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November, 2014 - Week 3

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Washington

DOJ releases community policing resource guide

by Erica Zucco

The US Department of Justice has released a resource guide all about strengthening community-police relations.

The guide offers links to webinars, podcasts, video and documents for law enforcement agencies and officers interested in improving their relationships with the community.

“Community policing” is one of the components Albuquerque's Police Department has been working on. The new “Coffee with a Cop” puts police and the people they serve face to face, and the city has started “community policing councils,” connecting neighborhoods with nearby substations.

These lessons from the DOJ could further help officers who want to better connect with the community. There is instructional video on protecting privacy, podcasts on handling protests, and tips on building relationships and trust with constituents.

The DOJ posting the guide makes it clear that APD isn't alone in facing challenges toward improving relationships with the community.

http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S3628998.shtml?cat=500#.VHHk6s90ypo

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From the Department of Homeland Security

Fixing Our Broken Immigration System Through Executive Action - Key Facts

(En español)

The President asked Secretary Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to undertake a rigorous and inclusive review to inform recommendations on reforming our broken immigration system through executive action. This review sought the advice and input from the men and women charged with implementing the policies, as well as the ideas of a broad range of stakeholders and Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle. Our assessment identified the following ten areas where we, within the confines of the law, could take action to increase border security, focus enforcement resources, and ensure accountability in our immigration system.

Executive Actions

Strengthen Border Security

DHS will implement a Southern Border and Approaches Campaign Strategy to fundamentally alter the way in which we marshal resources to the border. This new plan will employ DHS assets in a strategic and coordinated way to provide effective enforcement of our laws and interdict individuals seeking to illegally across land, sea, and air. To accomplish this, DHS is commissioning three task forces of various law enforcement agencies. The first will focus on the southern maritime border. The second will be responsible for the southern land border and the West Coast. The third will focus on investigations to support the other two task forces. In addition, DHS will continue the surge of resources that effectively reduced the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border illegally this summer. This included additional Border Patrol agents, ICE personnel, criminal investigators, additional monitors, and working with DOJ to reorder dockets in immigration courts, along with reforms in these courts.

•  Executive Action: Strengthen Border Security (1.5 MB PDF)

Revise Removal Priorities

DHS will implement a new department-wide enforcement and removal policy that places top priority on national security threats, convicted felons, gang members, and illegal entrants apprehended at the border; the second-tier priority on those convicted of significant or multiple misdemeanors and those who are not apprehended at the border, but who entered or reentered this country unlawfully after January 1, 2014; and the third priority on those who are non-criminals but who have failed to abide by a final order of removal issued on or after January 1, 2014. Under this revised policy, those who entered illegally prior to January 1, 2014, who never disobeyed a prior order of removal, and were never convicted of a serious offense, will not be priorities for removal. This policy also provides clear guidance on the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

•  Executive Action: Revise Removal Priorities (3.2 MB PDF)

End Secure Communities and Replace it with New Priority Enforcement Program

DHS will end the Secure Communities program, and replace it with the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) that will closely and clearly reflect DHS's new top enforcement priorities. The program will continue to rely on fingerprint-based biometric data submitted during bookings by state and local law enforcement agencies and will identify to law enforcement agencies the specific criteria for which we will seek an individual in their custody. The list of largely criminal offenses is taken from Priorities 1 and 2 of our new enforcement priorities. In addition, we will formulate plans to engage state and local governments on enforcement priorities and will enhance Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) ability to arrest, detain, and remove individuals deemed threats to national security, border security, or public safety.

•  Executive Action: End Secure Communities and Replace it with New Priority Enforcement Program (1.5 MB PDF)

Personnel Reform for ICE Officers

Related to these enforcement and removal reforms, we will support job series realignment and premium ability pay coverage for ICE ERO officers engaged in removal operations. These measures are essential to bringing ICE agents and officers pay in line with other law enforcement personnel.

•  Executive Action: Personnel Reform for ICE Officers (1.0 MB PDF)

Expand Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program

We will expand eligibility for DACA to encompass a broader class of children. DACA eligibility was limited to those who were under 31 years of age on June 15, 2012, who entered the U.S. before June 15, 2007, and who were under 16 years old when they entered. DACA eligibility will be expanded to cover all undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. before the age of 16, and not just those born after June 15, 1981. We will also adjust the entry date from June 15, 2007 to January 1, 2010. The relief (including work authorization) will now last for three years rather than two.

•  Executive Action: Expand Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program (2.8 MB PDF)

Extend Deferred Action to Parents of U.S. Citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents

DHS will extend eligibility for deferred action to individuals who (i) are not removal priorities under our new policy, (ii) have been in this country at least 5 years, (iii) have children who on the date of this announcement are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, and (iv) present no other factors that would make a grant of deferred action inappropriate. These individuals will be assessed for eligibility for deferred action on a case-by-case basis, and then be permitted to apply for work authorization, provided they pay a fee. Each individual will undergo a thorough background check of all relevant national security and criminal databases, including DHS and FBI databases. With work-authorization, these individuals will pay taxes and contribute to the economy.

•  Executive Action: Extend Deferred Action to Parents of U.S. Citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents (2.8 MB PDF)

Expand Provisional Waivers to Spouses and Children of Lawful Permanent Residents

The provisional waiver program DHS announced in January 2013 for undocumented spouses and children of U.S. citizens will be expanded to include the spouses and children of lawful permanent residents, as well as the adult children of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. At the same time, we will further clarify the “extreme hardship” standard that must be met to obtain the waiver.

•  Executive Action: Expand Provisional Waivers to Spouses and Children of Lawful Permanent Residents (1.0 MB PDF)

Revise Parole Rules

DHS will begin rulemaking to identify the conditions under which talented entrepreneurs should be paroled into the United States, on the ground that their entry would yield a significant public economic benefit. DHS will also support the military and its recruitment efforts by working with the Department of Defense to address the availability of parole-in-place and deferred action to spouses, parents, and children of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents who seek to enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces. DHS will also issue guidance to clarify that when anyone is given “advance parole” to leave the country – including those who obtain deferred action - they will not be considered to have departed. Undocumented aliens generally trigger a 3- or 10-year bar to returning to the United States when they depart.

•  Executive Action: Revise Parole Rules - Entrepreneurs (2.6 MB PDF)

•  Executive Action: Revise Parole Rules - Parole-in-Place and Deferred Action (711 KB PDF)

•  Executive Action: Revise Parole Rules - Advance Parole (690 KB)

Promote the Naturalization Process

To promote access to U.S. citizenship, we will permit the use of credit cards as a payment option for the naturalization fee, and expand citizenship public awareness. It is important to note that the naturalization fee is $680, currently payable only by cash, check or money order. DHS will also explore the feasibility of expanding fee waiver options.

•  Executive Action: Promote the Naturalization Process (1 MB PDF)

Support High-skilled Business and Workers

DHS will take a number of administrative actions to better enable U.S. businesses to hire and retain highly skilled foreign-born workers and strengthen and expand opportunities for students to gain on-the-job training. For example, because our immigration system suffers from extremely long waits for green cards, we will amend current regulations and make other administrative changes to provide needed flexibility to workers with approved employment-based green card petitions.

•  Executive Action: Support High-skilled Business and Workers (2.6 MB PDF)

Additional Information

•  The White House: Fixing the System

•  U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: Immigration Action | En español

•  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Immigration Action

http://www.dhs.gov/immigration-action?utm_source=hp_feature&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=dhs_hp

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Florida

Florida deputy ambushed and killed

by Karl Etters

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Florida sheriff's deputy was shot and killed Saturday morning while responding to a house fire in Tallahassee and another deputy was wounded, authorities say.

Deputies were responding to a fire in the Plantation Woods neighborhood of northwest Tallahassee at around 10 a.m., Leon County Sheriff's Office spokesman James McQuaig said. The first deputy to approach the scene was shot.

"He was ambushed and he was shot and he was killed," McQuaig said.

The gunman then took the deputy's firearm and shot and wounded another deputy, McQuaig said.

The gunman was killed by a Tallahassee police officer who lived nearby, heard the shooting, threw on his bullet-resistant vest, grabbed his gun and ran toward the house, according to The Associated Press, which cited a government official.

The wounded deputy was saved by his vest and his injuries are not believed to be serious, the official said.

The official asked not to be named because he was not authorized to release the information.

The names of the killed and wounded deputies and the gunman have not been released. The fire was extinguished.

The initial fire call came from a home on Caracus Court owned by Cheryl Barfield. Barfield, who is currently living in Titusville, said her sister had been house-sitting for her, but declined to comment further when reached Saturday afternoon.

Caracus Court is tucked away in a neighborhood near Springwood Elementary School that is filled with single-family homes.

Brad Baker, 23, who lives in the neighborhood, was at work at the time of the shooting, but he rushed home to be with his wife, Lola, and their 1-year-old daughter, Ariana.

"One of the main reasons why I moved here was because there were so many police officers and firemen in this neighborhood, and it's crazy to think something like that could happen right down the street," Baker said.

Saturday's incident follows a shooting Thursday on the Florida State University campus. Myron May, 31, shot two students and an employee at the Strozier Library. One student is still in critical condition. The two others have been released from the hospital. May was shot and killed by police on the library's front steps.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/22/fla-deputy-ambushed-killed-officials-say/19409763/

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Ohio

Boy with replica gun shot by Cleveland police

by Jane Onyanga-Omara

A 12-year-old boy with what turned out to be a replica gun was shot and wounded by a police officer in Cleveland.

The boy was shot in the torso after officers responded to reports of a male waving a gun in the playground area of the Cudell Recreation Center about 3:30 p.m. Saturday, the Cleveland Division of Police said in a statement.

Officers arrived at the scene and told the boy to raise his hands but he did not comply and reached to his waistband for the gun and was shot, police said.

He was taken to MetroHealth Medical Center with serious injuries, WKYC reported. Police said he underwent surgery.

The gun was found to be an "airsoft"-type replica gun, which resembled a semi-automatic pistol, the force said. The orange safety indicator was removed.

Deputy Chief of Field Operations Ed Tomba told Cleveland.com that the incident was "very, very tragic."

"We don't come to work every day and want to use force on anybody," he said. "That's not what our job is. We're part of this community."

He said the boy did not threaten the officer verbally or physically, Cleveland.com said.

The police force and the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office are investigating.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/23/boy-fake-gun-shot/19438005/

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Washington

At Take the Next Step, trust and support comes with the assistance

by Andrew Gobin

For those who face poverty and homelessness, assistance without support is no solution. At Take the Next Step in Monroe, people can find services they need as well as figure out their next move.

“Our clients often don't know where to turn, or what their next step in life is,” said Janos Kendall, program director.

Run out of a small house owned by Monroe Covenant Church, Take the Next Step offers frontline, immediate assistance to people, while also helping them connect with services offered through other organizations.

Getting help at Take the Next Step is easy.

“We are not an agency. We do not have criteria that have to be met to receive services,” Kendall said. “We get to know the people that come here, we build trust with them, and we try to help their specific needs.”

