans to post details about the shootings, including bar and line charts, details of the incidents, ethnic breakdowns, whether weapons were involved, case dispositions and details of the deadly force policy and investigative process. I'm guessing that this statistical exercise will reveal information/trends that the department might not have known before.

Interestingly enough, the Philadelphia Police Department has a similar website that also shows where the shootings occurred and statistics on gun crimes in that area. Brown opposed adding that last bit of information because he says it might give the impression that the department is making excuses. Again, I'm impressed. He's trying to keep this clean and simple — and improve police credibility.

Stay tuned.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/10/you-cant-say-police-chief-david-brown-doesnt-understand-community-policing.html/

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Oregon

Ebola epidemic poses dilemma: Civil rights versus public safety

The case of nurse Kaci Hickox in Maine highlights the conflict.

by David Hench

The specter of an Ebola outbreak in the United States, no matter how unlikely, has led some states to take the extraordinary step of requiring an entire group of people to be quarantined even though the risk they pose to the public may be remote.

That situation has led to a potential showdown between Kaci Hickox and Maine officials over whether the nurse can be quarantined against her will. Hickox was previously isolated in a special tent at University Hospital in New Jersey after she returned to the U.S. on Friday from treating Ebola patients in West Africa. She was the first person affected by the mandatory quarantine that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had imposed for anyone entering the state who had worked with Ebola patients.

Hickox, who worked in Sierra Leone for Doctors Without Borders, shows no symptoms of Ebola, which is necessary to transmit the potentially fatal disease, but Maine health officials say if she does not abide by the quarantine, they will seek a court order to enforce it.

The issue highlights the conflict between an individual's civil rights and the public's expectation that the government will do what it must to keep them safe.

“Normally one can't be locked up without suspicion of a crime or conviction, but because infections are catching and because they can be spread by people who are not visibly sick, the state has the right to protect society from disastrous consequences by temporarily limiting someone's liberties,” said Eugene Kontorovich, a constitutional law scholar at Northwestern University Law School in Chicago.

Health officials in the U.S. have a long history of taking steps in the interest of public health, including closing schools and ordering large-scale quarantines, such as the one imposed during the 1918 influenza epidemic that was credited with limiting the spread of the disease.

By contrast, a requirement in 1900 that Chinese residents in San Francisco be inoculated and quarantined after an outbreak of a plague was overturned by the courts.

Courts have generally sided with the state in instances when civil liberties are pitted against public health, Kontorovich said.

Some public health experts say aggressive, widespread quarantines may be illegal if they are not based on medical evidence, and can be counterproductive because they could lead people to hide their potential exposure or travel history. In the current environment, they also could dissuade health care workers from volunteering to fight Ebola in West Africa, where the epidemic is threatening to spread beyond a few impoverished countries.

Quarantines also create unnecessary fear.

Arthur Caplan, founding director of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center, said that by imposing a quarantine, even a voluntary one, it's sending a message to the public that there's something to fear when there isn't.

“No state has made it clear how they would enforce a quarantine,” he said. “If (Hickox) leaves the house, are they going to shoot her? Are they going to Taser her? Is there going to be a guard at her door dressed in a moon suit?”

Governors in New Jersey, New York and Illinois – all with international airports – announced policies last week that call for health care workers and others who have been in close proximity to people with Ebola to remain in quarantine for 21 days, the maximum period it could take for someone infected with the disease to start showing symptoms.

Now, several other states have announced measures that go beyond the recommendations of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which says people should be monitored for symptoms but not confined.

The federal CDC also no longer uses the word “quarantine” in its Ebola protocols for people at risk. However, states have their own authority to take steps to protect public health.

“Public health law is all state-based, so where the balance (between civil liberties and public health) lies is all state-based,” said Amy Major, associate director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland.

“You have to have certain due-process opportunities. You have to be able to challenge the order and appeal it,” Major said.

The situations that might trigger restrictions on people's movements are written broadly so health officials can be responsive to each particular situation. Although it has a high mortality rate, Ebola is difficult to contract. Typhoid, by comparison, may be carried by someone who is not at all sick but can infect everyone the carrier comes in contact with.

Health officials also make a distinction between isolation, in which a sick person is allowed no contact with others, and quarantine, in which a person is potentially sick but hasn't been confirmed to have the disease. They are allowed contact with others.

Voluntary quarantine is a step that is much less demanding on the health infrastructure than isolating someone at a medical facility, and it also assures that the individuals have their basic needs met, Major said. One of the primary objections to Hickox's detention in New Jersey was that she couldn't have access to anyone, didn't have a television and had almost no comforts, such as a flush toilet.

“If you put someone in that limited movement restriction, you need to support their basic needs,” she said.

In Maine, state law allows the Department of Health and Human Services to confine a person “reasonably believed to have a communicable disease,” but requires a court order.

“Upon the department's submission of an affidavit showing by clear and convincing evidence that the person or property which is the subject of the petition requires immediate custody in order to avoid a clear and immediate public health threat, a judge of the District Court or justice of the Superior Court may grant temporary custody of the subject of the petition to the department and may order specific emergency care, treatment or evaluation,” the law says. The court can take measures it deems necessary for public safety pending a hearing on the petition.

Maine has used its power before: In 2006, the state obtained an arrest warrant for a 54-year-old homeless man with tuberculosis, a highly contagious airborne disease, because officials could not be sure he was taking his medicine to prevent the disease's spread. The man had stopped once before and spread a drug-resistant form of the disease to three other people. He was held in jail until he could be transferred to a medical facility with a TB unit.

