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December, 2014 - Week 4

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Arizona

Rookie police officer in Arizona killed during domestic violence call

by Steve Almasy

A rookie police officer who was answering a domestic violence call has died from gunshot wounds, the Flagstaff, Arizona, Police Department said Saturday.

Officer Tyler Stewart, 24, was shot several times in a residential area and died at a hospital, officials said.

The gunman apparently killed himself, police said.

"We are a very close-knit organization, and know that all members of the Flagstaff Police Department are grieving at this time," Chief Kevin Treadway said.

A news release said that Stewart was trying to make contact with the gunman, who was the suspect in a domestic violence investigation, when he was shot Saturday afternoon. There were no other details released.

"It is heartbreaking to lose one of our officers. We collectively mourn for his family and the entire department," Mayor Jerry Nabours said.

According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund website, Stewart is one of 125 police officers who have died while on duty in 2014.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/27/us/arizona-police-officer-killed/

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Texas

Texas City Officer Fatally Shoots Gunman

by The Associated Press

Police are investigating an officer's fatal shooting of a man who authorities say was firing at customers leaving a crowded Texas City club at closing and then pointed the gun at one of several officers who responded to a call for help from the club's owners.

Texas City Police Chief Robert Burby says the gunman was shot early Friday after failing to comply with warnings from the officer to drop his weapon.

Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset says investigators are looking at videos, including one from the officer's patrol car camera. Burby says a video confirms the officer demanded the man drop his gun.

Names of those involved in the shooting are not being immediately released.

Texas City is about 40 miles southeast of Houston.

http://www.ktrh.com/articles/houston-news-121300/texas-city-officer-fatally-shoots-gunman-13097860

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Texas

Family doubts cops' account of man shot five times in Texas, demands video

by Dan Taylor

The family of a Texas City man who was shot five times by a police officer on Friday is demanding to see the video.

Carlton Wayne Smith Jr., 20, was struck in the upper left shoulder, the left, the upper left chest, and twice in the face — on the cheek and the chin — which left him with fatal injuries. He died about 1:20 a.m. Friday outside of a bar in Texas City just outside of Galveston, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The incident began when management at the bar called for help, and the responding officer said he saw Smith firing a handgun at patrons who were leaving the bar before allegedly pointing the gun at the officer, which is when the officer opened fire.

But family members are demanding the video showing him firing the gun at the crowd and then at police, expressing doubt that it actually exists. Daniel Kelley, Smith's uncle, was quoted in the report as saying that he simply wants “the truth.”

Kelley said there has been no communication from investigators, and Smith's body remained in the street for hours after he was shot. The family also says they heard conflicting accounts of what happened that fateful evening.

Kelley said that he found it hard to believe that Smith fired shots into a crowd of 100 people and failed to hit anyone. He noted that his nephew had no criminal record and was recently hired by a refinery.

Police said a camera was mounted on a police car as well as a security camera at the bar, and investigators will analyze those, according to officials.

The Texas City police department will release the officer's name within 48 hours of the shooting. He is currently on what is called “modified duty,” which gives him the option of staying home or working, and if he does work, allowing him to wear civilian clothes and work desk duty.

http://natmonitor.com/2014/12/28/family-doubts-cops-account-of-man-shot-five-times-in-texas-demands-video/

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Washington D.C.

NSA analysts spied on spouses, girlfriends: documents

by Nicole Hensley

Analysts with the National Security Agency have been abusing surveillance data to spy on significant others and spouses for more than a decade, heavily redacted government documents show.

The cache of previously top secret reports are in the dozens and were quietly released Christmas Eve by the NSA for a records request by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The documents detail allegations and findings of mishandled data and illegal surveillance among the agency's employees.

In one of the reports, an NSA intern reported his colleague for allegedly spying on his foreign girlfriend, and in another, a NSA analyst searched her spouse's telephone records for at least two years before being told to stop.

The NSA also punished an unidentified soldier for targeting their soldier spouse. As a result, that soldier was demoted with reduced pay and slapped with a 45-day service extension.

An analyst also lost security clearance for looking up the phone number of a friend's son.

The document dump of quarterly reports from 2001 to 2013 were intended for the President's Intelligence Oversight Board to keep track of wrongdoing amid the controversial agency.

The request, however, came too late for ACLU attorneys, who expected the documents to be delivered by Dec. 22.

“I certainly think the NSA would prefer to have the documents released right ahead of the holidays in order to have less public attention on what they contain,” ACLU attorney Patrick Toomey, of the nonprofit's National Security Project, told the Guardian.

The NSA shipped the documents late Monday, but ACLU didn't receive the records until Tuesday afternoon, going against a previously agreed upon deadline between the NSA and ACLU, the Guardian reported.

The records are littered with redactions — eliminating most salacious details — except for minor reports only described as “human error” where staffers observed communications between U.S. citizens before apparently purging the data from its servers.

Some data was never deleted though and remained on unsecured servers beyond its destruction date, the documents note.

“NSA goes to great lengths to ensure compliance with the Constitution, laws and regulations,” a NSA spokesperson wrote, defending its reports in a summary with this week's release.

The reports also show allegations surrounding a Navy cryptologist that unlawfully targeted his ex-wife through his job.

Prior claims by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that analysts frequently shared nude photos obtained through surveillance are never addressed in the security reports.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nsa-analysts-spied-spouses-girlfriends-documents-article-1.2058282

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Massachusetts

‘God told me to feed the pigs': Woman charged with throwing sausages and bacon at police

by Nicholas Reilly

Lindsey McNamara, 24, appeared in court on Friday, after the incident at Framingham Police Department, Massachusetts, and has been charged with disorderly conduct and malicious destruction of property.

Lt. Harry Wareham of Framingham Police said: ‘She walked into the lobby and was carrying a Dunkin' Donuts box and walked up to the window.

‘When the officer who greeted her asked if he could help, she said “I'm here to feed the pigs”'.

She allegedly proceeded to reach into the donut box, before throwing raw bacon and sausage at the police officer, and smearing the raw meat onto the window.

Ms McNamara refuted the charges in court, and said: ‘I mean, I didn't really destruct property.

‘I just smeared some grease'.

The judge ordered a mental evaluation, and Miss McNamara will remain in the custody of her parents until her next court date on February 9.

http://metro.co.uk/2014/12/28/god-told-me-to-feed-the-pigs-woman-charged-with-throwing-sausages-and-bacon-at-police-5001272/

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Protests Support Police, Demand Change As Slain NYPD Cop Honored

Demonstrators supporting law enforcement rallied in Cleveland and Denver Saturday as other protesters opposing racial profiling and the deaths of unarmed black men by police held demonstrations in Los Angeles and Chicago.