This helps people feel more comfortable to come and seek assistance in a home environment.

“When you come here, you are never judged,” said Matt Wright, a homeless veteran. “People have their demons, their vices. That is all overlooked.”

Drug use, abuse, violence, and alcohol are not allowed on the premises, but at Take the Next Step, only people's needs are seen, Wright said.

In 2004 Everett Community College GED instructor Donna Olsen asked her students to compile a resource notebook for impoverished families. What they found were a lot of dead ends. A lot of resources didn't exist any more or had no money to provide services.

From her class's work, she took the idea to her church, Monroe Covenant, which supported her and donated the house used for most of the program's operations.

That first year, Take the Next Step helped 438 people. Today, it provides services to more than 8,000 men, women and children. The non-profit has a budget of about $120,000 through grants and donations.

This year, Take the Next Step received a $20,000 grant from the Greater Everett Community Foundation specifically earmarked to fund services for homeless teens.

That funds Kidz Club, an after-school program for at-risk youth. Kidz Club helps kids stay in school, assists in getting identification cards for dropouts who want to return to school, and helps older teens find after-school jobs.

“Many might say they are just runaways, out looking for a good time. The truth is they come from troubled homes. They are runaways, but they are trying to get away from trouble,” said Laron Olson, a board member.

For adults, the focus is on mentorship to get people to lift themselves out of poverty, Wright said. His story is an example.

Wright had the chance to be a role model for someone else, which in turn helped him in his life.

“After years of receiving services, Janos approached me with the opportunity to watch out for this kid,” Wright said.

Last year, Wright was paired with an autistic homeless youth, Jake, 19, and they moved into housing together. With help from Take the Next Step, Jake was able to go back to school, and Wright became responsible for getting him there. Jake graduated high school and reconnected with his family.

Before then, Wright had turned down other housing options because of the restrictions that come with low-income housing. As a veteran, Wright qualified for disability housing, which he declined because accepting disability housing meant he would not be allowed to work. This was an opportunity to get him into housing and give his own life purpose.

“I consider it an honor to be able to give back to a community that has given so much to me,” Wright said.

Kendall has a similar story. She knows the value of having people believe in you.

“Sometimes support is better than a handout,” she said.

Growing up, she became a survivor of violent crime and family trauma. She dropped out of school after ninth grade, and cared for a nephew after her brother was killed in a car crash. She came to Take the Next Step and was able to complete her GED, and went on to earn her A.A. from Everett Community College and her B.A. in human services from Western Washington University.

During her time at Western, she interned with Take the Next Step. After she graduated, she was granted a continuing internship, and was later hired on as the director after her predecessor retired.

“I have been able to succeed with support, because there was suddenly someone there, where there was never anyone before,” Kendall said. “People can come here to the drop-in center and talk with volunteers to work through some of their barriers, and figure out what's next and how to meet that goal.”

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20141123/NEWS01/141129621

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Newtown (Sandy Hook) Connecticut

New Report on Lanza: Parental Denial, Breakdowns, Missed Opportunities

by Alaine Griffin, Josh Kovner

In February 2007, Yale clinicians identified in Adam Lanza what they believed were profound emotional disabilities and offered him treatment that they said could give him relief for the first time in his troubled life.

But Adam was angry and anxious, and he didn't want to go. His mother, Nancy Lanza, constantly placating her son, was inclined to pull away from the treatment, prompting a psychiatric nurse to reach out to his father, Peter Lanza, in an urgent email.

"I told Adam he has a biological disorder that can be helped with medication. I told him what the medicines are and why they can work. I told him he's living in a box right now and the box will only get smaller over time if he doesn't get some treatment."

Nancy Lanza rejected the Yale doctors' plan. Adam was 14.

Six years later, Adam, now an emaciated recluse and fixated with mass killers, murdered his mother and massacred 20 children and six educators before turning a gun on himself at the elementary school he once attended in the Sandy Hook section of Newtown.

A report released Friday by the Office of the Child Advocate pointed to the Yale episode as one of dozens of red flags, squandered opportunities, blatant family denial and disturbing failures by pediatricians, educators and mental health professionals to see a complete picture of Adam Lanza's "crippling" social and emotional disabilities.

Although the report does not draw a line between the events in Adam Lanza's young life and the massacre, it points out repeated examples in which the profound anxiety and rage simmering inside Lanza was not explored in favor of attempts to manage his symptoms.

For example, at the apex of Adam's increasing phobias and problems coping with middle school, he went to a pediatrician and was repeatedly prescribed a lotion to soothe hands rubbed raw by excessive washing and a laxative to ease constipation brought on by a dangerous loss of weight. Yet, the authors note, there was no effort during these visits to address the underlying causes. A visit to a hospital emergency room was cut short before there was a chance for clinicians to explore Adam's problems at greater depth and schedule him for long-term treatment because Nancy Lanza said that being at the hospital was making Adam anxious.

"This shooting could have been stopped at any point along the trajectory of [Adam Lanza's] life," said Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse was one of the first-graders killed in classrooms in the Sandy Hook Elementary School. "Red flags were evident, yet procedures were not in place to effectively deal with the issues. This is a systemic concern."

The child advocate's mandate was to scour Adam Lanza's life for warning signs, lapses and communication breakdowns that could lead to reform in Connecticut's school and mental health systems. The report's authors offer dozens of recommendations that they hope will make children and families safer and mental health treatment more effective. Thousands of pages of records were subpoenaed in the 22-month probe, which included consulting with experts ranging from FBI profilers to child psychiatrists.

The 112-page report reserves some of its most searing criticism for what the authors see as efforts by his parents and school personnel to control his superficial symptoms and appease him to "get through the day" rather than having specialists treat his serious conditions.

At times, the report said, school officials in Newtown failed to comply with legal requirements in their handling of Adam. They also point to a chronic lack of communication and coordination among the various players involved with Adam's education and treatment, inside and outside of Newtown.

"The lack of sustained, expert-driven and well-coordinated mental health treatment, and medical and educational planning, ultimately enabled his progressive deterioration," the report said.

Among the troubling omissions cited in the report, the authors reveal that Adam never underwent a neurological examination despite reported seizures and a diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. Adam was repeatedly pulled from special education programs, therapy and schools at various times and was in the state's little-known homebound program with minimal oversight by school officials.

Even Adam's own stunningly violent and graphic school writings about homicide, gunplay and war, including a comic book called "The Big Book Of Granny" and seventh-grade war essays, failed to trigger psychiatric treatment.

The report also traces his descent after high school into a stew of depression, isolation and suicidal thoughts, spending months in his bedroom with blacked-out windows, communicating in cyberspace with fellow connoisseurs of mass murder.

He also spent those days planning the attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School, which he might have chosen because he could overpower the children and anticipated little resistance. The report said that Adam visited the school's website "on numerous occasions" and studied the school's security procedures.

"The attack on Sandy Hook Elementary appears to have been a purposefully thought-out and planned attack. [Adam Lanza] did not just 'snap,'" wrote Sarah Healy Eagan, the state child advocate; Faith Vos Winkel, the office's principal child fatality investigator; and other authors of the report.

The authors acknowledged that the report does not delve into the issue of high-capacity assault weapons, but said that Adam Lanza's access to guns, which began at age 5, had a role in the tragedy, along with his deteriorating mental and physical health and his increased isolation.

Joseph V. Erardi Jr., Newtown's superintendent of schools, said his thoughts after reading the child advocate's report were with "the victims' parents and the families who live every day with this horrific tragedy. In addition, my initial reflection includes the hundreds of students, staff, parents, first responders and community members who witnessed and experienced 12/14."

Erardi said Friday that school administrators "will meet with staff on Monday to debrief from the report and make decisions at that point going forward."

Early Troubles

Adam Lanza's earliest years in his family's hometown of Kingston, N.H., were marked by developmental issues and an immediate reliance on his mother. He did not sleep well, avoided hugs and kisses, and had problems communicating, often making up his own language that only his mother could understand.

During a developmental assessment in a Birth-to-Three program, a provider wrote that Adam "fell well below expectations in social-personal development" and that he could not understand any of the boy's language, relying on his mother to serve as interpreter during testing.

Early on, in what would become a recurring theme throughout much of his schooling, Adam's ability to perform well academically led to the perception that he did not need special education or additional therapy.

The report said that "neither the parents nor the educational system persevered to ensure that he received neurological follow-up, a comprehensive psychological evaluation or evaluation of his behavioral and sensory processing challenges." Such follow-up early on "might have clarified and deepened the understanding of his needs," the report said.

When he did receive special attention, the focus was on his difficulties forming words rather than his more serious inability to communicate with others.

In what could be the most glaring omission in this chapter of Adam's life, the records of his preschool life in Kingston were apparently never transferred to his new school, Sandy Hook Elementary School.

For several years afterward, individual education plans that should have addressed his serious underlying disabilities consistently failed to include that information.

Protected From Stress

By the time the family moved to Newtown in 1998, Nancy and Peter Lanza's marriage was crumbling. Peter Lanza admitted to the authors of the report that he was a "weekend father," and that his wife referred to him as a "workaholic" at his job with General Electric in Stamford. They separated in 2002 when Adam was 9, and divorced seven years later.

Nancy developed a preoccupation with her own health, telling friends in emails that she suffered from a potentially terminal disease and that she did not have long to live. She said she worried about the future of Adam and his older brother, Ryan.

But the authors, in investigating her medical records, found no evidence that Nancy was suffering from a terminal illness. The report suggests that Adam might have been affected by his mother's preoccupation with her own health.

The authors describe a symbiotic relationship between mother and son, with Nancy going to excessive lengths to protect him from stress, which had the damaging effect of isolating him from the outside world. She treated him as a close confidant, but "that may have been well beyond his relatively immature emotional capacities," the authors said.

Adam also played the role of counselor to his mother, part of a "dynamic of mutual dependency," the authors wrote. They cite a 2008 email from Adam to his mother as an example. After Nancy had revealed to him that she thought she had wasted her life, Adam wrote:

"You do not seem to understand that I was attempting to comfort you with what I consider to be a maxim with which to live. You unfortunately probably still do not understand what I mean. As a disclaimer: I type nothing in this that is in a tone that is condescending, vindictive, malicious, snide, malignant, or any synonym that you can think of. I mean well.

"If you believe that you wasted your life, as you seem to have insinuated, you will gain nothing from regretting it and will only depress yourself; you cannot change anything from the past. There is something I can assure you of that will always be true: It does not matter if you live for the next one year … or even 100 years, the day before you die, you will regret ever worrying about your life instead of thinking of what you want to do.

"I am glad that I was born, and I appreciate your having taken care of me."

Although Nancy obviously loved her son and was dedicated to him, her "hypervigilance" and habit of micromanaging his life, coupled with her rejection of psychiatric advice for Adam and her objections to putting him on medication, might have unwittingly sabotaged opportunities for her son to get better, the report found.

The report also raises the question of what role the Lanza family's socioeconomic status in the community played in how school and health care professionals responded to Nancy Lanza's ability to care and meet Adam's needs.