The Maine law seeks to balance a person's civil rights with the public welfare, but the state needs to establish a compelling case to deprive someone of their liberty, said Alison Beyea, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Maine.

“Maine law allows for some restrictions to take place when we have an actual or threatened epidemic of disease. At this stage we're not there. There's no justification for mandatory quarantine at this point,” she said. “This is a medical issue and we need to be guided by medical science and not by fear.”

But Kontorovich, the law scholar, said the question of what steps should be taken to prevent the spread of disease is not strictly a medical one.

“Science could say what the potential risk is. The question is how do you value that risk? Even if they say there's very little chance, they can't say how much that risk is worth and they can't say how much the inconvenience (of quarantine) is worth,” Kontorovich said. “It's not a science question. It's a policy question,” one appropriately left to elected politicians, he said.

The current public mood appears to favor mandatory quarantines, driven in part by the lethality of the disease in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and its rapid spread through undeveloped areas there. More than 10,000 people have contracted the disease in West Africa and almost 5,000 have died, according to the federal CDC.

Public health officials, however, note that those countries lack the health infrastructure needed to help someone recover from the disease, techniques like providing intravenous fluids to prevent dehydration and therapies to keep bodily organs working until the disease is under control. In Dallas, the second of two health care workers who contracted the disease while treating an Ebola patient from Liberia was released from the hospital Tuesday after testing negative for the disease.

The only fatality in the U.S. has been Thomas Eric Duncan, who had contracted the disease in Liberia and was already ill when he reported to the hospital in Dallas.

Kontorovich believes the altruism that leads people to help fight the disease in Africa also should help them understand the public health concerns at home.

“It's very noble that people want to go to Africa and help treat people there,” he said. “Surely the thing to do is to extend that to taking the measures our elected government officials believe are suitable to prevent introduction of the disease to the United States.”

http://www.pressherald.com/2014/10/29/rights-versus-safety-in-ebola-cases-protecting-public-health-sometimes-tramples-on-an-individuals-liberties/

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Mexico

Missing Mexico students: New 'mass grave' probed

Mexican authorities searching for 43 students who disappeared after clashing with police last month are investigating a suspected mass grave.

Mexico's attorney general said the testimony of two arrested members of a drug gang had led them to the site.

He said police officers had confessed to handing the students over to the drugs gang in southern Guerrero state.

The disappearance has shocked Mexico and has sparked nationwide demonstrations.

Earlier this month, another mass grave was found, but DNA tests suggest the bodies were not those of the students.

So far, 56 people have been arrested in connection with the disappearance, among them police officers, local officials and alleged members of the drugs gang. The state governor has also resigned over the case.

Arrest warrants have been issued for the mayor of the town of Iguala, where the abductions took place, his wife and the police chief, all of whom are on the run from the authorities.

The mayor, Jose Luis Abarca, allegedly ordered police to intercept the students to prevent them from interrupting a speech his wife was giving in Iguala.

Eyewitnesses say they saw the students being bundled into police cars after the police shot at buses carrying the students, killing three of them and three other people in nearby vehicles.

The latest grave site is in the town of Cocula, about 17km (10 miles) from where the students last were seen.

Attorney general Jesus Murillo Karam said that two of the four suspects arrested on Monday may have provided some valuable information.

He said that they had admitted to "having received a large group of people" on the night of 26 September, when the 43 students were last seen.

"We have the people who carried out the abduction of these individuals," Mr Murillo Karam told reporters.

He said the other two suspects detained on Monday apparently worked as lookouts for the gang. The suspects have not so far been identified.

The four men arrested are all believed to be members of the group behind the abductions, called Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors).

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-29797884

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Two inmates to be put to death in Texas, Missouri, as overall U.S. executions drop

by Jon Herskovitz

(Reuters) - Two U.S. inmates convicted of murder as teenagers are scheduled to be put to death on Tuesday and early Wednesday at a time when the number of executions in the United States is on pace to be the lowest in two decades.

Texas plans to execute Miguel Paredes, 32, who was convicted with two co-defendants of killing three people in 2000.

In Missouri, Mark Christeson, 35, is scheduled to die by lethal injection early on Wednesday. He was convicted of killing a woman and her two children 16 years ago.

The number of executions is likely to total about 35 in the United States this year, which would be the lowest number since 31 inmates were put to death in 1994, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which monitors capital punishment.

There were 39 executions in the United States last year.

The yearly number of executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 peaked at 98 in 1999.

Difficulties with carrying out the death penalty and the high cost of prosecutions have helped drive the numbers lower in recent years, analysts have said.

Troubled executions in Oklahoma, Arizona and other states this year forced officials to review new combinations of lethal injection drugs and caused lawyers representing death row inmates to question whether the new mixes violated U.S. constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

Oklahoma has delayed until 2015 three executions planned for this year to implement new death penalty protocols following errors in an April execution.

Paredes and two co-defendants were convicted of fatally shooting rival gang members Adrian Torres, Nelly Bravo and Shawn Cain. The victims' bodies were rolled in a carpet, taken to a remote area near San Antonio and set on fire, the Texas Attorney General's Office said.

READY TO DIE

Parades was 18 at the time of the killings and was jailed as a minor for murder. His co-defendants received life sentences.