The demonstrations supporting law enforcement and those protesting police killings occurred on the same day that a funeral was held for a New York City Police Department officer who was killed by a gunman believed to have referenced recent unrest online.

Hundreds of people in downtown Cleveland attended a "Sea of Blue" rally in support of law enforcement officers, with some holding signs that read slogans like, "blue bleeds red for all people." Tensions in Cleveland have been high after a police officer in November fatally shot a 12-year-old boy who had a pellet gun.

"We need everyone to see we are not bad," Donna Brown, a Cleveland police officer, said. "We need them to come up to us and say 'I need help.'" There were also pro-police rallies in Denver, Des Moines and Seattle Saturday.

But protesters calling for reform in the wake of the deaths of unarmed black men Michael Brown and Eric Garner after confrontations with white police officers continued Saturday. A crowd several city blocks long marched in Los Angeles and hundreds attended a rally led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson Saturday.

"We're out here today to raise awareness about some of the political injustice that's occurring around the nation," organizer Keshad Adeniyi told NBC News during the protest in Los Angeles. "There's things that continue to happen to members of this culture ... we support the police who are doing the right things."

In New York Saturday, a funeral was held for NYPD Officer Rafael Ramos, who was shot dead along with Officer Wenjian Liu as both sat in their patrol car Dec. 20. Police say the gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, is believed to have made threats online that he would kill police officers, in posts that also referenced the deaths of Brown and Garner.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/michael-brown-shooting/protests-support-police-demand-change-slain-nypd-cop-honored-n275651

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New York

Cops Turn Their Backs on Mayor de Blasio During Funeral for Murdered NYPD Officer

by Caroline Bankoff

Following a heavily attended Friday evening wake, tens of thousands of people gathered at Queens's Christ Tabernacle Church on Saturday morning for the funeral of murdered NYPD officer Rafael Ramos. In addition to Ramos's family and friends, the mourners included cops from New York City and across the United States, police chief Bill Bratton, Governor Cuomo, Vice-President Biden, and Mayor de Blasio.

And just as they did on the night Ramos and partner Wenjian Liu died, some police officers turned their backs on de Blasio as he talked, turning at least part of the solemn occasion into a political spectacle. (As many have noted, the deaths of the two officers came amid a contract dispute and other issues between de Blasio and the NYPD unions.) "All of this city is grieving and grieving for so many reasons, but the most personal is we've lost such a good man and a family is in such pain," said de Blasio, his remarks projected on jumbo screens outside the church.

In his own eulogy, Cuomo referred to the anti-police-brutality protests of the last few weeks, saying, "I frankly was amazed at the discipline and professionalism that the NYPD demonstrated. The NYPD protected the right of freedom of speech even though they themselves were the target of false and abusive chants and tirades by some." But, he added, "At the end of the day, we are one — the family of New York."

Bratton also spoke, announcing that Ramos — a religious man who had reportedly been considering becoming a police chaplain — had been posthumously appointed to that position, as well as promoted to detective. "We're a city struggling to define itself," he said. "If we can learn to see each other, then when we see each other, we'll heal."

When Biden spoke, he addressed Ramos's wife, Maritza, teen sons Justin and Jaden, and other relatives, saying, "There will come a time when Rafael's memory will bring a smile to your lips instead of a tear to you eye. My prayer for you is that it will come sooner rather than later."

The vice-president said what he could to ease the tensions between City Hall and the NYPD: "This is a city of courage and character, having faced and overcome the greatest challenges, and I am absolutely sure as you are that that spirit is alive and well in this city. I believe that the police force in this incredibly diverse city will show the nation how to bridge any divide."

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/12/cops-turn-backs-on-mayor-during-ramoss-funeral.html

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California

Immigrants can apply for Driver's License in California after January 2, 2015

by Chelsea Polachuk

With the approval of the Assembly Bill 60, people after January 2, 2015, will be able to apply for a driver's license in the state of California. The bill, which is also known as the 'Safe and Responsible Driver Act,' aims at making California roads much safer.

The Bill will also provide immigrants without a legal presence in the United States to apply for the California driver's license. And for this, all a person needs to do is provide an identity proof and proof of residence in the state.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) said that the bill will be implemented after January 2, and will allow almost allow 1.4 million immigrants in the state to get a chance to acquire a driver's license.

DMV revealed that they have already scheduled 300 appointments in both Del Norte and Humboldt Counties. The state already has almost 24-million drivers, it added.

Artemio Armenta of the DMV said in a statement that Assembly Bill 60 will help ensure that the state roads are safer for everyone else who is already driving.

After the implementation of the bill, an excuse of not having a driver's license will not be available to anyone driving a vehicle, he said.

In the process of issuing new driving licenses, the departments will not be putting the customers seeking license renewals and other DMV services at the back seat. Because the agency has added some more people into their staff, and extended their work hours, and have also opened new offices dedicated to processing licenses.

Jessica Gonzalez, a DMV spokeswoman, said that there will be enough staff to meet the needs of customers who already have a license at traditional DMV field offices.

http://uncovermichigan.com/content/22506-immigrants-can-apply-driver-s-license-california-after-january-2-2015

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From the FBI

FBI Releases Expanded Crime Statistics for 2013

Latest Report from National Incident-Based Reporting System

Today, the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program released its third annual compilation of statistics from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), providing expanded data on more than 4.9 million criminal incidents reported to law enforcement in 2013.

The NIBRS, implemented to improve the overall quality of crime data collected by law enforcement, captures details on each single crime incident—as well as on separate offenses within the same incident—including information on victims, known offenders, relationships between victims and offenders, arrestees, and property involved in the crimes. In this latest report, 6,328 NIBRS agencies—about a third of the more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies that participate in the UCR Program—reported 4,927,535 crime incidents involving 5,665,902 offenses, 5,980,569 victims, 4,517,902 known offenders, and 1,533,671 arrestees.

While these numbers are not yet nationally representative, the FBI is undertaking a number of efforts to educate law enforcement and others on the benefits of the NIBRS and to increase participation in the program. For example, we have partnered with the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics on the National Crime Statistics Exchange to assist states and agencies interested in submitting their crime data through the NIBRS.

As compared to UCR's traditional Summary Reporting System currently used in the annual Crime in the United States report—which is an aggregate monthly tally of crimes—the NIBRS is a more comprehensive accounting of crime occurring in a law enforcement agency's jurisdiction . When used to its full potential, the NIBRS can identify with precision when and where crime takes place, the form it takes, and the characteristics of its victims and perpetrators. Armed with this information, law enforcement agencies can better define and articulate the resources they need and then apply these resources where they'd be most effective.