Nancy Lanza lived with Adam in an affluent neighborhood in the east end of town. She did not have a job but, in 2012, according to divorce records on file at Superior Court, received $289,800 in alimony from Peter Lanza.

"Is the community more reluctant to intervene and more likely to provide deference to the parental judgment and decision-making of white, affluent parents than those caregivers who are poor or minority?" the report asked. Would Nancy Lanza's reluctance to keep him in school or maintain a treatment program "have gone under the radar if he were a child of color?"

Missed Opportunities

In Adam's two most significant opportunities for meaningful psychiatric treatment — an evaluation at the Danbury Hospital emergency room in September 2005, and a complete work-up by clinicians at the Yale Child Study Center in New Haven the following year — Nancy rejected expert advice in both cases and further isolated her son by keeping him at home and away from school.

At Danbury Hospital, she declined an extensive medical evaluation and psychiatric examination for Adam, who was suffering from overwhelming anxiety. Instead, she asked for a note excusing him from school indefinitely. When she didn't get her wish, she took Adam home.

At Yale in October 2006, a psychiatrist examined Adam at Peter Lanza's urging. The doctor noted Adam's "accelerating" social withdrawal and concluded that Adam suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder and severe social disabilities and would benefit from intensive therapy. The psychiatric nurse at the center reached similar conclusions about what the clinicians were calling an "increasingly constricted social and educational world."

But Nancy pulled Adam out of treatment at the Yale center, saying that the diagnosis "didn't fit" and that her son didn't want to go to the sessions. The authors noted that a clinical report by the Yale team apparently never made it to Newtown High School and that Adam's educational planning at the school lacked any connection to the Yale findings.

"If there is a single document that is most prescient regarding [Adam's] deterioration," the authors wrote, "it is the October 2006 report from the Yale Child Study Center — an evaluation that so dramatically states the high stakes presented by [Adam's] disabilities and the need for meaningful and immediate intervention."

Nancy relied heavily on the advice of a psychiatrist who, in contrast with other clinicians, said that Adam would benefit from being away from school. It was the psychiatrist who said that Adam was a candidate for the homebound program, in which students who are medically or emotionally unable to attend school are tutored at home.

The report was highly critical of this move, stating that there was no evidence that the school had a treatment or education plan for Adam, and that there was no record that he even received the 10 hours a week of tutoring required.

"In the face of disabilities that were so significant as to apparently justify [Adam's] lack of attendance for the entire school year it does not appear that anyone questioned why, if he was so debilitated, he was never hospitalized or referred for specialized educational placement," the report said. "On a number of levels and on numerous occasions, the district did not follow appropriate procedures, monitor [Adam's] individual education plan … for goals and objectives, or document attempts to follow up with providers or the family regarding psychiatric or pediatric care."

Lewis, Jesse's mother, said that a deeper focus on the underlying conditions could have averted tragedy.

"Incorporating social and emotional learning into schools, including character values, emotional intelligence, moral awareness, mindfulness and compassion, has been scientifically proven to reduce behavioral issues and anxiety and increase academic performance and general well-being," Lewis said. "I am confident if [Adam Lanza] had this kind of learning in his educational experience the tragedy would have never occurred."

As mental health professionals worked to understand Adam's disabilities, the report said that Adam's disturbingly violent writings as a young boy might have provided clues.

A comic book he wrote with a fifth-grade classmate called "The Big Book of Granny," which chronicles the evil adventures of a homicidal, gun-toting grandmother, and essays he wrote about "battles, destruction and war" during a short stint in the seventh grade at St. Rose of Lima School in Newtown, showed that Adam was "deeply troubled by feelings of rage, hate and (at least unconscious) murderous impulses."

Although the report states that the comic book was a school creative-writing assignment, the authors of the report said it was unclear whether the book was handed in to a teacher or whether any school officials ever reviewed it.

"If it had been carefully reviewed by school staff, it would have suggested the need for a referral to a child psychiatrist or other mental health professional for evaluation," the report said.

The St. Rose of Lima teacher said that Adam was not like the other seventh-grade boys.

Adam's "level of violence was disturbing. I remember showing the writings to the principal at the time," the teacher told the report's authors. Adam's "creative writing was so graphic that it could not be shared."

Nancy Lanza and the school later reached a mutual decision that Adam should leave the parochial school.

Appeasement Strategy

After spending eighth grade in the homebound program, Adam returned to school as a freshman at Newtown High School. His two years there, before his mother abruptly withdrew him, were marked by some social progress and an effort by teachers and administrators to accommodate him in mainstream classes.

"The educational team felt they were 'thinking outside the box' for Adam, and making deliberate and well-intended efforts" to meet his needs "through careful and extensive partnership with his mother," the report said.

But the partnership was a "strategy of habituation, or even of appeasement, without a skilled, therapeutic, expert-driven approach that would help [Adam] adapt to the world." The report said that the educational team went to great lengths to "adapt the world to" Adam, rather than help Adam "adapt to the world."

After leaving high school, he took classes at two local colleges but his increasing social phobias, declining physical health, and an argument with his father about his course load, drove him back home — to a period of unparalleled isolation.

He lived a solitary life in his room, spending hours on the computer. He cut off communication with his father and brother, and remained house-bound for months at a time, Nancy reported to her friends at a local bar-restaurant.

His only diversion from this reclusive lifestyle was a passion for Dance Dance Revolution, in which the player dances in response to video cues.

Adam would dance "maniacally" for many hours at a time in the lobby of a local theater, neglecting to eat and stopping only to wipe off his dripping perspiration.

The theater manager "had to eventually unplug the game" to get Adam to leave, because Adam "could become so lost in the activity that he would not respond to communication," the report said.

Last Dark Days

Back home, in cyberspace, Adam shared dark obsessions about mass killings with a small community of like-minded murder enthusiasts.

In an email that he sent to one of his cyber friends three days before the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre, he mentioned a half-dozen mass killings and opined that "the mystery to me isn't how there are massacres, but, rather, how there aren't 100,000 of them every year."

At that point, Adam was 6 feet tall and weighed 112 pounds, "to the point of malnutrition" and brain damage, the authors state.

Nancy's main focus during this time was her planned purchase of a recreational vehicle and a move with Adam to Washington state, in addition to her "spending a lot of time in a local restaurant and bar" where she would often stay late with friends, the report said.

The authors surmised that Adam was stressed by the planned move.

Just days before the shooting, Adam injured his head the night before Nancy Lanza was to travel to New Hampshire. His mother, in a text message, described the wound as "bloody, bloody, bloody." The incident, however, did not cause her to change her trip plans. She returned on Dec. 13, 2012.

In the end, Adam alone was responsible for his actions, the authors state, adding that the vast majority of people with psychological and developmental illnesses do not commit violent crime.

In Adam's case, his "severe and deteriorating … mental-health problems were combined with an atypical preoccupation with violence … that appeared to be exacerbated by access to a segment of the cyber world in which mass violence was a dominant theme … Combined with access to deadly weapons, this proved a recipe for mass murder."

http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-newtown-adam-lanza-child-advocate-report-20141121-story.html#page=1

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Rhode Island

Cranston Police launch new community outreach program

by Olivia Fecteau

CRANSTON, R.I. - A police department embroiled in controversy is now trying to rebuild trust in the community under new leadership.

“We're here to tell you this is a great police department,” Colonel Michael Winquist, the new chief of the Cranston Police Department, said. “People care about the citizens.”

Winquist said he hopes the department's new community outreach program will allow it to restore trust. The department is teaming up with community organizations such as social services, businesses and religious organizations, all with the goal of policing more effectively and efficiently.

“We may go to a house five or six times for the same call for service, whether it be somebody that has a problem with alcohol or drugs and the idea is to flag those addresses, so we know that there's a lot of police services going to that address and find out what the root cause of the problem is,” Winquist said.

Captain Vincent McAteer is in charge of the new community policing program.

“The biggest challenge, I think, for us, is going to be getting back out into the community and understanding those issues and letting the community know that the Cranston Police Department is there for them, is there to help and is going to listen,” McAteer said.

Among the department's planned outreach efforts are working with stores at Garden City to prevent holiday shoplifting, working with schools to handle threats and creating community relationships to avoid situations like the one in Ferguson, Missouri.

“What you invest in the community is critical, so if you don't have those relationships in place prior to an incident like that, you're going to have a serious situation of civil unrest,” Winquist said.

The department also said it plans to become more active on Facebook, Twitter and its website.

The goal is to create a better police department and a safer city.

“We need to know those issues to address the quality of life concerns, those things that we respond to every day as police officers,” McAteer said.

Winquist said the department will hold a meeting in the next month or so to speak with community members about the problems they see in their neighborhoods.

“There's a lot more problems that maybe we don't really see, so we're hoping to have a lot of community forums going to each neighborhood to listen to the people, cause they know the problems in their neighborhoods better than we do,” Winquist said.

http://www.turnto10.com/story/27455274/cranston-police-launches-new-community-outreach-program

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Proposed Rule on Next-Generation Telephone Networks Enhances Public Safety and Consumer Protection, Says AARP

FCC Action Would Protect Older Households in the Transition

WASHINGTON, DC — The following statement was issued today by Joyce Rogers, AARP Senior Vice President, Government Affairs, following Federal Communications Commission approval of a “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” to regulate the telephone industry's transition from traditional technology to the next-generation telephone system:

“We're pleased that the FCC's proposed rule follows a path which AARP has long supported: maintaining essential capabilities and functions of the existing landline network – especially for established communities and long-time residents.

“Older households are at particular risk in an unregulated transition environment. Older households, which disproportionately continue to maintain phone service through landlines, rely on health monitoring and other safety features supported by traditional telephone services.

“They are also more likely to live on fixed incomes, with little ability to absorb price increases in basic services. Many live in communities that are currently underserved by next generation networks, and may never be fully served if landlines are discontinued.

“This proposal ensures that consumers are treated fairly without standing in the way of the telecommunications industry's technological advancements.”

Rogers noted that today's proposed rule incorporates three key objectives requested by AARP in its Nov. 14 letter to the FCC:

•  Access for every consumer to quality phone service in emergencies and natural disasters.

•  Access to affordable, reliable phone service, regardless of the technology employed to deliver voice communications.

•  A federal enforcer who can ensure basic consumer protections and a fair hearing of complaints.

AARP also said it is monitoring a separate proposed rule on 911 governance and reliability. “We will closely review the impact on consumer protection and safety of a rule which regulates location accuracy for mobile telephones,” said Rogers.

http://www.aarp.org/about-aarp/press-center/info-11-2014/fcc-proposed-rule-enhances-safety-consumer-protection.html

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Arkansas

The Cost of Alarms

by Alyssa Raymond

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - More and more cities across the country are charging you when your alarm accidentally goes off. The number one reason for false alarms is outdated or malfunctioning systems.

Little Rock Police officers respond to the most false alarms. Firefighters and medics also get them daily. Recently, some cities started issuing a fine on the very first false alarm. The city of Little Rock says it has no plans to do that because city officials say it is not about the money, it is about getting the number to zero.