Paredes told the San Antonio Express-News he was ready to die for his crimes.

"For me, what matters is that people really get to see the reality of the death penalty, that it's affecting people that are invisible, like my son, my loved ones, my family. They're the ones really carrying that burden," he told the paper in an interview published over the weekend.

Christeson was convicted of killing Susan Brouk, her 9-year-old son and her 12-year-old daughter in 1998 near her home in southern Missouri.

Christeson and his cousin broke into the home and raped Brouk, according to court documents. They then took the Brouks to a pond where Christeson cut the throats of the mother and son and threw them into the water. They suffocated the daughter and threw her into the pond.

Christeson's attorneys argued in an appeal to the Supreme Court on Monday that his court-appointed attorneys had abandoned him and failed to meet deadlines for appeals.

Seventeen former judges have filed a brief with the Supreme Court supporting a stay of execution based on problems with Christeson's court-appointed attorneys.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas and Carey Gillam in Kansas City, Mo.; Editing by Peter Cooney)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/28/us-usa-execution-idUSKBN0IH0ZL20141028?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

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Pennsylvania

Police Chief McLay commited to bridging Pittsburgh's community divide, restoring officer morale

by WTAE News

PITTSBURGH, PA —Pittsburgh Police Chief Cameron McLay's mandate from Mayor Bill Peduto is to bridge a divide between police and the community. In a wide-ranging one-on-one interview with Pittsburgh's Action News 4, McLay talked about his plans, progress, and perceptions after spending more than a month on the job.

What's his firsthand perception of Pittsburgh police relations with the African-American community?

"There are areas where the trust gap is huge. There have been some critical incidents where some members of the black community feel very, very distrustful of police," McLay said.

The chief noted there are others who desperately want change, and want to work with police.

"At the end of the day, trust is something that's earned. And we, the members of the police bureau from top to bottom, simply have to recognize there are communities where there are trust gaps. Where they don't trust us, don't yet trust our motivations. We're going to have to earn trust." he said.

McLay said he recently put a challenging question to police commanders.

"Are we in danger of being the next Ferguson?" He asked the question of police brass to prompt them to pursue community partnerships.

"When it happens, and it happens in your zone, who are you going to call when pick up the phone and say 'How are we going to work this? Are we going to get through this together?'" He added they should "start talking to folks, start recognizing that we're one bad relationship from that happening here."

McLay said efforts are under way to improve minority hiring in the police bureau.

In the wake of a federal probe that resulted in ex-Chief Nate Harper being sentenced to prison, the bureau faces another challenge: low morale among the rank and file.

"I have seen that there's a lot of people in a lot of pain. They feel themselves to be criticized by the public. They perceive themselves not to be respected and valued," McLay said.

McLay intends to address those internal needs while shifting more officers to community oriented policing -- forging new relationships on both fronts.

"We have an ethical responsibility to the community we serve and to the people we lead," McLay said.

McLay is the city's first chief hired from outside the police bureau's ranks.

"I can look at things and I can ask 'why do you do things that way?' McLay cited as one benefit of arriving as an outsider. "One of the potential downsides of coming from the outside is that people may suspicious, may be uncertain of my agenda."

Despite that intial concern, McLay says he's seeing excitement, not suspicion.

"They want to do better. They want their organization to be something they can be proud of again, and so they're eager for change to occur," the chief said.

McLay is pledging to get more officers into the role community oriented policing and to provide police with tools for using real-time data for crime fighting.

"They can't be running from 911 call to 911 call , because they never have the opportunity to get out of the car and start talking to people and forging a relationship," McLay said.

He said his biggest challenge is getting zone commanders the discretionary resources to shift to community policing. "Now you've got a few extra bodies - how are you going to use them to close the community gap? How are you going to get people out on foot, talking to people? How are we going to get more people developing relationships with the good people who live in our neighborhoods, so that they come to trust us and want to work with us?"

The chief said he's committed to bridging divides in the city.

"We're going to have to earn trust, and you do that one relationship at a time, one conversation at a time, one police call for service at a time," he said.

McLay said he's working with data experts to survey the community on the impact and effectiveness of police efforts: " Are the things that we're doing reducing crime and fear and disorder in the communities or are they not?"

The chief said the city already has crime intelligence, but he'll be bringing in a consultant to look how to deploy the data in real time for deploying forces more quickly.

He said he's also looking at the budget for ways to shift civilians into desk jobs currently being done by police officers, in order to get more officers out on the street.

How long will it take for him to accomplish his goals of bringing change to the bureau?

"Change can occur very quickly. Culture can take a long time to change, but climate can change very very quickly," he said.

As for officer morale, McLay said "They joined this department because it meant something to be a Pittsburgh police officer and they want to feel that way again."

McLay said plans to schedule visits to officers in the police zones and talk with them about what they'd do if they were chief. He intends to make those visits with Howard McQuillan, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the union representing city officers.

He added "They want to do better. They want their organization to be something they can be proud of again. And so they're eager for change to occur."

Some changes to the police command staff may also be coming.

"I asked all my commanders, give me three choices -- three places you would like to be in the coming year. I will be deciding within the next few days what those assignments are going to look like," McLay said. The chief said he told commanders and assistant chiefs, "think of yourself as a leader of the larger organization, not just the part of the department where you have been, because you might not be there in January."