When the UCR Program studied several years of NIBRS data to examine the effect of agencies switching to the system, most figures stayed the same—especially for the single-offense incidents—but slight increases occurred for agencies that had several multiple-offense incidents. For NIBRS submissions, all of the offenses in an incident were reported—not just the most serious one as is done in the Summary Reporting System. So when agencies switch to the NIBRS, it may seem like crime within their region has increased, but that perception of an increase is due to the greater level of reporting specificity in NIBRS data compared to that for summary data.

New in the NIBRS this year: This latest report includes information about new collection standards—and new data—including a revised rape definition, the addition of human trafficking offenses and gender and gender identity bias categories, and the revision of sexual orientation bias types and race and ethnicity categories.

Next year—at the request of the National Sheriffs' Association and the Animal Welfare Institute—an animal cruelty offense category will be added to the NIBRS and will include four separate types of abuse: simple/gross neglect, intentional abuse and torture, organized abuse (dog fighting and cock fighting), and animal sexual abuse. This new category will be implemented during 2015, and data collection will begin January 2016.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2014/december/fbi-releases-2013-national-incident-based-reporting-system-statistics/fbi-releases-2013-national-incident-based-reporting-system-statistics

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From the Department of Homeland Security

Protect Yourself from Identity Theft While Traveling

by Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity Strategy and Emergency Communications Bobbie Stempfley

With the holiday season in full swing, many Americans are doing last minute shopping or heading to see family and friends. As the same time, the holiday travel season is a peak period for hackers and thieves to prey on unsuspecting travelers. Vigilance is the key to protecting yourself from identity theft when shopping and traveling.

Identity theft continues to top the Federal Trade Commission's national ranking of consumer complaints, with American consumers reporting a loss of over $1.6 billion to fraud in 2013. It's a problem that has been made worse in recent years by the use of unsecured wireless networks at hotels, airports, and other public places, and the infiltration of smartphones through Bluetooth technology.

The Stop.Think.Connect. campaign has some simple tips for you to help protect yourself and your personal information while traveling :

•  Password-protect your devices . Everyone tends to be very busy during the holidays and moving a mile a minute. If you put your phone down even for a moment, you give thieves potential access to all of your phone's sensitive information such as photos, passwords, files, and more. By password-protecting your device, if it falls into the wrong hands, it will be harder for a thief to access your information.

•  Downplay your laptop or smartphone. There's no need to advertise to thieves that you received a new laptop or smartphone as a present. In public, keep your device close to your body and consider non-traditional bags for carrying your laptop.

•  Be aware of your surroundings. If you do use your mobile device in a public area, pay attention to the people around you. Take precautions to shield yourself from "shoulder surfers" (i.e., make sure that no one can see you type your passwords or see any sensitive information on your screen).

•  Turn Bluetooth off . Cyber criminals have the capability to pair their Bluetooth device with yours to steal personal information. Check your settings to ensure your Bluetooth is turned off when you do not need to use it.

•  Be wary of public Wi-Fi networks . Only connect to secure networks, and only use those that ask for a network security key. Checking email or financial accounts or online shopping over an unsecure network provides an easy gateway for hackers to access your information. Also, read the privacy statement to see what that network provider may be collecting from your computer.

•  Back up your files . If your portable device is stolen, it's bad enough that someone else may be able to access your information. In addition, no one wants to lose their holiday vacation pictures or family videos. To avoid losing all of the information on your device, be sure to make a backup of important information and store the backup in a secure location.

Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility and each of us has a role to play. For more tips on how to stay safe this holiday season, visit www.dhs.gov/stopthinkconnect

http://www.dhs.gov/blog/2014/12/22/protect-yourself-identity-theft-while-traveling

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On Christmas, Obama marks end of Afghan combat

by The Associated Press

KANEOHE BAY, Hawaii (AP) — President Barack Obama marked the end of more than a decade of combat in Afghanistan by paying tribute to America's military, telling troops on Christmas Day that their sacrifices have allowed for a more peaceful, prosperous world to emerge out of the ashes of 9/11.

At an oceanfront Marine Corps base in Hawaii, Obama told troops that while tough challenges remain for the U.S. military in hotspots like Iraq and West Africa, the world as a whole is better off because American troops put country first and served with distinction. He said Americans and their president could not be more thankful.

"Because of the extraordinary service of the men and women in the American armed forces, Afghanistan has a chance to rebuild its own country," Obama said to applause from Marines and their families. "We are safer. It's not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again."

Thirteen years and $1 trillion later, the U.S. is preparing to pull the vast majority of its combat troops out of Afghanistan by year's end, as the U.S. and its partners seek to turn the page on a bloody chapter that started the day that al-Qaida militants struck American soil on Sept. 11, 2011. From a peak 140,000 troops in 2010, the U.S. and NATO plan to leave just 13,500 behind for training and battlefield support.

Although there are reasons for cautious optimism, including a new Afghan president whose seriousness of effort has inspired U.S. confidence, the broader picture still looks glim.

The U.S. is shifting to a supporting role after the bloodiest year in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Civilian casualties this year are on track to hit 10,000, and some 5,000 Afghan forces were also killed in 2014, a figure that has escalated as the country took on a greater role in its own security. Insurgents have seized territory across the country, raising fears that Islamic militants will successfully exploit the security vacuum formed as the U.S. pulls out.

Roughly 2,200 U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan over the last 13 years in a war that cost the U.S. $1 trillion, plus another $100 billion for reconstruction. A celebratory cheer of "hooah" rang out from the hundreds of troops here when Obama affirmed that the combat mission was finally ending.

"We still have some very difficult missions around the world — including in Iraq," Obama said. But, he added, "the world is better, it's safer, it's more peaceful, it's more prosperous and our homeland protected because of you."

On the U.S. mainland and across the globe, other prominent leaders were fanning out, echoing the president's message with their own Christmas visits and phone calls to American troops.

Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, visited Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, to spend time with wounded troops and their families and express gratitude for their service. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called military members on deployment, the Pentagon said, including those in Afghanistan and others assigned to U.S. Central Command, which is running the U.S. mission to fight the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was spending Christmas in Kabul, Afghanistan, where the former Navy pilot met Thursday with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his chief executive officer, Abdullah Abdullah. A chief critic of Obama's foreign policy, McCain is set to lead the Senate Armed Services Committee next year.

Obama's visit to the Marine Corps base — where troops and their families had just finished a Christmas dinner of turkey, lobster and candied yams — came midway through his annual family vacation in Hawaii, where the president was spending the holiday unwinding from a turbulent year in Washington.

After waking up their rented vacation home in Kailua, Obama, his wife and two daughters opened presents and sang carols before pulling up midday in their motorcade to Bellows Air Force Station, a waterfront post with picturesque views of Hawaii's lush green mountains. With a calm breeze rolling in over the ocean, the Obamas spent roughly two hours with friends on the beach looking out at the piercing aquamarine waters of the Pacific Ocean.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/25/obama-christmas-afghanistan/20904549/

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New York

Vile rant of ‘cop-killer wannabe': They should have killed two whites

by Lorena Mongelli, Matt Abrahams and Bruce Golding

A Queens man who wished the two assassinated city cops had been white was overheard vowing to make it right by drawing fresh NYPD blood — and he had the weapons to get it done, law-enforcement sources said Thursday.