When each alarm sounds, someone responds, every time.

"There are about 35,000 alarm calls every year, and 90-95 percent of those are false," said City of Little Rock Treasury Manager Scott Massanelli.

Those false alarms take away from the real emergencies.

"Possibly preventing a crime somewhere else," said Little Rock Police Department Sergeant Brian Grigsby.

So far this year, residential and burglar alarms are in the top three dispatched calls. Grigsby says two officers must respond to every alarm.

"They get them on a daily basis," said Grigsby. "Sometimes two or three times a shift."

"Around 31,000 false alarms," said Massanelli.

About 10 years ago, the City of Little Rock started fining people $25 for the 4th false alarm. The fine for six or more false alarms for police is $96 and $1,000 for a large building fire alarm. Massanelli says the city has collected $55,000 so far this year.

"It would be really hard to quantify those 30,000 calls how much that actually costs the city but there is no way we are recovering our costs," said Massanelli.

2014 city records show multi-family complexes such as Albert Pike, Jessie Powell Towers and Paris Towers had the most amount of false alarms with more than 75. Jessie Powell Towers Property Manager Melanie Lightner says in the last year, they have been able to significantly reduce the number of alarms just by talking to residents.

"Help them understand the magnitude of people having them come like that and the tax dollars spent every time and we need to be a better citizen," said Lightner.

"If we can get our officers on emergency calls," said Massanelli. "I think everyone will feel better about that."

Each year, citizens start out with a clean slate meaning past false alarms get wiped away. The city says if residents show an invoice proving their alarm got fixed, they will not have to pay the fines. The city does not have any plans to increase the fines.

http://www.thv11.com/story/news/local/2014/11/20/false-alarms---city-of-little-rock---police-department---fire-department/70029724/

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President Barack Obama Acts on Deportation Relief for Millions

by Carrie Dann

President Barack Obama announced broad executive action to offer temporary relief from deportation to millions of undocumented immigrants on Thursday, saying that the separation of families or the oppression of low-wage immigrant workers is "not who we are as Americans."

"If you've been in America for more than five years; if you have children who are American citizens or legal residents; if you register, pass a criminal background check, and you're willing to pay your fair share of taxes — you'll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily, without fear of deportation," he said in a nationally televised address from the East Room of the White House. "You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law."

Obama noted that the move would not grant undocumented immigrants citizenship or the right to remain in the country permanently. And he said that he will still push for a legislative solution — akin to a bipartisan Senate bill passed last year.

"I want to work with both parties to pass a more permanent legislative solution," he said. "And the day I sign that bill into law, the actions I take will no longer be necessary."

Crowds of immigration reform advocates rallied and cheered outside the White House during the address. Republicans, calling the executive order a constitutional overreach that is unfair to legal immigrants, are vowing to fight the executive action.

The most controversial aspect of the president's executive order allows as many as five million undocumented immigrants to stay in the U.S., including the undocumented parents of children born here. Those parents will be able to request deportation relief and work permits for three years at a time, provided that they register, pass background checks, pay fees, and prove that their legal resident or citizen child was born before the date of the executive order.

"Are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents' arms? Or are we a nation that values families, and works to keep them together?" he said.

The plan also protects more so-called "DREAMers" — young immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children. Previously, individuals were eligible for deferred action if they were born after 1981 and entered the country before 2007. That date is expected to change to January 1, 2010, with no age limit.

Parents of DREAMers are not eligible for the special exemption. And farm workers will not receive specific protection from deportation, which has disappointed immigration activists.

The executive order will also extend the stay of foreign graduates of U.S. colleges with high-tech skills.

The moves will take time to implement. Aides say that the expansion of the program for DREAMers should be in place in three months. The parents of U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident children will be able to submit applications for deferred action sometime in the spring of 2015.

Republicans have slammed the move as an overstep of Obama's constitutional authority, citing the president's own past statements of concern about the legality of the kind of sweeping executive action that pro-reform activists have advocated.

Obama hit back at that critique, citing executive actions on immigration by past presidents, including those in the opposite party.

"The actions I'm taking are not only lawful, they're the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican President and every single Democratic President for the past half century," he said. "And to those Members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill."

Republicans also argue, the president's delay of the announcement until after the midterm elections shows that the decision is largely a political one.

"Just as with Obamacare, the action the President is proposing isn't about solutions," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Thursday. "It isn't about compassion. It seems to be about what a political party thinks would make for good politics."

House Speaker John Boehner said in a video message: "The president has said before that 'he's not king' and he's 'not an emperor,' but he sure is acting like one."

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/president-barack-obama-acts-deportation-relief-millions-n252626

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Better Community Policing through Horses

Researchers in the UK found many benefits to mounted police patrols in neighborhoods.

Police horses are useful for crowd control, but they also improve public trust in the police and help to build positive relationships between officers and the general public. This is according to research from the University of Oxford and RAND Europe.

Researchers analyzed the public response to mounted police units at public demonstrations, soccer games, a music festival and as neighborhood patrols over an 18 month period. The goal of the research was to observe the actions and impacts of mounted police units, to find out how the public perceives mounted police officers and to provide data on the costs and benefits of mounted police work.

Here are some of the key findings of the research:

•  Police horses can be used to assist in crowd-control in ways that no other method can. Observations revealed that when mounted officers were required to intervene at demonstrations, they restored order in ways that officers on foot or in cars wouldn't be able to do.

•  However, researchers found that mounted police units spend most of their time (60-70 percent) on neighborhood patrols. This goes against the common perception that their primary use is in crowd control (10-20 percent).

•  Police horses on neighborhood patrol can improve levels of trust and confidence in the police force. To determine this, the researchers looked at six different neighborhoods. Public confidence levels were maintained or improved in the three locations where mounted units were deployed for patrol, but dropped in the three neighborhoods that did not receive mounted patrols.

•  Police horses improve public engagement. Mounted police generated six times as many casual engagements with the public as officers on foot did. Casual engagements included such interactions as greetings and brief exchanges.

As in the U.S., some cities have reduced or eliminated their mounted patrols in the U.K. due to budget cuts. Research such as this could help show the value of maintaining police horses as not just a law enforcement tool, but as an agent for improved community relations.

For more information, access the report at: rand.org

http://www.horsechannel.com/horse-news/2014/11/better-community-policing-through-horses.aspx

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Nebraska

LVPD using Twitter to connect with, inform community

by Kelsey Stewart

Two-and-a-half years ago, a handful of members of the La Vista Police Department decided to give social media a try.

And after finding success, they ran with it.

They started out using Twitter, a social networking website allowing users to send messages of up to 140 characters, as well as photos.

Now, in addition to the department's Twitter handle, @lavistapolice, nearly 20 of the department's 35 sworn officers are using the social media site, said Capt. Bryan Waugh.

“We saw this as an opportunity for the department to embrace social media and not be scared of it,” Waugh said.

With the backing of La Vista Police Chief Bob Lausten, the department now has protocol in place for how to use Twitter.

In researching the decision to join Twitter, Waugh said they found that 50 percent of law enforcement agencies are on Twitter. They also learned that social media is one of the number one activities on the Internet.

“Since we've started, we've learned we were kind of on the right track,” Waugh said.

The most challenging aspect was getting the proper policies in place for officers using the social networking site.

“With anything new, whether with policing or in the corporate world, it's important to have policies in place,” Waugh said. “For officers who are using Twitter, they're representing us. We do monitor what's being put out there to make sure it's consistent with our mission and goals and is suitable coming from a police agency.”

The department's policies limit what is acceptable to post on Twitter.

As far as what can be tweeted, the department only sends out information that would typically be sent in a press release.

Accuracy is key for the police department. By using Twitter, which allows for instant updates, department members can guarantee that information released is accurate.

“By using Twitter for the police department, we're able to be kind of our own media representative,” Waugh said. “If we don't put the information out there, we've learned that someone else will. We'd rather have the information come directly from the police department so we know it's accurate.”

Typical posts from officers include crime prevention tips and information from accident scenes.

But tweeting from scenes is secondary to regular work.

“The way we work with any active investigation or car crash, that's not going to be the first thing we worry about,” Waugh said. “We take care of business first.”

While they can be used as safety messages, tweets coming from accident scenes have many rules.

Officers don't show license plate numbers. If an there's an injury accident or a fatal accident, they don't post photos of anything visible. If minors are involved in an accident, tweets only come after parents have been notified.

But Twitter allows the community to see the good things officers do, too.

“We can put something out there to show that these guys aren't out there simply enforcing traffic laws and making arrests — that's part of our job — but we're a big community policing agency,” Waugh said. “By putting the good things out, whether changing a tire or helping a kid get home from school, I think it really shows the human side of policing.”

Twitter allows officers to show their personalities and even some humor.

“It kind of shows that we have a human side,” Waugh said. “There's more interaction between us and the community through Twitter.”

So far, sharing updates and tips on Twitter has proven to be beneficial in many ways, Waugh said.

“It's given us a way to engage directly with the community,” he said.

“It's kind of a two-way community forum. It also gives us an opportunity to engage more with the media.”

Waugh said they've used Twitter for many purposes such as recruiting, marketing campaigns and communicating with media.

Using Twitter also allows officers to connect with other law enforcement agencies across the country. At a recent conference, Waugh met two officers he had been following on Twitter. The officers worked for similar-sized police departments in California.

“It kind of shrinks our profession,” Waugh said. “It's a benefit for us in law enforcement.

“Law enforcement is no different in Nebraska than it is in California. Twitter has really opened my eyes to the connections you can make across the country with fellow law enforcement agencies.”

But Waugh and other department members have been able to learn from agencies closer to home, too. The Omaha Police Department is also active on Twitter and Facebook, and so are the Bellevue Police Department and Douglas County Sheriff's Office.

Waugh has noticed relationships form between officers from the surrounding agencies through social media.

“It's beneficial because we're all going to help each other eventually,” he said.

http://www.omaha.com/sarpy/papillion/lvpd-using-twitter-to-connect-with-inform-community/article_ad5744e9-adeb-5bff-92c0-fbacca987ab1.html

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Florida

Lone gunman killed after shooting at Florida State University library leaves three wounded

by Mary Ellen Klas

TALLAHASSEE - A lone gunman who opened fire inside the library at Florida State University was shot and killed by campus police early Thursday morning after he wounded three people, authorities said.

The gunman, who was not identified, walked inside the entrance to FSU's Strozier Library about 12:30 a.m. and opened fire, striking three people, Tallahassee Police Department spokesman David Northway told reporters at the scene. Victims were not identified.

Minutes later, FSU campus police confronted the gunman just outside the library building and commanded him to surrender. The gunman ignored the command and fired at least one shot at police officers. FSU police then shot and killed him. Tallahasee Police are handling the investigation.