So far,McLay has not begun wearing a Pittsburgh Police uniform. Once his formal certification to serve in law enforcement in Pennsylvania comes through from the state, McLay said he will begin wearing that uniform. The state's Municipal Police Officers' Education and Training Commission is expected to act on his certification during its next meeting in December. The city is also requesting interim certification for McLay in the meantime. His appointment by Mayor Peduto has not yet been submitted to City Council for an official vote.

http://www.wtae.com/news/police-chief-mclay-commited-to-bridging-pittsburghs-community-divide-restoring-officer-morale/29371814

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Delaware

Breaking the community's silence about crime

by Esteban Parra

(Video on site)

It's hard to find anyone not disgusted by a pair of videos that went viral last week, in which adults can be heard laughing, even egging on two young boys fighting in Wilmington's Hilltop neighborhood.

Some were disturbed enough to leave angry comments and statements of shame on Facebook pages where the videos were posted. Others reached out to police.

But on the block where this occurred people are keeping mum – at least with outsiders, which includes police.

"You don't live here," one man said in explaining why no one on the block would talk publicly about the videos. It took a while for him to admit he was aware of the video, and he wouldn't say much about it beyond that.

"You're not going to be here when my windows are broken. You're not going to pay for that," said the man, who declined to give his name for fear of retribution.

"You might come down and want to talk to me about that, but you're not going to pay for my windows."

This code of silence is not new or even unique to Wilmington. It's part of the no-snitching culture, that gives the illusion that residents will take care of their own problems – but instead, perpetuates crime and a decline in the quality of life of already struggling neighborhoods.

The online videos showing the young children fighting began popping up on Facebook earlier this month.

Brittany Caputo, of Brandywine Hundred, was so disturbed that she called Delaware State Police on a weekend and was told she could call child protective services who would not open until the work week. She also called Wilmington police and left a message about the video, but no one had returned her call.

She then began posting the clips on different news media websites. Caputo posted two separate clips on Delawareonline's Facebook page Oct. 19 showing the children fighting while adults laughed, cheered and videoed them on the 200 block of N. Rodney St.

In one video, two young shirtless boys, fought each other on a city sidewalk. In one clip, the taller child knocks the shorter boy to the ground and he begins to cry. The 32-second clip then cuts to the two boys fighting near a porch, while a young girl tries to separate them.

A second video, that's 2 minutes and 27 seconds long, shows the shorter boy telling someone inside a parked minivan: "Get out. Get out." The little girl gets out and goes after the boy with a shoe. She also tells the boy: "You're not getting in my mother's car anymore."

All this while adults and older children watch and laugh.

Caputo, who briefly changed her Facebook handle when people posted negative comments, said it was concerning seeing something like that.

"As long as everybody stays silent, nothing is going to happen," she said. That's why people need to speak up.

"Until people are willing to change and get out there and start talking about what they want to happen then it's not going to get better."

Wilmington police are investigating.

Understanding the code

There are several reasons beyond the no-snitch culture that maintains the silence, Professor Yasser Payne of the University of Delaware said. No-snitching is a belief system that makes sense for people in those communities.

"We need better science around it so that we can better understand it, so that the idea can be better elucidated," Payne said

On the streets, snitching is something that happens when one person involved in illegal activities tells authorities about another person involved in illegal activities, Payne said. Anything outside of that dynamic is actually not considered snitching, by the community or by the streets, he said.

"So if grandma or auntie or grandpa, who is not involved in the streets, were to witness or know something or see something and report that to policing authorities, by the code of the street ... it is not seen necessarily as a violation," he said.

"That still may not keep someone facing a lengthy prison sentence from intimidating or trying to harm someone," Payne said.

Other reasons people keep quiet, are because people authorities may consider an outlaw do a lot in the community, including taking care of people's needs or settling neighborhood disputes.

"Why would I tell on this guy that made sure that 10 families in Riverside Project's lights are on or make sure that our rents are taken care of for maybe five families in Southbridge," Payne asked. "Why would I tell on him?"

"I'm not saying that that's right, but if you want to understand what's going on that's another story."

Yet another story is historical mistrust, including exploitation of these communities.

The exploitation can come from professionals, such as the likes of news reporters or university researchers, who many times drop into these communities briefly, get what they want, then leave. If one wants the community to open up, one needs to work with and through the community, he said.

"They can't be in like this fishbowl," he said. "And that's how they feel, like ... we are cherry-picking the fish that we want. And we access them when we need them and we're not there when they need us."

Payne said to develop a trust and rapport, the people in these communities also have to benefit.

They might still keep an eye on you, he said, but there is that rapport and that's a start.

These problems are not unique to Wilmington, but he said Wilmington police Chief Bobby Cummings is doing some things to develop trust.

Earlier this year, Cummings said more uniformed officers, including top brass, will be walking Wilmington's hotspots. He also wants police working more closely with city agencies to address neighborhood issues.

Empowering neighborhoods

Sgt. Walter Ferris, a community policing officer, said the department is trying to help strengthen communities and get away from the "misplaced loyalty" when they keep silent.

"Criminals can intimidate one person, but you can't intimidate an entire block," Ferris said. "So if an entire block got together and either testified or approached people these criminals can't take on an entire city block of all the residents.

"That's what we are trying to do, empower them to fight."

When your neighbors are looking after you, the criminals cannot break your windows, he said.

"The whole no-snitch policy benefits criminals," he said. "It doesn't benefit the neighborhood. It doesn't benefit the community or culture. It benefits criminal activity."