“I'm going to kill another cop. We should do it before Christmas. The cop should have been white that was killed. I always have a gun on me,” Elvin Payamps allegedly blabbed over his cellphone.

After his arrest, Payamps, 38, allegedly confessed to the threat and said it was spurred by Saturday's execution-style shootings of cops Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Li u in Brooklyn, sources said.

“They should have killed two white cops instead of the Hispanic and Asian if the guy really wanted to send a message,” Payamps allegedly said.

Payamps was overheard hatching the plan by Charles Otero, an ex-NYPD cop who happened to be in a TD Bank branch in Middle Village, Queens, as the killer wannabe flapped his gums at around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, sources said.

Otero called 911, and cops raced to the scene, but Payamps — who a neighbor said lives two doors away from an active-duty NYPD cop — had already left.

His description was broadcast to police radios, and cops on patrol spotted Payamps getting in a car nearby, according to the NYPD.

During a subsequent stop, the cops spotted a bag of weed in the car and took Payamps into custody, the NYPD said.

Other cops went to Payamps' Glendale home, which officials said his wife let them search.

It is less than a mile from the Christ Tabernacle Church where Ramos worshipped, and where his funeral will be held Saturday.

In the house, cops found a Jimenez Arms 9-mm firearm and a Mossberg Maverick 12-gauge shotgun with defaced serial numbers, as well as two bulletproof vests and brass knuckles, the NYPD said,
Payamps admitted stealing one of the vests from the Brooklyn Detention Center, according to a law-enforcement source.

He was ordered held in lieu of $500,000 bail Thursday night on felony weapons charges, along with charges of felony aggravated harassment, unlawful use of a police uniform and pot possession.

“The case is serious,” said Queens Criminal Court Judge Stephanie Zaro. “But the law does not allow me to remand on a C violent felony,” she said, in reference to the weapons charge.

Payamps had arrests for selling drugs in 1994 and 1999 and a sealed case involving a knife from Christmas Eve of last year.

He was charged with menacing in 1995 in connection with a stabbing in a Midtown subway station, a published report said.

In a photo posted on Myspace, Payamps poses with a with a pal who flashes gang hand signs, while another wears a shirt reading, “NO SNITCHING ANYTIME.”

He's also identified online as the owner of Payamps Construction, described as “a small family-owned business that does remodeling and other jobs.”

A neighbor described Payamps as “really secretive.”

“He and his friends, if anybody were to walk past them, he would stay quiet until they'd leave, and then they'd talk very low again,” the neighbor said.

Others noted his neighborhood is home to at least 20 current and former cops.

“It's kind of like he snuck his way into cop territory,” one neighbor said.

"This guy better watch his back, threatening cops in the neighborhood," another said.

http://nypost.com/2014/12/25/nypd-find-arsenal-after-busting-man-who-talked-about-killing-cops/

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Missouri

Video shows officer shooting armed teen near Ferguson

Authorities released a surveillance video Wednesday showing a confrontation that ended the night before with a white police officer killing an armed black man in this St. Louis suburb, according to USA TODAY.

The shooting happened about 5 miles northwest of Ferguson, where a white police officer fatally shot unarmed Michael Brown in August, sparking months of civil unrest.

At about 11:15 p.m. CT Tuesday while conducting a routine business check, a police officer saw two males at the side of a gas station, Sgt. Brian Schellman, a St. Louis County police spokesman, said in a statement.

http://newsok.com/video-shows-officer-shooting-armed-teen-near-ferguson/article/5378914

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Missouri

STL County PD pursues community policing in contract with NoCo muni

by Bridjes O'Neil

With thousands of residents in the City of Jennings, Lt. Jeffrey Fuesting has observed that only a small portion attend his “Coffee with the Commander” events. Fuesting, with St. Louis County police, is Commander of the Jennings Detail.

In 2011, the Jennings City Council voted to dissolve its own police department and contract with county police. Qualifying Jennings officers were hired by the county. Since then, Fuesting reports that crime is down and relations between police and the community have improved. One reason for that change, he said, is events like “Coffee with the Commander.”

Once a month, he and a few officers meet with a diverse group of residents and city officials for one-on-one and group dialogue. They meet early on Saturdays at the McDonalds located at 8983 Jennings Station Road. The most recent event was held on Saturday, December 13.

“We have an open dialogue about what they think about their police department, what we can do better, and what we're doing right,” Fuesting said. “Now more than ever is the time for us to come together and have serious discussions about what's going on.”

For about an hour over a free cup of coffee, they discuss crime trends, hot spot policing, and address community concerns including those relating to recent events in nearby Ferguson. Former Jennings School Board Member David Green attended a recent town hall at Jennings High School where he heard “disturbing” youth accounts about their encounters with police and said he fears for his sons.

"We may have our own Michael Brown situation right here in Jennings,” Green said.

Brown, an unarmed teen, was shot and killed on August 9 by then Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson – who previously had served in Jennings before the city dissolved its force.

Fuesting spent a considerable amount of time recapping a meeting three St. Louis County police officers had with Jennings students and staff on December 11. Some 80 students and 10 staff members, including Jennings School District Superintendent Tiffany Anderson, marched from Jennings Senior High School to the city's police department. Anderson said the march was one way to take the classroom civics lesson to the streets.

At the police station, students presented a list of demands that included increasing the department's minority hiring and body camera use by November 2015. Fuesting said the department has taken a strong stance to increase its minority hiring, adding how crucial it is for officers to reflect the communities they serve.

Fuesting said minorities hold two of six supervisory roles and account for 20 percent of commissioned officers in Jennings. African-American commissioned officers form 14.3 percent of the Jennings command. In the 2010 Census, Jennings' population was 86 percent black.

Minorities account for nearly 13 percent of commissioned officers in the St. Louis County Police Department overall.

Fuesting said St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar plans to outfit all uniformed officers with body cameras, stating that the department is currently seeking out a vendor.

Fuesting said he plans to meet with students within the district once a month – it's an opportunity for students to voice their concerns. And he wants his officers patrolling the Jennings to do same.

“We're going to break those barriers and build that trust,” he said.

Fuesting hopes more youth will attend his public events. Most of those in attendance on December 13 were older, with more whites than blacks. A steady stream of young black men and women filed past the group seated inside the lobby – none joined the group.