“As FSU police officers were coming to the call they heard word that they had one victim who was shot,'' Northway said. “The initial report indicates that as the officer got to the area, they located the gunman near the entrance of Strozier Library and he was challenged by the police officers to drop his weapon. Instead of complying with their commands, the gunman in turn fired a shot at the officers and they returned fire, killing the suspect.”

The three shooting victims, who were not identified, were rushed to nearby hospitals. The extent of injuries or whether the victims were students was not known, Northway said.

The scene inside and outside the five-story library building was chaotic in the moments following the sound of gunfire as students scrambled for safety in the freezing temperatures and nearly three dozen police officers surrounded the area. Police said some students were evacuated to an adjacent building.

Witnesses who were inside the crowded library at the time of the shooting told the Miami Herald they heard about five to seven rapid-fire gun shots after hearing the first burst of gunfire. Police said they could not confirm how many shots had been fired by the gunman.

Allison Kope, 18, of Cocoa Beach, said she was studying at the library, which was packed with FSU students, when she heard a loud sound “like a bookcase falling” and later heard someone say “there's a gunman.”

She said students then started filing out the doors of the library to go outside. Once outside, she said she heard several rapid-fire gun shots.

Austin Bari, 18, of Plantation, said he, too, heard a loud noise before learning from another student that there was a gunman in the building. “I heard a little bang and thought something dropped and then someone said there's a gun,” he said.

He said the fire alarm went off as students and others rushed out of the library.

“I grabbed all I could and then I heard seven to eight rounds [of gunfire] go off. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!”

John Ehab, a sophomore from Tampa, told the Associated Press that he was on the library's third floor when he heard multiple gunshots.

"Everyone heard them," he said. People took cover in the book aisles to hide from the gunman in case he came onto the floor, Ehab said.

Stephen Moring, 18, of Miami, said he was studying on the first floor, but didn't hear anything because he had earphones. His friend alerted him to the possible gunman. He said he saw “a guy lying on the floor grabbing his leg and somebody yelled ‘gun in the building.'”

“We all started heading out the door,” he said. “I wouldn't say we were panicked, but it was a state of confusion.”

“It's the most scared I've ever been in my life,” he said. “It was horrifying.”

At 4:14 a.m., FSU officials sent an alert that the campus was secured and out of danger. They also plan to offer counseling to students on Thursday when classes will resume as scheduled.

Florida State President John Thrasher, who took office earlier this month, told the Associated Press that he was in New York City and had no first-hand information about the shooting. He said he was making arrangements to return to Tallahassee.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article4027799.html

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New York

Officials: Gun Trafficking Ring Brought Weapons from Florida to NYC on Buses

by NY1 News

An investigation brought down a gun trafficking ring that officials say brought weapons from Florida to New York City on commercial buses.

The investigation by the New York State attorney general's office and the New York City Police Department resulted in the seizure of more than 70 illegal guns and a 196-count felony indictment.

Five of the eight suspects have been arrested on weapons possession charges, including alleged ring leaders Natasha Harris and Quincy Adams.

Schneiderman says Harris would allegedly travel to gun shows in Florida to purchase guns for re-sale, and then, with Adams, would bring them back to New York.

He says they would pack the guns into a suitcase and then travel on an overnight bus from Florida to Chinatown.

"By keeping these deadly weapons off the streets of New York, this operation has saved lives," Schneiderman said. "What you see here are illegal guns that will never be used to rob or murder innocent New Yorkers. This operation highlights the very real danger we face in New York from the importation of out-of-state guns."

Schneiderman is calling on other states to adopt the same gun show laws that New York recently adopted. He says strict background checks would prevent some gun trafficking.

http://brooklyn.ny1.com/content/news/219233/officials--gun-trafficking-ring-brought-weapons-from-florida-to-nyc-on-buses/

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WASHINGTON, D.C.

Iowa man arrested near White House with gun in car

by ALICIA A. CALDWELL

The Secret Service arrested an Iowa man Wednesday afternoon after finding a hunting rifle, dozens of rounds of ammunition and a knife in the trunk of his car parked near the White House.

R.J. Kapheim, 41, was arrested on a charge of having an unregistered firearm, which is illegal in the District of Columbia.

Kapheim, from Davenport, Iowa, was arrested after he approached uniformed officers along 15th Street just before 1 p.m. and explained that someone in Iowa told him to drive to the White House. He later showed them to his car, parked nearby, and let officers search the vehicle.

The agency said officers found the rifle, ammunition and a 6-inch knife in the truck of his 2013 Volkswagen Passat.

It was unclear if Kapheim had a lawyer.

The Secret Service has been widely criticized in recent months after a series of serious security breaches. In September a Texas man armed with a knife was able to climb over a White House fence and made it deep into the executive mansion. According to an executive summary of a Homeland Security review of that incident, some officers on the White House grounds that night thought thick bushes near the building's front door would stop the intruder. They were also surprised when he was able to walk through a pair of doors, which were unlocked.

Earlier Wednesday, Acting Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy told a congressional panel the agency has fallen short of its goal of perfection and being in the spotlight has had detrimental effects on morale and operational security, "both with potentially dire consequences."

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article4027740.html

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Florida

Editorial

Changing the color of community policing

Local law enforcement agencies should be commended for seeking to diversify the racial and ethnic makeup of their officer corps, particularly the beat cops who come into regular contact with the communities they serve.

Unfortunately, although the effort is there, it has yet to pay off in satisfactory numbers.

Diversifying police forces is an admirable goal given the troubled racial history of law enforcement and continuing mistrust of cops in many minority neighborhoods. However, it should not become an accounting exercise to achieve an exact statistical match between department and community, nor should it compromise what matters most in effective policing: training and professionalism.

As reported Sunday by The News-Journal's Julie Murphy and Lyda Longa, police departments in Volusia and Flagler counties do not come close to statistically reflecting the minority composition of the area's residents. For example, Volusia County's population is 11 percent African-American and 12 percent Hispanic, but the percentage of black officers employed by the Sheriff's Office is 3.7 percent, while Hispanic officers constitute only 7 percent. Although 35.4 percent of Daytona Beach's residents are black, only 13.3 percent of the city's police department is black (however, the department matches the city's Hispanic rate of 6.2 percent).

The disparities hold for virtually all law enforcement agencies at the county and municipal levels, large and small.

It's not for a lack of trying. Most officials point to various outreach and recruiting efforts to attract blacks and Hispanics to the force, but the pool of candidates is small and highly competitive. Minority officers are in short supply around the nation, so larger departments that can offer higher pay and more opportunities often get first dibs and leave little in quantity or quality for the small and midsized agencies.

Nevertheless, local departments should be applauded for casting a wide net, reaching out to nontraditional areas for candidates rather than simply posting “Help Wanted” ads on websites and in publications. For instance, the DBPD recruits at Bethune-Cookman University and other schools, as well as churches. The VCSO has gone to military bases and law enforcement academies and attended recruiting fairs at colleges. It also has asked pastors and other leaders in the African-American and Hispanic communities to help identify qualified minority applicants. DeLand police officials have given the local branch of the NAACP job applications to be distributed to potential candidates.

Still, there is a dearth of empirical evidence that the racial makeup of a police force directly results in better policing. Limited studies have shown that the attitude, experience and training of an officer, not his race, are what matter most, a view supported by many law enforcement veterans.

It's therefore encouraging to see Emma Santiago, spokeswoman for the Volusia County Hispanic Association, tell The News-Journal's Murphy and Longa, “It would be great to reflect the makeup of the community, but we want the best qualified to fill those positions.”

Furthermore, criminologists have noted that minority citizens remain skeptical of police departments regardless of their racial and ethnic compositions because they are seen as being part of a larger, biased establishment. As journalist Lauren Kirchner wrote for Pacific Standard magazine (psmag.com), “the color of the uniform may be more significant than the color of the skin.”

That's a deeply rooted problem that requires not just more-diverse hiring, but better policing and improved communication from all.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/article/20141119/OPINION/141119402?Title=Changing-the-color-of-community-policing

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Indiana

Police, colleges brainstorm ways to improve public safety on campuses

by James Fillmore

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. - The St. Joseph County Sheriff says area police departments are working together better than ever before.

He made the comment at a community campus advisory coalition meeting.

Representatives from Notre Dame, IU South Bend, Saint Mary's and Holy Cross talked openly with law enforcement officials about their concerns and what they think can be done to keep the community and students safer.

South Bend police say from 2013 to 2014 robberies were down 11 percent citywide and residential burglaries declined by 22 percent.

Police also say this year, from August to October, there were eight robberies.

Most of the victims were students out after midnight who were approached on the street by people with weapons.

"Overall crime is down in the city. However, that shouldn't mean we're satisfied in terms of making South Bend an even more safe place to live," said Councilman Gavin Ferlic.

Every Thursday St. Joseph County, South Bend, campus, state police and others meet to go over crime data.

They put the information together into a map for police to work off of.

"Criminals have no jurisdictional boundaries. So, those same people that are committing crimes in the city are committing them in the county and Mishawaka," said St. Joseph County Sheriff Mike Grzegorek. "In order to solve those crimes or to stop them from occurring again we have to work together and we have to share information."

Grzegorek says the new dispatch center will also help police departments share and access information more easily.

As for overtime patrols, South Bend Police say when there's a Fighting Irish home game most officers are exclusively near Notre Dame.

"Saint Mary's student government has been in talks with Notre Dame student government and Holy Cross to try and better campus safety," said McKenna Schuster, a Saint Mary's student.

A deputy also recommended having a shared social media page so police, colleges and students could have access to crime data quickly.

A student proposed having a text alert system that sends messages to students at all of the colleges in the area.

Police say it's also important to remind students how to be safe especially when living off-campus.

"Many of us have lived on Notre Dame's campus for three years. So, we come from this very controlled environment. When we move off campus we just need to be aware of our surroundings as well as some of the neighborhood statistics," said Lauren Vidal, a Notre Dame student.

One Saint Mary's student says students try to be responsible and take a cab, but some drivers refuse to take them back to the Saint Mary's campus.

South Bend Police say that's because the taxi drivers can have a quicker turn around going to and from Notre Dame.

Another person at the meeting says when there are large groups of students, Taxi drivers sometimes consolidate stops, forcing students to walk.

"I think making sure that we follow up with our taxi cab ordinance. We do have a strong ordinance on the books, making sure all companies are compliant with that ordinance. But then also if there's opportunities to even strengthen that ordinance," said Ferlic.

http://www.wsbt.com/news/local/police-colleges-and-others-meet-to-talk-about-public-safety/29830726

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Massachusetts

Community activists in Boston shine light on race relations with police

Protests planned across the country after grand jury decision is announced

by Pam Cross

Show Transcript

BOSTON —A group of Boston community activists is pushing Mayor Marty Walsh for answers asking "what is more important at this time in this city than the issue of stop and frisk and its implications for Ferguson, Missouri."

Sadiki Kambon, director of The Black Community Information Center was joined by a half dozen men at Boston City Hall.

They met with a Walsh administration staff member, but did not meet with the mayor, who wanted to reschedule the session. Kambon said, we can't understand why there is a lack of sensitivity by the mayor knowing the Ferguson verdict looms in the future."