An involved community also helps police because they know they have people who will help them. Otherwise, officers can become disenchanted with a community that doesn't work with them.

Ferris said police officers have to show up everything possible, not just the community meetings.

"Before when we would show up at a community event, people would go 'Oh man. Why are the cops here,' " he said. "Now I show up and people are 'Oh! Sgt. Ferris is here. Awesome.' "

Police are part of the community and they need to be seen as such, he said, adding everyone is part of law enforcement.

"We're all responsible for public safety," he said. "You're part of the law enforcement team, whether you believe it or not. You're part of it."

http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2014/10/26/breaking-communitys-silence-crime/17978975/

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New York

Boy observed in NYC hospital for Ebola; states firm on quarantines

by Joseph Ax and Ellen Wulfhorst

A 5-year-old boy who arrived from Guinea was being observed in isolation at Bellevue Hospital in New York City for possible Ebola symptoms, according to media reports Monday, as New York and New Jersey stuck to new plans to quarantine health workers returning from countries hardest hit by the virus.

The boy, who arrived in the United States on Saturday, had a 103 degree Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius) fever, ABC News reported. He has not been tested for the virus and was not under quarantine, ABC said, citing New York City health department officials.

The New York Post said the boy had been vomiting and was taken from his home in the Bronx by emergency medical workers.

Four people have been diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. The first diagnosis, a Liberian visitor to Texas in September who died, was riddled with missteps. Two nurses who treated the man contracted the disease but have recovered.

The missteps and delays in diagnosis of the Liberian man prompted some states to impose or consider restrictions on travelers coming from the West African countries where the virus has killed nearly 5,000 people.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo struck a more conciliatory tone on Sunday about the new quarantine policy after the White House said that mandatory isolation could impede the Ebola fight, while an attorney for a nurse who has been quarantined in New Jersey since returning from West Africa said she planned to sue.

Responding to concerns that mandatory quarantine would inhibit doctors and nurses from traveling to West Africa, Cuomo said New York wanted to encourage personnel to go, lauding their "valor" and "compassion," while also protecting public safety at home.

Healthcare workers and travelers exposed to people with Ebola and who live in New York may stay in their homes for the 21-day quarantine and be checked upon twice daily by healthcare professionals, Cuomo said, adding the state would provide financial assistance if needed.

The White House had voiced its concern to the governors of New York and New Jersey about the potential impact of quarantine orders, a senior administration official said.

"We have let the governors of New York, New Jersey, and other states know that we have concerns with the unintended consequences of policies not grounded in science may have on efforts to combat Ebola at its source in West Africa," the Obama administration official said in a statement.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie first announced the quarantine policy on Friday, reiterating late Sunday that the terms had not changed.

A New Jersey resident who had contact with someone with Ebola would be quarantined at home. Non-residents would be transported home if feasible or quarantined in New Jersey.

"These people are extraordinary for their valor and their courage and their compassion," Cuomo said. "Anything we can do to encourage it, we want to do."

He added that New York was not changing the policy announced on Friday.

NURSE CONTESTS QUARANTINE

Christie sounded less placating than Cuomo in remarks he made about the quarantined nurse, who went public to speak about hours of questioning at Newark Liberty International Airport and her transfer to a hospital isolation tent.

Nurse Kaci Hickox, the first health worker isolated under the rules, was placed in 21-day quarantine in a New Jersey hospital after returning from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. She will fight her quarantine in court, her attorney said on Sunday, arguing the order violates her constitutional rights.

New Jersey, New York and Illinois are imposing quarantines on anyone arriving with a high risk of having contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

"I understand that this has made this woman uncomfortable, and I'm sorry," Christie told reporters. "I have the people in New Jersey as my first and foremost responsibility to protect."

Medical professionals note that Ebola is extremely difficult to catch, and is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person and not transmitted by asymptomatic people.

Angry over her confinement, Hickox, a Texas native, planned to file a federal lawsuit this week, her attorney said. She remains asymptomatic and has not tested positive for Ebola, prominent civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel said.

The new rules were imposed a day after a New York doctor, Craig Spencer, was diagnosed with Ebola after he returned from treating patients in Guinea. Spencer moved freely around the city before he had symptoms that would make him contagious.

Now hospitalized in isolation, he appeared slightly improved but remained in serious but stable condition on Sunday.

Spencer and Hickox worked with Doctors Without Borders, a charity closely involved in the fight against the epidemic.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/27/us-health-ebola-usa-newyork-idUSKBN0IG12920141027

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New Jersey

Christie Defends Ebola Quarantine: Public Safety Is ‘Government's Job'

by Evan McMurry

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie defended his state's just-announced quarantine of health care workers returning from west Africa, arguing that the self-quarantine system relied upon by the CDC was inadequate and that the government had a compelling interest in maintaining public safety.

“I think the CDC eventually will come around to our point of view on this,” Christie told Fox News Sunday . “I don't believe when you're dealing with something as serious as this that we can count on a voluntary system. This is government's job. If anything else, the government job is to protect safety and health of our citizens. And so, we've taken this action and I absolutely have no second thoughts about it. …I think this is a policy that will become a national policy sooner rather than later.”

Christie disputed the argument from Dr. Anthony Fauci and others that a quarantine system would be counterproductive by disincentivizing health care workers from going to west Africa, where the outbreak needs to be stopped.