One way Fuesting hopes to reel them in is through the fourth annual Teen Leadership Academy, beginning January 6 for youth in seventh grade through high school. Over the course of 12 weeks, youth will learn what it takes to work in law enforcement. They will receive mentorship, gain leadership skills, take a field trip to the police academy, and investigate a mock car crash involving a drunk driver.

For information on the Teen Leadership Academy, call Officer Andrew Dacey at 314-679-2135 or visit http://stlouisco.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/teen-registration-form-2.pdf.

http://www.stlamerican.com/news/community_news/article_9d21143c-8b20-11e4-bdff-07d5e9e261fa.html

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Misouri

Officer fatally shoots armed man in town near Ferguson, Missouri

by Ben Brumfield

A police officer shot and killed an armed man late Tuesday in Berkeley, Missouri, said St. Louis County police spokesman Brian Schellman.

Berkeley is a St. Louis suburb that borders on the city of Ferguson, where the controversial shooting of black teen Michael Brown by a white police officer in August triggered nationwide protests.

Demonstrators appeared after Tuesday's shooting, and there was a scuffle, but the crowd thinned out before daybreak.

In Tuesday's shooting, the deceased man's mother, Toni Martin, identified him as 18-year-old Antonio Martin.

Police say the officer shot him in self-defense.

The officer with the City of Berkeley Police Department had encountered two men during a routine check at a Mobil gas station, Schellman said. He got out of his squad car and approached them.

One of the men pointed a gun at the officer, who fired multiple times at him, fatally wounding him. The second man fled, police said.

Gun, body

Later, yellow markers were placed around the scene at the gas station. Next to one of them was a handgun lying in the parking lot, video from CNN affiliate KMOV showed.

Schellman said that the killed man's handgun was recovered at the scene.

Feet away from the weapon, a body lay covered up. It was later placed on a stretcher and loaded into the back of a van.

The gas station appeared to be outfitted with surveillance cameras, which were pointed at the parking lot.

Berkeley police asked St. Louis County police to handle the investigation of the shooting.

County police are planning to hold a news conference on Wednesday and are considering releasing some surveillance video from the scene.

Mother speaks

Toni Martin told KMOV that her son had gone to see his girlfriend, who lived near the station, and was with her at the time of the shooting. She said the girlfriend notified her of her son's shooting.

Martin said her son turned 18 in September. He had been expelled from school but was trying to get his life back together, she said, and she was encouraging him to join Job Corps.

Video posted to Vimeo showed Toni Martin crying in the arms of other people.

The deceased teen's father, Jerome Green, also said Antonio Martin had said he was going out to meet his girlfriend and had not mentioned any other person who might be with them.

"He was supposed to come home," Green said. "We're getting ready for holiday; everyone wanted to see him. My grandmother hadn't seen him for a while."

Green said that Martin lived with his parents, together with a brother and a sister.

Protest, scuffle

Protesters gathered around an ethnically diverse group of dozens of police officers, who stood between them and the scene. People in the crowd screamed at police. Others spoke more calmly.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographer David Carson told CNN's Hala Gorani that some of the protesters damaged police cars. CNN showed images of one squad car with a large dent in its side.

A scuffle broke out, and officers grabbed some of the demonstrators and led them off in handcuffs.

"At one point, an explosive device, like a large firecracker or firework, was thrown into the middle of the fight and exploded. That kind of scattered a lot of people," Carson said.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/24/justice/missouri-officer-involved-shooting/

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Washington

Obama promotes community policing but let funds dwindle, be diverted for drones

Federal cash for Justice Department's COPS program used for drones

President Obama has used the Ferguson and NYPD controversies to campaign for increased community policing tactics. But on his watch, federal funding for such initiatives has plummeted and money has been mishandled or diverted to such things as drones that have done little to further the cause, a Washington Times review of federal documents shows.

The declining reach of the Justice Department's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program is laid bare by the results of its 2014 efforts: it managed to spend only $124 million to fund 944 community policing officers inside 215 departments, according to the department's final statistics.

The agency's goal was to have nearly 10 times the impact: 8,069 officers with more than $1.8 billion, according to the department's own fact sheet. But since the 2011 budget crisis, the White House and congressional leaders have been unable to agree on the arc of the program, leaving it woefully underfunded when compared to its hey-day under former President Bill Clinton when as much as $1 billion annually was allocated to the effort.

Even when the Justice Department has managed to distribute funds, it has come under criticism for missing its mark.

Internal probes by the department's inspector general have chronicled how Justice officials deprived Memphis, Tennessee, police of needed community policing funds and allowed COPS money to buy seven drones for local police that were deemed of little value to community policing efforts.

An investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the auditing arm of Congress, also found that Justice had narrowed COPS funding so much that half the money was spent in only six states. Furthermore, federal officials couldn't document in the majority of the cases how COPS funds specifically improved community funding.

“Less than 20 percent of the applications funded in 2010, 2011, and 2012 contained evidence showing how additional officers would be deployed in community policing,” the GAO reported last year.

The internal performance metrics contrast sharply with Mr. Obama' strong advocacy — in the shadows of the Ferguson and New York protests — for more community policing and better relations between officers and minority neighborhoods.

“The fact is, in too many parts of this country, a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color,” the president said during a news conference in late November after a grand jury declined to indict a white police officer in Ferguson for fatally shooting an unarmed black suspect who charged at him and beat the officer. “Some of this is the result of the legacy of racial discrimination in this country. And this is tragic, because nobody needs good policing more than poor communities with higher crime rates.”

The president has since instructed the Justice Department to step up it efforts to aid police departments to, in his own words, “build better relations between communities and law enforcement make sure their ranks are representative of the communities they serve (and) train officials so that law enforcement conducts itself in a way that is fair to everybody.”

The president's recent rhetoric, however, fails to recognize his own administration's faulty record so far or its inability to address congressional concerns about the stewardship of the COPS program, according to the Republican who will become a key Senate gatekeeper on law enforcement matters next year.

“The amount of waste and abuse in federal grant programs is well documented, especially at the Justice Department. It appears the COPS program could use a good dose of accountability from both the department and the individual grantees who are trusted with taxpayer dollars,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, Iowa Republican, who takes over in January as the chairman of the influential Senate Judiciary Committee.

Justice Department officials said Tuesday they were unable to comment on the COPS program because key program officials were on holiday break. But in its own statements, the department has both expressed frustration at getting more funds from Congress for COPS and acknowledged more work needs to be done to improve the program.

Last month, for instance, the department issued new guidelines to police departments seeking funding, saying it wanted to address issues that have surfaced in recent audits and investigations.

“The purpose of the (guidelines) is to broaden understanding of compliance requirements in an effort to proactively promote grantee awareness for potential noncompliance and to make grantees more successful in properly implementing their COPS Office grant program,” the department explained.