The group cited police data released earlier this year to show African Americans males are stopped by police more often than other individuals.

The data indicates between 2007 and 2010, during 200,000 police investigations that did not involve arrests; 63 percent of those stopped were African Americans.

However, only 24 percent of Boston's population is African American.

Kambon said his organization gets frequent reports from black men and youth, "just walking home from school with their books and lined up against the wall and pants pulled down and that kind of thing. So we know it affects our community on a daily basis."
The Walsh administration and police department leaders are quick to say there is no so-called 'stop and frisk' policy. There is what is called a field interrogation and observation process.

Police Supt. William Gross said, "we have strong community partners. The police department has good relations with elected officials, clergy and community people." About Boston and preparing for potential Ferguson, Missouri, related protests, Gross said, "we should already know who to talk to come and speak to so we're not just reactionary. We're definitely not Ferguson."

The Boston Director of Economic Development has been tapped by the mayor to co-chair a panel on young males of color called "My Brothers' Keeper."

It is an program linked to the Obama administration. John Barros said, "this is a very serious initiative and we're putting a lot of resources behind it. This is an urgent issue, race relations, race disparities, income disparities, income gap, wealth gap, the mayor make a promise to the citizens of Boston that Boston won't be a city that's divided, that Boston will move toward a city that's more united, a city that's working for all of its residents and we're taking this very seriously."

Barros said the initiative will produce a report by January and an action plan by March.

http://www.wcvb.com/news/community-activists-in-boston-shine-light-on-race-relations-with-police/29805708

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New York

Parents Turn Pain into Policy

by Daryl Khan

NEW YORK — Arlene Ward knew the choice she made that night would change the lives of the young people from the housing projects that define Manhattan's Lower East Side skyline. She sat in the hospital room where her son's dead body lay, still warm, a tube jammed down his throat after a gunshot to the chest.

Ward grew up in the projects. When she was a child, revenge was an instrumental part of meting out street justice.

“Our mentality is an eye for an eye,” Ward said. “Someone does something to my son, I go out and get the m----------- who did it.”

Ward's son, known to friends and family by his middle name, Sadonte, was shot outside of a bodega near his building over a misunderstanding (involving a jacket) between rivals from another housing project.

With a simple, wordless nod, Ward said, she could have ordered some young people to visit the same kind of violence on the people who murdered her firstborn.

“They would have been booted and suited,” Ward said. “And did whatever they had to do.”

From revenge to reform

Ward looked at the tear-streaked faces of her son's friends, classmates, teammates from the baseball team and the children from the Baruch Houses he grew up with. She knew they were in turmoil. She had lost a son, but they had lost their friend.

At that moment, Ward made a commitment to salvage the torment and anguish of losing her son and make some good come out of it. She wanted to turn the pain of her son's death into something meaningful.

Ward did not realize it at the time, but when she decided to use her son's murder to change policy, she joined dozens of parents across New York City who have turned away from bloodlust and committed to a similar pledge.

These are parents who decided to resist the desire for revenge and the temptation of losing themselves in their mourning; instead, they saw an opportunity to create change — to save another child from the grave or a prison, and another parent from their pain.

They organize barbecues and picnics, and host screenings of anti-violence films. They put together events filled with face painting and moonbounces dedicated to children and bring in speakers to talk about the real consequences of violence. In small, piecemeal ways, often spending their own money and relying on donations of hamburgers and paper cups, they make a case for policy change so that another parent doesn't join their unfortunate club.

“With our experience, with us going through this horrific tragedy, we can reach the children, we can reach their hearts,” said Taylonn Murphy, who has dedicated his life to coming up with solutions to violence among youth since his daughter was shot and killed in 2011. “This is real life and we're living it. This isn't a job to us. It's different than a guy sitting behind a desk sorting through statistics.”

He echoed the sentiments of many parents doing this kind of work by pointing out how young people are more receptive to their message.

“They don't need these real-life stories told to them by the police, or by the district attorney's office or some bureaucrat from the city,” he said. “These young people aren't stupid. They feel like those people are coming at them with a different agenda. If the city would help us go out and reach out to these young people in the schools, in the community centers, in whatever forum we can reach them, we could really make change on this whole culture of violence.”

Turning passion into policy

In the months after her son was killed, Ward became active. Initially, she opened her doors to the local children still grieving from Sadonte's death. She counseled them to not give in to their pain by going out into the streets and project courtyards and looking for revenge. She went from counseling Sadonte's friends to getting organized. She founded the Sadonte Foundation, an organization committed to preventing violence among poor black and Latino teens.

She raised some money for a college scholarship in her son's name for students at her son's high school. She worked with the district attorney's office, hosting screenings of a film called “Triggering Wounds” that illustrates in painstaking detail the consequences of gun violence, down to the damage a bullet can do when it tears through a young body. She organized the “Home Runs, Not Guns” baseball game and cookout to raise money and bring attention to the root causes of violence in poor neighborhoods.

“So many of these parents' passion is squandered on scrambling to pay for picnics. It's a waste. This is a club that no one wants to be part of,” Murphy said of these parents of slain children. “But we're in this club, and we're trying to make the best of it. We're definitely overlooked by the city. If we were backed 100 percent in terms of resources, we could change this whole way of thinking about this problem.”

Murphy's partner, Derrick Haynes, whose teenage brother was shot and killed in the 1970s — the first casualty in a decadeslong feud between residents of the Grant and Manhattanville houses — said he thinks there's a huge resource the city could tap to help end the problem of violence among youth. He said if the city is serious about finding alternatives, other than raids and mass arrests, it needs to find a way to incorporate these parents into its plans.

“There are so many of us out here with the passion, and the moral authority and the ideas,” Haynes said. “The will is there — we just need resources, infrastructure and some support.”

Haynes and Murphy work to prevent violence from breaking out again between young people in the two rival Houses. They have networked with parents from all five boroughs, as well as Westchester and Long Island, working as a brain trust to share ideas and approaches.

Haynes and Murphy said they have met dozens of mourning mothers like Ward. But, like many parents who are thrust into the position of political activist, she does not have the wherewithal or the resources to turn her passion into a formal outlet for change.

These parents are learning on the fly. They are untrained, unfunded and don't have the formal infrastructure to turn their passion into policy change.

This disconnect has led to calls from many organizers and politicians to find a way to connect parents' passion with the organizational capacity of City Hall to make their spirited but novice and sometimes slapdash grassroots efforts more effective. They do not want to see the passion of parents who have the firsthand experience and in many cases concrete plans, wasted on moonbounces.

A club no one wants to join

That night Sadonte was killed, Ward joined what Taylonn Murphy calls the group that no one ever wants to be part of: parents of a child killed by gun violence. Murphy threw himself into activism after his own daughter Tayshana, a promising basketball star, was killed in a feud between rival housing projects in West Harlem.

On the night of April 7 this year, Murphy and Haynes convened a meeting of this club that no one wants to join in a beauty salon in Harlem. They met to discuss pooling their efforts to help bring about change. There were a dozen men and women, mothers and fathers, who had passionate feelings about how to approach the problem of violence among children and teens.

The talk became heated at points, arguing about politics, methods and goals. At one point, as a torrential rain pounded outside, a man came in with a strange smile. It was unclear if he was there for the meeting, so an awkward silence hung in the salon. Finally, Haynes asked the man if he needed something. The man said nothing but took out a collection of blinking trinkets and went up to each parent with the same smile looking for a customer.

“You are in the wrong place for that tonight, brother,” Murphy said to the man.

Haynes escorted the man out. Afterward, they noted with gallows humor how much they could get done if they were sitting at a well-lit conference table in a professionally staffed office, instead of under dormant hair dryers and having their meeting interrupted by a street vendor with blinking trinkets.

“If we were in a conference room instead of a salon, and we had the resources that are necessary to do this work,” Murphy said, “where do you think we would be at this point?”

“To me it's a no-brainer,” Murphy said. “If a person can deal with the type of tragic events and stress, if someone can deal with all that pressure and all that strain, the passion has to be pushing them to do something extraordinary. This culture of violence with our youth is an epidemic; it's a crisis. If we're the antidote, then provide us with the resources for us to be an effective antidote.”

Political culture responds

New York City Councilman Mark Levine has been in the thick of the larger discussion going on about violence among youth. The Grant and Manhattanville houses, where the NYPD conducted the largest gang raid in the department's history on June 4, fall within his district. He recently attended a public meeting where residents and activists shared ideas on solutions.

Levine has worked with Murphy, Haynes and others in the community looking for ways to channel grassroots energy into tangible policy reform. He has seen parents organize around their child's death, but has noticed more and more an unprecedented level of passion around gun violence.

“This is something different — many voices speaking loudly about gun violence,” Levine said. “You can't overstate the power, especially of adults who have lost sons and daughters who have suffered a tragedy and converted their pain into more positive activism. When you look at history, there's an established playbook of turning tragedy into something positive.”

Levine noted other transformations in political culture that started with a small but determined group of parents racked by tragedy.

“If you look at other major public policy shifts, they've often often been brought about by families impacted by a crisis or tragedy. MADD — Mothers Against Drunk Driving — the mothers who started that organization became successful in changing the culture of that crime and the way it is seen.”

Another is Sandy Hook Promise, where some of the parents of children killed in Newtown formed an organization to draw attention to what they see as gaps in national gun laws. Members of the organization declined to comment for this article.

Levine said a similar movement driven by mourning loved ones has led to concrete reform in New York City under the last administration.

“You're seeing it in New York City in street safety,” Levine said. “The families of pedestrians and cyclists killed in automobile accidents have superenergized the street safety movement — it impacted mayoral policy.”

Levine said the new administration would be open to working with these parents and harnessing their energy.

“I really do think the new mayor supports this movement,” he added. “My sense of Mayor Bill de Blasio's thinking on criminal justice is to truly put a premium on prevention. I look at these type of efforts being crime preventions.”

An advocate for families

When Shenee Johnson's 17-year-old son, Kedrick Ali Morrow Jr., who was set to go to college on a scholarship, was gunned down at a high school party in Queens in May 2010, she, too, dedicated her life to transforming the culture of violence that led to his death. She started Life Support, a nonprofit, but she did not initially have training or experience needed to make her organization as effective as it could be.

Johnson, 40, didn't have the professional support, either, and before her son was killed she was apathetic to politics; but she had the passion, so much so that her new calling as an advocate has led to her divorce. Like many parents of children lost to violence, the passion to work for change can be consuming, and take its toll on their personal life.

“I'm an advocate now. I'm an advocate for families,” said Johnson, who recently took her 9-year-old son on a trip to Albany to deliver anti-violence proposals to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office. “I don't want to be a mother who lost her son to a crime and lives in sorrow. I want to be out there fighting for the families that are left behind.”

Murphy said Johnson is one of the many soldiers in the city whose efforts could be bolstered with support from the city.

“I would love for someone to sit down with us and look at our initiatives,” said Murphy. “We have the staff, the people, we've already started our own organizations. We're tired of being treated like victims by people from other organizations who have not lived through this and who are not out on the front lines with us.”