“I believe that folks who want to take that step and are willing to volunteer also understand that it's in their interest and the public health interest to have a 21-day period thereafter if they've been directed expose to people with the virus,” Christie said.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/christie-defends-ebola-quarantine-public-safety-is-governments-job/

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California

Suspect in killing of deputies was twice deported

A man suspected of killing two deputies during a shooting rampage in Northern California was deported twice to Mexico and had a drug conviction

by Don Thompson

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A man suspected of killing two deputies during a shooting rampage in Northern California was deported twice to Mexico and had a drug conviction, federal authorities said.

The suspected shooter told Sacramento County Sheriff's investigators that he was 34-year-old Marcelo Marquez of Salt Lake City. However, his fingerprints match the biometric records of a Luis Enrique Monroy-Bracamonte in a federal database, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said.

Monroy-Bracamonte was first removed from the country in 1997 after being convicted in Arizona for possession of narcotics for sale. Monroy-Bracamonte was arrested and repatriated to Mexico a second time in 2001, Kice said.

"The fingerprints were the basis for our request for an immigration detainer," she said Saturday.

The detainer requests that local authorities turn him over to federal custody after his case is adjudicated so ICE can purse his deportation, Kice said.

The suspect was being held without bail on suspicion of two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and two counts of carjacking.

His wife, 38-year-old Janelle Marquez Monroy, was also in custody on suspicion of attempted murder and carjacking after the attack on Friday that left two deputies dead and two other victims wounded.

Investigators spent Saturday at the multiple crime scenes "trying to kind of sort through the chaos so we can methodically rebuild this," Placer County Sheriff Ed Bonner said.

The two suspects were questioned for hours as authorities sought a motive for the shootings that began when Sacramento County sheriff's Deputy Danny Oliver, 47, was shot in the forehead with an assault rifle at close range as he checked out a suspicious car in a motel parking lot.

The suspects have talked to investigators, Bonner said, but what sparked the shootings remained unclear.

"'Why,' I guess, will remain a question for a long time," he said. "Why was his reaction so violent?"

It was also unclear what brought the heavily armed suspects from Utah to California, Bonner said. There were no indications they had been sought by authorities.

No attorneys were listed for either suspect in jail records.

Krista Sorenson of Salt Lake City was confounded by the arrest of Marquez. He and his brother had mowed her lawn about four years ago.

"They were just super nice, decent hard-working, trying to figure out how to make a living," she said.

Oliver, a 15-year veteran of the department, left a wife and two daughters.

After he was killed, the gunman shot Anthony Holmes, 38, of Sacramento at least twice, including once in the head, during an attempted carjacking. He was in fair condition.

The attackers then stole a pickup truck and fled about 30 miles northeast into neighboring Placer County.

Two deputies who approached the pickup while it was parked alongside a road were shot with an AR-15-type assault weapon and never had a chance to return fire, Placer County sheriff's spokeswoman Dena Erwin said.

Homicide Detective Michael David Davis Jr., 42, died at a hospital 26 years to the day after his father, for whom he was named, died in the line of duty as a Riverside County deputy.

Deputy Jeff Davis was treated for a gunshot wound to the arm. The two deputies are not related.

The gunman fled into a neighborhood near a high school and ran into a home. Police used tear gas to force him to surrender.

Several dozen law enforcement vehicles, with lights silently flashing, escorted a hearse carrying Michael Davis' flag-draped casket to a funeral home as bystanders and law enforcement officials hugged, saluted and wiped away tears.

"It's a nightmare for all of us," Bonner said.

He recalled Davis as a well-liked investigator who once took it upon himself to organize a funeral for an abandoned baby.

"He saw it, his heart ached, and he did something about it," Bonner said. "That's who he was."

Davis' wife works as an evidence technician for the department and his brother is a sergeant.

"Mike was quite a character," Erwin said. "He was very funny. He didn't take things very seriously, maybe because he was a homicide detective for so long."

A search of Utah court records for Marquez shows a history of about 10 tickets and misdemeanor traffic offenses between 2003 and 2009. Those records list one speeding ticket for Monroy in 2009 and three small claims filings attempting to collect outstanding debts.

http://www.policeone.com/officer-shootings/articles/7736353-Suspect-in-killing-of-deputies-was-twice-deported/

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Canada

Police: Ottawa gunman made video of himself prior to attack

by Dana Ford

The gunman responsible for the terrorist attack in Ottawa last week was "driven by ideological and political motives" and made a video of himself, police said Sunday.

Authorities have previously identified the gunman as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. He opened fire Wednesday at Canada's National War Memorial and Parliament Hill, killing army reservist Cpl. Nathan Cirillo.

The gunman was then shot and killed by security.

The video was recorded just prior to the attack, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement. Authorities are conducting an analysis of that video and said they would not be releasing it at this time.

They also provided a handful of other updates on their investigation:

-- Zehaf-Bibeau used a gun that was old and uncommon;

-- He carried a knife, which authorities believe was retrieved from his aunt's property;

-- Zehaf-Bibeau had worked in the oil fields in Alberta and saved his money;

-- Officials are looking into whether anyone else could have contributed to the attack.

Zehaf-Bibeau had ties to jihadists in Canada who shared a radical Islamist ideology, including at least one who went overseas to fight in Syria, multiple U.S. sources said last week.

He was a Canadian citizen who may have had dual Libyan-Canadian citizenship, according to RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson. The gunman had criminal records indicating infractions related to drugs and violence.