Since COPS began in 1994 under Mr. Clinton, it has awarded about $14 billion in federal grants to various law enforcement agencies to advance community policing. The program averaged near $1 billion a year in support during the Clinton and early years of George W. Bush's presidency.

But the Bush administration began cutting funding, and that trend has continued under Mr. Obama with the exception of 2009 when the president's stimulus money created a temporary, fresh surge in hiring monies for police.

The overwhelming majority of COPS money is allocated for hiring officers that will specifically engage in community policing. From 2008-2012, a reported 68 percent of the $2.5 billion funneled into COPS program went toward hiring officers “for deployment in community policing.”

But the 2013 GAO found a few states disproportionately benefitted from the funds, with “48 percent of the funding was awarded to grantees in six states — California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, and Texas.”

Ironically, neither Missouri or New York made the top six list.

Part of the reason for the apparent uneven distribution is that federal law requires that 50 percent of grant funding go to jurisdictions with populations over 150,000, reducing the number of communities eligible to compete for big money.

In some cases, officials have also attributed the disparity to “fiscal health” considerations in that “certain states have been disproportionately affected by fiscal distress,” the GAO noted.

Those department paying their officers higher salaries also received more federal funding, with some large discrepancies detected by the GAO.

“In fiscal year 2011, a grantee in California received a CHP award equivalent to its entry-level officer salary and benefits level of $150,753 per officer. In the same fiscal year, a grantee in Connecticut received a CHP award—also based on its entry-level officer salary and benefits—of $64,459 per officer per year,” the report noted.

COPS officials attributed the differences to geographical wage differences and the availability of state law enforcement funds.

Other geographical conflicts have arisen forcing funds to be effectively siphoned from one jurisdiction to another.

In 2009 an estimated $2.2 million in federal police funds were mistakenly redirected to Dekalb County, Georgia. A Justice Department inspector general report found that the funds were redirected as a result of Dekalb County inflating inaccurate crime statistics.

As a result, Memphis was only able to hire 37 of the 50 police officers it needed to effectively patrol its jurisdiction.

“The Memphis economy has been particularly hard hit in recent years, and losing out on this funding likely forced the redirection of resources away from other important priorities in an already strained budget,” Rep. Steve Cohen, Tennessee Democrat, lamented on his official congressional Web site, urging Justice to make Memphis police whole on their grant money.

To date, the money has not been redistributed. Even so, geographical distribution issues are only the tip of the iceberg.

Vague terms in the grant application process that has enabled departments to reassign ‘community policing' responsibilities to officers who were not hired within the program.

A small footnote in the report indicates that after police departments hire entry-level officers with COPS funds, they can “redeploy a commensurate number of experienced locally funded officers to community policing to satisfy the requirements of the grant.”

The suggested effect of this ‘redeployment' option is that officers hired to engage in community policing are not the actual officers that do so making it potentially easier for departments to creatively redistribute the federally funded monies.

Beyond manpower, concerns have also been raised about COPS funding going for such expenditures as unmanned aircraft systems, more commonly known as drones.

An inspector general report in September 2013 found that between 2004 and 2013 the department spent approximately $3.7 million on drones. Of that money, $1.2 million came from COPS and the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), starting under Mr. Bush and continuing under Mr. Obama.

To date, the use of the drones for has not proved effective in achieving federal goals, the inspector general concluded.

In Alabama, Gadsden police spent $150,000 on drone-related costs, but lost contact with its drone causing it to crash into a tree in 2009.

Police in Little Rock, Arkansas, spent $84,000 to purchase a drone in 2008, but had not still used the device as of 2013. In 2007, both police in Miami-Dade, Florida, and San Mateo, California, each received a $150,000 grant to purchase a drone. But Miami-Dade has still not used its drone, and San Mateo's grant was rescinded after they declined to purchase one, the Instector General reported.

The report also indicated a more serious risk.

“It is also possible that the uncoordinated use of local UAS could interfere with federal surveillance,” the Inspector General warned.

“We found no evidence that OJP or COPS coordinated with or notified DOJ law enforcement components (FBI, DEA, USMS, and ATF) about UAS awards, either before or after the awards were made,” the report said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/23/obama-community-policing-effort-falls-short-as-fun/

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Wisconsin

Fort chief introduces new community policing efforts

by Ryan Whisner

The police department's vision is to make Fort Atkinson the safest Wisconsin community in which to live, work and play. And the new police chief has made it a priority.

“The safest cities are those where the community also understand their role in safety and security,” Fort Atkinson Police Chief Adrian Bump said. “As a team and as a department, the City of Fort Atkinson Police Department's mission is to professionally and effectively work in partnership with the community, to protect life, property and order.”

Bump said that one of the things he wanted to do when he became police chief in late September was to identify ways the department could be more involved with the community.

“It is very common for the community to view their officers as that kind of shadowy figure that drives by in a squad car,” he said. “I want people to know who our officers are and I want our officers to know who our people are, or at least what's important to the people in the community. The only way to do that is to be involved.”

A community policing team was developed to focus on three primary areas: residential, business and school. The five-officer team serves as liaisons in these areas, working individually or together on different initiatives.

Dan Courier and Dan Hefty serve as school liaison officers; Brandon Sachse, business liaison officer; Robert Strandt, residential liaison officer, and Brian K. Enger, crime prevention officer.

“We have program concepts tailored for each of those areas,” the chief said.

Prior to coming to Fort Atkinson, Bump worked at a couple of different police departments where he picked up ideas about working with the community and ways to make a city safer.

Most recently, Bump had been police lieutenant for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. During his four years on the squad, he established a training division to meet agency and community needs, a Sensitive Crimes Unit/Sex Assault Response team, and a University Watch Program.

He was recognized with the department's Award of Excellence in 2013.

Bump also served as interim chief of police and lieutenant at the City of Horicon Police Department from July 2009 to July 2011, and as a lieutenant from May 2008 to July 2009.

There, he was awarded WeTip's 2011 National Police Officer of the Year Award in recognition of establishing a comprehensive crime prevention program.

“In no way have I reinvented the wheel, but I identified ways we can better interact with the community and ways we can try and increase safety and security by trying new things,” he said. “It's an accumulation of all my experiences in law enforcement.”

Bump said it is important to adapt to the community and fit the needs.

“Every police department does different things because the needs of the community are different,” he explained. Some existing programs such as the DARE drug education program and the summer bike rodeos will continue, while others, including Fort Atkinson Fleet Watch, Business Watch and the Oops! cards, are new.

He also is looking into having businesses with electronic signs promoting safety tips throughout the community.

“Everything right now on our end is in the development stage,” he said.

Bump said one new effort starting in January will be a reading program held in collaboration with the Dwight Foster Public Library.

“Twice a month, officers will come in for Story Hour and an officer will read a story to the kids,” the chief said. “That is part of putting a focus on the importance of literacy, but also that interaction is important.”