Like the other parents, Arlene Ward has learned on the job, and has found her new role as an advocate rewarding.

“It's kind of like therapeutic for me in a weird way. The kids say thank you to me, but I say thank you to them every chance I get,” she said. “They give me purpose. I'm not going to stop.”

On June 24, nearly a year and half after her son was killed, Ward sat in a reserved seat in the auditorium of Facing History High School in midtown Manhattan. Had her son not been killed, it would have been the afternoon of his graduation.

Instead of cheering on Sadonte as he crossed the stage in his cap and gown, she was in front of the students presenting a scholarship in her dead son's name. As she did, all the students rose in a show of respect. In the crowd, getting ready to graduate, stood some of the same teenagers who waited to follow Ward's lead the night her son was killed.

http://jjie.org/parents-turn-pain-into-policy/107947/

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When Kids Are Killed by Police

by Daryl Khan

On a Sunday afternoon this past summer, a little boy who recently lost a baby tooth stood amid a throng of angry protesters marching their way from a house on East 229th Street through quiet residential streets in the Bronx to the 47th Precinct, where police brass waited behind a metal enclosure.

The little boy held a bright red sign, difficult to make out since he was so small, and the crowd obscured the message written with thick black marker. As the crowd parted, the message became clear: “N.Y.P.D Don't Kill Me!!!” To stress the point, someone had underlined the message three times.

The little boy was one of a clutch of 50 protesters led by Constance Malcolm, whose son Ra Graham died after he was chased to his second-floor bathroom and fatally shot. The police officer who killed Graham, Richard Haste, never had a day in court. After the case wallowed in legal limbo for years, the Manhattan U.S Attorney's office announced on Sept. 17 it was opening a civil rights investigation into the killing.

Malcolm has spent years as part of this loose network of parents who dedicate almost all their free time to the twin pursuits of finding justice for their child and working for broader reforms to make sure another parent does not find herself in the same predicament. Many of the people who attended her event are familiar from other events paid for and organized by other members of the club no one wants to join. She was there the night at the salon. (See main story.) She said so much of her passion is wasted just on scrambling to deal with logistics.

“It gets frustrating,” she said. “I have dedicated my life to this since my son was killed by the NYPD. But without the structure, or the resources, it gets to a point where you feel like all your passion goes into just getting things planned, and none of it goes into making sure this doesn't happen again.”

Even though her son was killed by police and not by another young person, Malcolm sees her story as connected to the other parents who are out there fighting to give meaning to the seemingly senseless death of a child.

Police overreach is the logical extension of what parent activist Taylonn Murphy calls the epidemic culture of violence afflicting the housing projects and poor neighborhoods across New York City, from the dense apartment towers along the beachfronts of Far Rockaway, Queens, to the low-slung row homes and elevated trains of the north Bronx.

Malcolm said when the city fails to listen to the advice of the parents who have buried their children, like Murphy, the violence persists. Instead of trying to prevent violence, the city responds with more force. When raids, additional police and more street confrontations are the only answer, she said, then more unarmed young men like her son are bound to get gunned down.

“I was not trained for this,” Malcolm said after leading the protesters back to her house. “This was not supposed to be life. But when my son was killed I could not just sit back and do nothing. I had to do something. I had to do something not just for Ramarley, but for all the other young people out there. If we don't do something to end this violence, to change the way things are, who will?”

http://jjie.org/when-kids-are-killed-by-police/107949/

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Missouri

Missouri governor declares state of emergency ahead of ruling on Ferguson shooting

by Scott Malone

(Reuters) - Missouri's governor declared a state of emergency on Monday and authorized the state's National Guard to support police in case of violence after a grand jury decides whether to indict a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager.

"Our goal here is to keep the peace and allow folks' voices to be heard," Governor Jay Nixon told reporters on a teleconference. "People need to feel safe and to achieve those goals, we need to be prepared."

The order also puts the St. Louis County Police Department, rather than police in Ferguson, Missouri, in charge of policing protests.

Residents of Ferguson, which saw weeks of sometimes violent protests following the Aug. 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, are braced for the possibility of more unrest, particularly if the grand jury decides not to criminally charge Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.

Officials have said the grand jury's decision is likely to come this month.

The past two days have seen peaceful protests around the area in anticipation of the grand jury's report. Several dozen demonstrators took to the streets on Monday in Clayton, Missouri, where the grand jury is meeting.

"We want an indictment. The cops don't like it," the protesters chanted as they marched in below-freezing temperatures.

"Something about the way Mike Brown was killed started a fire in me that I can't ignore," said one of the protest organizers, Dhorbua Shakur, 24.

He said he had little sympathy for area residents who are tired of the demonstrations, which left some businesses in Ferguson burned out.

"They can turn this off and on with a TV screen. But this is my reality. This is my life," Shakur said.

PREPARATIONS

Some area schools have told parents they will dismiss students early when the decision comes and many businesses near the stretch of downtown that saw the worst rioting after Brown's killing have boarded up their windows as a protective move.

ABC News reported that an FBI bulletin sent to police forces across the United States warned that the grand jury's decision "will likely" lead to some violence. An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the report.

Video and audio published over the weekend by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch showed Wilson leaving the police station and returning to it hours after the shooting.

There are conflicting accounts of what happened, with some witnesses saying Brown had his hands up in surrender when he was shot and others describing a physical altercation between Brown and Wilson.

Many protesters expressed anger at word over the weekend that Wilson may be able to return to his job if he is not indicted, although local police said he would be fired immediately if charges are brought.

Protest organizers planned to demonstrate at the Ferguson Police Department when the grand jury's decision comes back, and later at the county courthouse in Clayton.

Ferguson Mayor James Knowles expressed confidence on Monday in the city's police department and its chief, Thomas Jackson.

"Right now, what we need is continuity in the police department and the chief has made tremendous relationships with a number of protesters and so I think that's what those protesters want," Knowles said. "The conversations we have been able to have with people have been very productive. ... We need to have a mutual understanding before we can move forward."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/18/us-usa-missouri-shooting-idUSKCN0J11Q020141118

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Missouri

Computer Hacker Group Responds to KKK Threat in Ferguson by Shutting Down KKK Websites

by Nick Chiles

After causing major disruption to law enforcement in Ferguson during the summer protests over the killing of Michael Brown, the collective of hackers known as Anonymous has set its sights on the KKK after the hate group last week threatened Ferguson protesters with violence.

Calling the campaign OpKKK, the hacktivists have already disrupted KKK websites and publicly released personal information on KKK members, according to the techy website Motherboard.com.

Anonymous released a video on YouTube saying that while it respected the KKK's right to free speech, the hate group had overstepped the mark by threatening physical violence.

Last week, the Missouri chapter of the infamous terrorist organization put out fliers to warn the public that they “will use lethal force as provided under Missouri Law to defend ourselves.”

The leader of the Missouri chapter, Frank Ancona, spoke to MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Wednesday to explain why the KKK distributed the warning fliers .

“Actually it's addressing the people who are making these terroristic threats and letting them know that the people of Missouri have rights too,” Ancona said.

Ancona believes that his warning fliers addressed to “the terrorists masquerading as ‘peaceful protestors',” is making the situation better in Ferguson.

Motherboard said Anonymous had “hit a range of KKK websites over the weekend through to today, including kkk.com, unskkkk.com and traditionalistamericanknights.com, with Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Those sites were intermittently down today. At least two Twitter accounts have also been compromised: @KluKluxKlanUSA and @YourKKKCentral.”

Motherboard also indicated that OpKKK appears to be working alongside OpFerguson, the group that caused major disruptions in Ferguson after Brown's death. After claiming that it had broken into Ferguson's municipal computer system, Anonymous released details about city workers and posted photos of Jon Belmar, the chief of the St. Louis County Police Department, in addition to pictures of his wife, son and daughter and his home address and telephone number.

Anonymous warned police not to overreact to rallies and protests. Anonymous also released the dispatcher's tape showing that the officer who shot Brown never called for police backup or for EMS response. Anonymous threatened to release video showing officers throwing Brown's body into the back of a vehicle—after the body allegedly was lying in the street for hours. Before the release of the name of Officer Darren Wilson as the shooter of Brown, Anonymous threatened to release his name—but then released the wrong name, taking major flack for the error.

OpKKK said it would release personal information on Klan members over the next 24 hours unless the Klan stopped threatening physical force against protesters. The OpKKK Twitter user said the attacks would stop “when the people of Ferguson receive freedom and are able to protest peacefully without threats or being harmed by organisations such as the KKK.”

The grand jury verdict on whether to charge Wilson in the shooting of Brown is expected this week.

http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/11/17/computer-hacker-group-responds-kkk-threat-ferguson-shutting-kkk-websites/

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Virginia

Virginia woman charged with lying to federal authorities about supporting ISIS

by The Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. – A Virginia woman faces a federal charge after being accused of promoting the Islamic State in social media and offering to help an undercover agent get a friend into Syria to join the extremist group.

Heather Elizabeth Coffman of Henrico County made an initial appearance in U.S. District Court on Monday and was ordered held until a Wednesday afternoon detention hearing, court documents show. She is charged with making a materially false statement about an offense involving terrorism.

According to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent, Coffman promoted the organization known as ISIS on several Facebook accounts she maintained under various names. Those posts prompted a sting by the agent, who posed as an Islamic State backer.

The agent wrote in the affidavit that Coffman talked about making arrangements for a man she identified as her husband to train and fight with ISIS in Syria. She said the man, who is not named in court papers, backed out when the couple split up.

Coffman offered to make similar arrangements for the FBI agent and a fictitious friend. The agent told Coffman that his friend wanted to fight with the terrorist group and become a "shaheed," or martyr. The agent said Coffman encouraged him to support the friend's plan and offered to use her contacts to help him achieve his goal.

After several meetings between the agent and Coffman, two other FBI agents interviewed the woman at her workplace. She denied supporting any terrorist groups, the affidavit said.

Coffman's attorney, Mark Schmidt, said in a telephone interview that he had not yet spoken in depth with his client about the allegations.

"As I understand it, this is in connection with Facebook and issues that arose from Facebook," he said. "To the best of my knowledge, Ms. Coffman has never left the country. I don't know if she even left Virginia."

The FBI affidavit says Coffman "is suspected of conspiring and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham ("ISIS") a foreign terrorist organization."

One of Coffman's Facebook accounts listed her job and education, translated, as "jihad for Allah's sake," the agent wrote. Her accounts also featured photos of the ISIS flag and images of men holding AK-47s.

One Facebook friend asked why she posted such pictures and she replied, "I love ISIS!"

According to the affidavit, she also said she got her sister to like ISIS and "my dad is a little angry because I got her into all this jihad stuff."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/18/virginia-woman-charged-with-lying-to-federal-authorities-about-supporting/

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California

Child Homelessness Reaches Record High

by Kevin Mallory

A report released by the National Center on Family Homelessness on Monday shows that child homelessness has reached record numbers.