Zehaf-Bibeau was applying for a passport -- an application that was under investigation -- at the time of the attack, Paulson said.

"I think the passport figured prominently in his motives," said the police commissioner. "However, we have not come to ground completely on his motivations for this attack. But clearly, it's linked to his radicalization. Clearly, it's linked to his difficult circumstances."

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/26/world/ottawa-shooting/

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Terrorist attack in Canada shows limits of a persistent threat

Such attacks are a sign of weakness rather than of strength and highlight the constraints jihadist groups face as they try to project their terrorist capability in the post-9/11 world

with Scott Stewart

Editor's Note:

The following article by Scott Stewart originally appeared on Stratfor, and is republished with permission of Stratfor, a company that uses a unique, intel-based approach to analyze world affairs, and provide global awareness and guidance to individuals, governments, and businesses. Scott Stewart supervises the day-to-day operations of Stratfor's intelligence team and plays a central role in coordinating the company's analytical process with its business goals. Before joining Stratfor, Stewart was a special agent with the U.S. State Department for 10 years and was involved in hundreds of terrorism investigations.

To avoid the difficulty of transporting personnel and weapons, terrorist groups have made a practice of seeking out potential militants already living in Western countries and recruiting them to conduct attacks.

On Oct. 20, Canada became the latest Western country to be targeted by this kind of attack when a grassroots jihadist ran over two Canadian soldiers in Saint-Jean-sur-Richeliu with his car. This is exactly the type of attack we expect to see from the global jihadist movement in the West.

Such attacks are a sign of weakness rather than of strength and highlight the constraints jihadist groups face as they try to project their terrorist capability in the post-9/11 world.

Analysis

Police in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Canada, shot and killed a 25-year-old Quebec man Oct. 20 after he intentionally ran over two Canadian soldiers with his car and led police on a high-speed chase. During the chase, the suspect, Martin Rouleau, reportedly called the authorities and told the dispatcher he was "acting in the name of Allah." After losing control of his car and rolling it, Rouleau reportedly threatened officers with a large souvenir knife, and the officers shot him. One of the soldiers died from his injuries and the other was wounded.

According to the Toronto Star, Rouleau converted to Islam about a year ago after struggling with personal and business issues, adopting the name Ahmed Rouleau on Facebook and Abu Ibrahim AlCanadi on Twitter. A review of his social media accounts shows that he had a distinct attraction toward jihadism.

Rouleau followed a number of jihadist Twitter accounts, many of which are associated with the Islamic State. His personal profiles also feature symbols frequently used by jihadists. Canadian authorities prevented Rouleau from leaving the country when he attempted to travel to Syria to join a jihadist group last summer.

Rouleau's vehicle attack is very similar to a tactic al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula advocated in the second edition of Inspire magazine, where grassroots jihadists were told to run over victims with a large pick-up truck. Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani also called on jihadists to use vehicles and other simple modes of attack in a statement released on Sept. 21:

You must strike the soldiers, patrons, and troops of the tawaghit. Strike their police, security, and intelligence members, as well as their treacherous agents. Destroy their beds. Embitter their lives for them and busy them with themselves. If you can kill a disbelieving American or European — especially the spiteful and filthy French — or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be…

If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him.

This incident is precisely the type of attack we expect from grassroots jihadists, who are eager to fight but generally lack the terrorist tradecraft required to conduct a more sophisticated attack. Quite frequently, these individuals stumble into law enforcement stings when they seek the capability to conduct a more sophisticated attack. Those who decide to conduct a simple attack like the Boston Marathon bombers, however, generally succeed. In this case, Rouleau's attack was not well thought out, and his use of a cheap souvenir knife reveals that he was also poorly equipped, yet he succeeded in killing a Canadian soldier before being killed himself.

Considering the number of people who have become radicalized, it is actually remarkable that more grassroots jihadist attacks have not occurred in the West.

This is a testament to the efforts of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, organizations keenly aware of the threat that grassroots jihadists pose. By maintaining awareness of these kinds of threats, police and communities can help mitigate the danger.

However, with so many individuals to monitor, limited resources and the ease with which simple attacks can be conducted, it is impossible to stop every grassroots jihadist bent on destruction. Ultimately, grassroots jihadists will continue to pose a persistent, though limited, threat.

About the author

Scott Stewart is STRATFOR's VP of Analysis. He is a former Diplomatic Security Service Special Agent who was involved in hundreds of terrorism investigations, most notably the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the follow-on New York City bomb plot investigation, during which he served as lead investigator for the U.S. State Department. He led a team of Americans who aided the government of Argentina in investigating the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, and was involved in investigations following a series of attacks and attempted attacks by the Iraqi intelligence service during the first Gulf War.

http://www.policeone.com/terrorism/articles/7700635-Terrorist-attack-in-Canada-shows-limits-of-a-persistent-threat/

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4 revelations from the leaked Michael Brown autopsy report

The fact that the report was leaked at all may actually be the most interesting piece of the story

with Doug Wyllie, PoliceOne Editor in Chief

It was revealed Wednesday that the Michael Brown autopsy report was leaked to the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Sure, it's an interesting read, but the fact that the report was leaked at all may actually be the most interesting piece of the story. The newspaper did not say where it obtained the autopsy and accompanying toxicology reports — the ME's office has said it won't officially release the documents until the investigation is complete.