He said Fort Fleet Watch fits right into the community policing idea. Taking advantage of all the resources a city has, Fort Fleet Watch is a focus on having more eyes and ears on the street.

Under Fort Fleet Watch, all city vehicles will be marked with a sticker that identifies them as part of Fort Fleet Watch, indicating that the city employee communicates with law enforcement.

The sticker is intended to have a deterrent effect on motorists violating traffic laws. It also will establish the vehicle as a “safe haven” for children and the community as a whole, and inform the public that the operator of the Fort Fleet Watch vehicle is equipped and able to request emergency assistance.

Prior to coming to Fort Atkinson, Bump had experience in the City of Horicon.

“We had such a strong team focus within that community, among the firefighters, the Department of Public Works crews,” he said. “If we ever had a situation where I needed help to locate somebody just to be extra eyes and ears, we would do that over the radio.”

Bump said that general concept brought the idea of Fleet Watch to the forefront.

“This is an easy way for us to increase safety in our city by having a way to identify or reach out to other employees that are out there and who can say, ‘we're working over in this area and we can keep an eye out,'” the chief said.

As an example, Bump recalled an incident at one of his past jobs in which an autistic child was missing. Only two officers were available at the time.

“It's hard to cover every square inch of a city with just two pairs of eyes on the road,” he said.

Five Department of Public Works crew members with radios in their trucks and firefighters out doing inspections also were available.

“Now instead of two pairs, you have as many as 10 pairs of eyes on the street that can help locate this child that is missing,” Bump said. “That incident brought about the idea of incorporating a legitimate solid program within the city here in Fort Atkinson.”

He noted that there will be times that a person will see the sticker on a vehicle and realize that is a safe person to whom to go.

“Kids in a park might see the sticker on the Parks Department lawnmower and they know that is a person they can go to for help and they can contact the police and get them there,” Bump said. “There are so many different parts of how the program can help make our community safer, even if it is just that feel-good part of people feeling safe.”

The chief pointed out that a huge part of being safe is feeling safe.

He added that part of his focus in the community involvement is crime prevention.

Over the past few days, some residents already might have been issued an Oops! card.

“When officers are out and about on normal patrol and come across something that (looks as though) a citizen might be setting themselves up to be an easy target for crime, they will issue an Oops card,” the chief said. “It could be 2 a.m. and a garage door is left open. We're going to put an Oops card at their house so when they wake up in the morning they are going to find this card that says OOPS! across the top.”

The card states, “While on patrol, our officers noted the following oversight on your property, which could be an invitation to thieves or burglars.”

Bump said the date and time will be noted and the officer will be identified. The Fort Atkinson Police Department number will be listed as the place to call for more information on crime prevention.

On the back, the cards promote the city's version of the national “If you see something, say something” campaign, encouraging city residents to contact police if they observe suspicious activity listing the nonemergency number of (920) 563-7777, 911 and the Crime Stoppers tip line (920) 563-7793.

“That's something I'm kind of proud of,” Bump said. “It's a little quick win that we can reach out to the public and give them little hints. It's an easy thing that shows we are out there and looking out for you.”

The chief said it is important for the officers to be thinking about these things, as well.

“If I can get my officers to think about how people can be a victim of crime, that keeps them on their toes to pay attention to that stuff,” Bump said. “Even though it is a card given out to the public when we see things or a door unlocked, it also gets our officers thinking about ways people could be victimized and prevent crime, as well.”

The department also is planning to implement Fort Atkinson's version of both a Business Watch and Neighborhood Watch program.

From the business perspective, Bump said, the intent would be to work on the idea in conjuction with the Fort Atkinson Area Chamber of Commerce.

At the residential level, the chief said, he would like to look into developing Neighborhood Watch programs again.

Launched nationally in 1972, Neighborhood Watch counts on citizens to organize themselves and work with law enforcement to keep a trained eye and ear on their communities, while demonstrating their presence at all times of day and night.

However, Bump noted that the one downside is that Neighborhood Watch is a lot of work and it needs a lot of dedication for officers and a neighborhood willing to pull together to do it.

“The question is whether the interest is there for the city to divide up into Neighborhood Watch programs and can we make it work,” he said.

With or without a specific Neighborhood Watch program, the chief said, the police department needs residents to be aware to help make Fort Atkinson the safest city possible.

“We need the eyes and ears of people. At 2 a.m. when they hear a weird sound in the middle of the night and peek out the window and see something, we need them to call us,” he said. “So many times people don't acknowledge the fact that they can help us prevent and solve crime because of what they see.”

Another offering from the police department will be security surveys for businesses and residents.

“If a business comes to town or is here and wants one of our community policing officers to come out and take a look at their property to identify things they could do to increase safety and security at their business, then we can do an actual survey we have to go through and provide them with information and resources to help make their businesses safer,” Bump said.

In addition, the chief said the department also will be soliciting free online training opportunities on business security, business safety and how to respond to an active threat.

“There are a lot of resources out there, but it falls on our shoulders to bring that to the people so they know about it,” he said. “As a police department, the end goal is to make Fort Atkinson the safest possible place you could ever be.”

http://www.dailyunion.com/news/article_705bdd54-8ab9-11e4-b6ac-b7739e7150e2.html

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Connecticut

Violent Protests Bypass Connecticut; Police Point To Training, Standards

Vigils have been held throughout the country and in Hartford this week in memory of two New York City police officers who were killed Dec. 20, marking a break in the anger toward law enforcement that has fueled nationwide protests for the past several months.

The wave of protests that reached a crisis point elsewhere has so far largely bypassed Connecticut. In other cities, tensions between communities and law enforcement escalated to violence in response to the Eric Garner and Michael Brown cases, both involving unarmed black men who were killed during encounters with police officers.

There have been demonstrations in Connecticut, but they have remained peaceful, a relative calm that law enforcement officials here say is due in part to well-established community policing programs and training standards that exceed those of other states.

"Connecticut standards are probably the highest in the nation in terms of training," said Connecticut Police Chiefs Association President John Dooley. "Interpersonal communications, conflict resolution, crowd control — it's the core of what we do."

Dooley's comments came as President Barack Obama, activists, and other policymakers have called for increased police training as a way to address the national problem. The president earlier this month called for a three-year, $263 million investment that would provide funding to law enforcement agencies for body cameras, expanded training and community policing programs.

"It wasn't too long ago we had the Occupy movements. They were peaceful, they were handled with respect. I can't help but think there's a correlation with our training," Dooley said. That might also have been the case in the Garner and Brown cases this fall, he said.

The relationship between departments and citizens has, for the most part, seemed stable throughout the state. Hartford police rescinded excessive noise citations after backlash from the crowd during a "Never Forgetting Ferguson" march in early December. The Wesleyan University president sent the city of Middletown a $10,000 donation to cover the costs of overtime and to thank the police department for its service during a "Black Lives Matter" student protest.