The report, titled "America's Youngest Outcasts," uses data from the Department of Education and the Census Bureau and shows that nearly 2.5 million children were homeless at some point in 2013. To put that in greater perspective, one out of 30 children was without permanent shelter.

The number of homeless youth has steadily increased in the last decade. In 2006, an estimated 1.5 million children were homeless. That number jumped to about 1.6 million in 2010 and soared to nearly 2.5 million last year.

The situation in California is particularly dire.

One-fifth, or approximately 527,000, of the nation's homeless youth resided in California in 2013; that is a 20 percent increase from the more than 438,000 in 2010.

Carmela DeCandia, director of the National Center on Family Homelessness and a co-author of the report, notes that California has unique problems that make the state susceptible to high homeless numbers.

"One is the high rate of children living in poverty," DeCandia said. "Twenty-four percent of children in California are living in poverty and what we see is a real disparity between the state minimum wage and the income that's needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment."

California's state minimum wage is $8.00/hour, but in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment, a person must make nearly $26.00/hour. Shahera Hyatt, the Director of the California Homeless Youth Project, was not surprised by California's numbers. For her, this is an issue that has long been underreported.

"Though we've made recent progress legislatively and otherwise on youth homelessness in California," Hyatt said, "there's been kind of a historic lack of focus on this population specifically."

Hyatt says that California lacks some of the resources necessary to assist youth. In 2011, Hyatt's organization released a study that revealed only one-third of the state's 58 counties had any type of program to help homeless youth. This, in turn, leads to them to use their own resources.

"Without transitional housing programs for a young person to live when they are experiencing homelessness, they might end up exchanging sex for a place to stay for the night," Hyatt said. "That's not uncommon, unfortunately. These are the situations that we are forcing our young people to make in absence of services and funding to meet their needs."

While there has been some success in reducing the number of chronically homeless individuals and veterans, children and families, as the report illustrates, don't seem to be receiving the same attention. DeCandia believes that the ever-increasing number of homeless children could have damaging repercussions.

"Child homelessness has reached epidemic proportions in America," DeCandia said. "This is a situation that can't be tolerated much longer because these kids can't wait; they're development is at risk. We really need to act now; with decisive action, we would be able to address this problem ... If we don't act, we may lose another generation of children to this tragedy."

http://www.neontommy.com/news/2014/11/child-homelessness-reaches-record-high

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Michigan

How to improve community, police relations

by Jimmy Solomon

It seems every week attention is drawn to another conflict between law enforcement and the communities local police are charged with serving and protecting.

Whether it's Ferguson, Missouri, or Hammond, Indiana, one common thread in these clashes that result in community concerns is a lack of understanding between policing agencies and the community before the event happens.

In recent years we've managed to generally avoid such controversy here in Metro Detroit in large part due to the existence of ALPACT (Advocates and Leaders for Police And Community Trust), created in 1996 by former U.S. Attorney Saul Green and Rev. Dan Krichbaum, then head of what is now called the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion.

ALPACT meets monthly, bringing together more than 100 law enforcement officials from federal (FBI), state (Michigan State Police), county (sheriff) and local (city police) agencies with organizations representing our diverse citizenry, including the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, Anti-Defamation League, Equality Michigan, the Michigan Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and many, many others.

Officials from offices of the US Attorney and local police departments routinely attend meetings and participate in discussions, too.

In recent years, the movement has expanded and there are now four other ALPACT chapters in Michigan, created with the same dynamics in mind.

The goal of these meetings is to increase trust and understanding between policing agencies and community groups to decrease tension between law enforcement and local communities. These can be contentious discussions, but are approached with the goal of educating all sides and reducing chances that a small incident can be fanned into a more serious flame.

ALPACT over the years has helped law enforcement officials better understand the issues being faced by people of color, faith groups, like Muslims who were mistreated after Sept. 11, 2001, and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, and the reactions that can spur the kinds of behaviors that quickly spiral out of control and lead to additional confrontations between police and citizens.

That's why the organization has recently received the International Association of Chiefs of Police Multi-Agency Civil Rights Award, recognizing outstanding law enforcement achievements in protecting civil and human rights.

Raising awareness is a first step. Communication goes a long way in that direction.

Training is an important second.

The Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards, the police training governing body for Michigan has gone out of its way to develop culture competency and bring a deeper understanding of various groups into police academies.

Then comes putting the training to test in the field. It's important that, for instance, police have an understanding of how an immigrant might react when pulled over during a traffic stop — and why certain comments might bring a reaction that perhaps was not intended.

ALPACT discussions have also affected how local police use tasers and other weapons. A model policy for taser use was developed through the initiative and cooperation of ALPACT attendees from the ACLU and local police agencies.

None of this is to say we have a perfect understanding and communication among police and citizens in our region.

But the effort has been serious, sustained, and supported by all sides. ALPACT has been an important player in building the bridges that bring us a little more together when adversity happens.

Commander Jimmy Solomon serves in the Dearborn Police Department.

Steve Spreitzer is president and CEO of Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2014/11/18/solomon-spreitzer-community-policing/19189391/

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Indiana

Fishers police, community collaborate to stay safe

by TheIndyChannel.com Staff

FISHERS, Ind. - One central Indiana town has been named one of the safest places in America -- and both police and residents were working hard to keep it that way.

A recent homicide -- only the third in its history -- has proven that Fishers is not immune to crime, but residents were now even more determined not to let crime take over.

Fishers residents interact directly with police to get answers on ways to protect themselves. In the Fishers Police Department's Citizens Academy, residents receive police-style training and learn how to keep themselves and their neighbors safe.

"I think that people are naturally curious about what we do and so I think that is some of the draw, but then they also want to know how they can assist us as well," Sgt. Tom Weger said.

That collaboration between police and residents is a big factor in keeping families safe while in their homes and out on the streets.

Fishers has received national recognition as one of the best places to live and one of the safest places in America.

"The biggest thing that goes into that is our strong partnership with the community and our school corporation -- all of us working together. The police department can't do it alone," Weger said.

As the FPD public information officer, Weger helps people detect and deter crime -- which typically includes burglaries, car break-ins and thefts -- by sending regular alerts and safety tips to the more than 80 neighborhoods enrolled in the crime watch program.

A strong core of crime watch coordinators, like Art Hennig, act as a liaison with police to reinforce a crucial crime watch component to neighbors: if you see something, say something.

"It's not that you're trying to spy on anybody, it's just when you see somebody or something in your neighborhood that doesn't look right, pick up the phone," Hennig said.

It's all part of the shared vision in Fishers. People want to be safe where they work, live and play, so many residents don't hesitate to step up to the plate.

Crime watch coordinator Keith Liden said community policing is key. Even a driver traveling too fast through his neighborhood, where many kids play, was enough for residents to call police.

"They were reported, Fishers police responded in literally minutes and found that the driver was legally intoxicated," Liden said.

A recent homicide in a park was the second homicide of the year in Fishers -- and the third homicide was 20 years earlier. Residents said the tragedies have only heightened their vigilance, and with the timely arrest of suspects, it only strengthened their confidence in their police force.

"The events have been nerve-wracking, but the quickness and the involvement of the police department have made me feel much better because they've taken care of things very quickly," resident Shari Knox said.

Between 2000 and 2012, Fishers was near the bottom of a list that measured violent crimes in Indiana cities of a similar size. Fishers had 38 crimes during that timeframe and Gary, which topped the list, had more than 1,000 reported acts of violence.

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/fishers-police-community-collaborate-to-stay-safe

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California

SAN BERNARDINO: Strengthening community to reduce crime

Activists hope outdoor movie will create bonds among neighbors in high-crime area. Effort is part of grant program that also involves more police bike patrols.

by Brian Rokos

Deanne Truax Godinez once lived on a rural road in upstate New York where neighbors knew and watched out for each other.

After moving to Sepulveda Avenue in San Bernardino five years ago, Truax Godinez didn't like what she saw: increasing theft, graffiti and gang activity. And neighbors who were strangers to each other.

“I heard that 70 percent of Americans don't know their neighbors, and I think that's real sad,” said Truax Godinez, who decided to do something about it.

So Sunday, Nov. 16, with San Bernardino Police Department bicycle officers in the background, Truax Godinez and other community activists went door to door inviting families to a free outdoor movie with the hope that they will become acquainted and help each other by calling police when they see crime being committed.

“I don't want my neighborhood to go down the tubes,” said Truax Godinez, 53. “We can make change happen as a group. We have to start with baby steps, but I want to run.”

Sunday's effort was part of an initiative called the Byrne Project. It involves San Bernardino police, Truax Godinez's Taking Back Our Neighborhoods Neighborhood Improvement Group and San Diego County-based Institute for Public Strategies, which tries to improve public safety by addressing issues that lead to crime.

The goal is to reduce crime in a north-central area of San Bernardino bordered by Sierra Avenue on the west, Waterman Avenue on the east, 16th Street on the north and Base Line on the south. The federally funded project is named for Edward Byrne, a New York City police officer who was shot to death in 1988 as he sat in his patrol car while guarding a witness in a drug case.

COMMUNITY POLICING

The grant allowed San Bernardino police to purchase four new bicycles to upgrade its fleet for the five-officer team. Officers patrol the Byrne area five to 10 hours per week, Sgt. Shauna Gates said. Those officers, freed from their easily spotted patrol cars, find less resistance when they approach residents to ask about problems in their neighborhood, she said.

“We're trying to bridge that gap between the police and the community,” Gates said. “It's a little easier on bikes because it's less intimidating.”

The bike patrols are just one of the many community policing initiatives San Bernardino police are undertaking to build relationships with residents and merchants.

Those include Coffee with a Cop, the citizens policing academy, citizen volunteer program, neighborhood associations, canned food drives, Shop with a Cop and reading to schoolchildren.

“Community policing remains our top effort. We cannot police this city without the community's help,” Lt. Rich Lawhead said in a phone interview. “Hopefully we're building some partnerships that will help solve some of the imbedded crime in the community.”

WILLING RECIPIENTS

Truax Godinez, Lashea West of the Institute for Public Strategies and two others canvassed the length of Sepulveda within the project area Sunday. The street has a mix of apartments and houses. Some yards are well kept and others are overgrown. Children played in a couple of yards and could be heard playing inside at other residences. Many houses have security bars on their windows.

In less than two hours, residents had signed up to receive 125 tickets to watch “Polar Express” Dec. 30 at CLUES Charter School. The event will include free food, a raffle and information booths.

“A couple of them said, ‘I'm so glad you are doing that,'” West said.

Among those they visited was Annie Hunsaker, who was out sweeping leaves that had been deposited on her driveway by stiff overnight winds. She requested several movie tickets.

“I think it's a good idea for the neighborhood to get together and take their kids and watch the movie. I'm hoping for a great outcome from people meeting each other,” said Hunsaker, who said she has lived on Sepulveda for two years.

The volunteers plan to hit more streets in the days leading up to the movie.

http://www.pe.com/articles/community-754425-police-san.html