As PoliceOne Columnist Dan Marcou put it, “I do not recall in my entire career ever seeing an instance where four agencies — local, county, state, and federal — have gotten involved in an officer-involved shooting where they have allowed so much rumor, misinformation, and uninformed conjecture to dictate the narrative. Now we have a leaked autopsy report? We're breaking new ground here and not in a good way.”

The document tells us a little bit more about the encounter on August 9 and seems to squarely validate Officer Wilson's story. Here are four revelations from the leaked report.

1. It backs up Officer Darren Wilson's reported statements about the incident

The Post Dispatch had “two experts not involved directly in the case” look at the report, and their conclusions are unsurprising: Evidence supports Officer Darren Wilson's statement that there was a significant altercation at the car, and that Brown was trying to grab Wilson's gun.

Recall that Wilson had reportedly told investigators that Brown had struggled for his pistol inside the squad card and that he had fired the gun twice, hitting Brown once in the hand.

Dr. Judy Melinek — a forensic pathologist in San Francisco — told the Post Dispatch that the autopsy “supports the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has gunpowder particulate material in the wound. If he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, he's going for the officer's gun.”

Dr. Michael Graham — a St. Louis medical examiner who is not part of the official investigation — told the Post Dispatch that “someone got an injury that tore off skin and left it on the car. That fits with everything else that came out. There's blood in the car, now skin on the car, that shows something happened right there.”

Furthermore, Melinek added that witness testimony that Brown was shot while running away from Wilson, or with his hands up, falls apart when laid against the evidence contained in the autopsy report.

“She said Brown was facing Wilson when Brown took a shot to the forehead, two shots to the chest and a shot to the upper right arm. The wound to the top of Brown's head would indicate he was falling forward or in a lunging position toward the shooter; the shot was instantly fatal,” said Post Dispatch.

Interestingly, that narrative is precisely what I outlined to be the most likely scenario when I wrote Examining issues of time in the Ferguson shooting .

2. It highlights the importance of the hands (and in a way not yet being widely discussed)

Much has been made in the mainstream media about the leaked documents detailing a gunshot wound to Michael Brown's hand.

PoliceOne Contributor Moe Greenberg said, “Is the gunshot wound to Michael Brown's hand significant? Yes. But so are the other wounds he received. They each become part of entirety of the incident — the big picture. I don't mean to belittle its significance but the St. Louis County autopsy report and Medical Examiner's testimony will be just one of many pieces of the Michael Brown puzzle to be considered,” Greenberg said.

This one line in the leaked documents about the hands may be among the most important:

“The deceased hands were bagged with paper bags to save any trace evidence.”

Of course he did. For weeks I've been patiently waiting for any news about the status of Brown's hands. More specifically, whether or not the knuckles showed signs of swelling or other damage typically incurred in a fisted altercation. This will quite likely be the next document to leak...

3. It's about the totality of evidence (as it should be)

The fact is, much more has yet to be revealed and the leaked documents are really just two elements among many, many pieces of evidence and information related to the incident — all of which are certainly being considered by the grand jury right now.

“An autopsy report is not the be-all-that ends-all ‘smoking gun' piece of evidence that determines one's guilt or innocence. A medical examiner's autopsy report and testimony becomes just as important as a witness' account of an incident or, the physical evidence collected in the case, or the actions of the police officers, investigators, and forensic technicians throughout the course of the investigation.”

Greenberg said further that “The Michael Brown case — despite its tragedy and controversies — is at the end of the day death investigation. In this case it's a death investigation that has generated a great deal of attention and as such, multiple autopsies. In any death investigation, the autopsy report becomes a piece of the overall ‘case puzzle'.”

4. It calls into question the motive behind the leak

Marcou concluded that “a critical element of officer involved shootings is a release of accurate information from a credible Public Information Officer in a timely manner that prevents misinformation from becoming ingrained in the permanent record and the public psyche as has happened here. We in law enforcement knew this misinformation has been happening ever since news reporters said the officer involved pulled a 279 pound man into the window of his squad.”

By leaking the autopsy report, someone risked their career to get the truth out. One does wonder about the timing of the leak. Why now and not six or eight weeks ago? I think that the person who leaked the documents was merely trying to prepare the public for what we all know to be coming. I contend that the leak foreshadows the findings of the grand jury considering charges against Wilson to be imminent — and that no charges will be filed.

I believe the leaker was (is) trying to keep Ferguson from burning to the ground when that announcement is made.

I tend to think that way (read: cynically) about these sorts of things. How about you?

About the author

Doug Wyllie is Editor in Chief of PoliceOne, responsible for setting the editorial direction of the website and managing the planned editorial features by our roster of expert writers. An award-winning columnist — he is the 2014 Western Publishing Association "Maggie Award" winner in the category of Best Regularly Featured Digital Edition Column — Doug has authored more than 800 feature articles and tactical tips on a wide range of topics and trends that affect the law enforcement community. Doug is a member of International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA), an Associate Member of the California Peace Officers' Association (CPOA), and a member of the Public Safety Writers Association (PSWA). Even in his "spare" time, he is active in his support for the law enforcement community, contributing his time and talents toward police-related charitable events as well as participating in force-on-force training, search-and-rescue training, and other scenario-based training designed to prepare cops for the fight they face every day on the street.

http://www.policeone.com/ferguson/articles/7701775-4-revelations-from-the-leaked-Michael-Brown-autopsy-report/