Granted, the state has not recently faced a similar incident to those occurring in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City, where grand juries decided not to indict officers in Brown and Garner's deaths.

"Obviously, we are dealing with difficult times," Dooley said. "All the police chiefs in Connecticut are not only monitoring what's going on in their own community, but monitoring what's going on at the national level."

Connecticut State Police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance said: "All police departments are aware of the issues over the past few months." He said the agency has "tried to be proactive and involved in community policing," while urging personnel to continue to act professionally.

Community activists who held protests have also watched events unfold at the national level, and on Tuesday, some gathered in front of Hartford city hall and urged protesters to refocus their message and be aware of rhetoric that could incite violence.

The New York police officers were killed in their patrol car Saturday by a gunman who had referenced the Garner and Brown deaths on social media.

"One individual does not speak for everyone, although I encourage all of our leaders to be careful in their choice of words," Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra said at the Tuesday event at city hall, adding that although some dialogue inspires hope and respect, other words "invite everything to the contrary."

The vigil was organized by the Rev. Henry Brown, a longtime community organizer in Hartford who led the "Never Forgetting Ferguson" march earlier this month.

"It's already a tense enough situation, so we need to be careful about how we report things and how we say things," Brown said. "Everywhere we go, people talk about pitting the police against the public. That can't happen, folks."

Brown urged activists to remain committed to their cause, but to do so in "harmony, in unity, working together" with the police.

"Community-police relations is something we've always taken seriously," Hartford Deputy Chief Brian Foley said in a phone interview Tuesday. The city adopted a community policing model shortly after Police Chief James Rovella was appointed in 2012.

"His main goal was to get that established and approved," Foley said. "We've had successes, and I'm happy with the success we've had."

Foley said that his department still could do a better job, and that it was constantly exploring ways to do so, ranging from recruiting city residents to organizing Thanksgiving turkey giveaways.

"We are part of the community. We're the city's police department," Foley said. "We're not independent, we're one and the same, so it's paid off for us."

http://www.courant.com/community/hartford/hc-hartford-vigil-nypd-officers-killed-20141223-story.html

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Amid Tensions, Police Put Focus on Community Ties

Cities Across U.S. Struggle to Redefine Relationship Between Officers, People They Serve

by Valerie Bauerlein and Matthew Dolan

Cities across the U.S. are struggling to redefine the relationship between police and their communities, as killings by white officers of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City have raised the stakes.

Police officials say they want to prevent widespread frustration over the shootings from escalating into violent protests nationwide or inspire copycats of the targeted killing of officers in New York City last weekend. Many departments are rededicating themselves to “community policing” efforts, such as developing partnerships with faith-based and neighborhood groups, offering training courses on bias, and putting officers on beats for years rather than months.

In Greensboro, N.C., a city of 280,000, about 20 officers marched through a troubled neighborhood last week, shaking hands with residents and talking about their jobs. They paused for prayer with local preachers near the site of an unsolved double homicide this year.

But critics of aggressive police tactics are unconvinced such efforts address the roots of the problem. The Rev. William Barber II, head of the North Carolina NAACP, said he appreciates Greensboro police reaching out, but that it isn't enough.

“Those changes are going to take more than having a prayer march,” said Rev. Barber, who joined recent protests in North Carolina and Missouri against police violence. “What has to happen is not just a prayer march, but a prying open of the practices of how law enforcement engages the community.”

Nationally, violent crime has been falling for years, but tensions between police and poor and minority communities in many cities have been rising, in part due to tactics like the “broken windows” theory, under which officers target minor crimes to prevent bigger ones. Many departments have also been stocking up on surplus military equipment under a federal program—a development critics say has widened divisions between police and the communities they serve.

Economic tensions also persist, with the wealth of white households 13 times the median wealth of black households in 2013, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.

Greensboro has been working to improve race relations inside and outside the department since the mid-2000s, when some minority officers filed suits alleging discrimination. The city last year said it was spending $500,000 to settle the suits. The complaints led to an independent review of police practices and more than 200 policy changes.

Officers are realistic about what recent efforts can do. “Doing things with the community can do nothing but reassure folks that we care and we are human,” said Capt. Jeffrey Lowdermilk.

Few cities have put more focus on community-police relationships than Cincinnati, which more than a decade ago launched an unusual collaboration among officers' groups, civil-rights activists and political leaders. The police-department overhaul was sparked by the April 2001 killing of an unarmed 19-year-old black man by a white police officer followed by several days of riots.

The “Cincinnati Collaborative” has tried to reduce overly aggressive policing, empower a citizen review panel, and push officers to get out of their cars and interact with the public.

But Iris Roley, a Cincinnati business owner who worked on a legal effort by the black community to push for police reform, said the city is still recovering from a charged racial environment that saw Ku Klux Klan demonstrations in the 1990s.

“We still have systemic issues here that need healing,” she said, citing problems with providing equal access and resources to business leaders and school-age children in the black community.

City officials say the number of times police have used force against suspects has generally fallen. Officers fired their weapons five times in 2013, including one fatal encounter, according to the citizen accountability board. That compares with 11, including two deaths, between October 2009 and September 2010.

Kami Chavis Simmons, director of the criminal-justice program at Wake Forest University School of Law and a former assistant U.S. attorney, is glad to hear of police marching with protesters. “But it has to be more than, ‘Let's just talk,' ” she said. She wants early-warning systems for officers who may be using force inappropriately.

Cities from Spokane, Wash., to Rocky Mount, N.C., are hosting “Coffee with a Cop” sessions, where the public can talk with officers at a local McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts. Sgt. Christopher Cognac, in Hawthorne, Calif., one of the program's founders, preaches the “green dot theory.” Each positive interaction with a citizen is a green dot, each negative interaction is a red one, and it takes 15 green dots to cover a red dot. “We need more green dots,” Sgt. Cognac said.

In Greensboro, few residents joined the march. Messiah Alston didn't stop to talk to the officers. A 16-year-old high-school junior, he appreciated the police coming to his neighborhood but wasn't optimistic it would change anything. “We don't get along with the police very well,” he said.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/amid-tensions-police-put-focus-on-community-ties-1419383465

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Missouri

Community policing: Engaging citizens in public safety initiatives

In any community, crime is only one aspect of public safety. Rarely can police or city officials solve public safety problems alone. In Springfield, we are continually working together to address a variety of problems. Public safety is no different. Together, we are making a strong effort to identify, reduce, eliminate and prevent problems that impact community safety and order.

This is community policing, which is a philosophy the Springfield Police Department has worked under for many years. With a focus on collaborating with the community, this philosophy serves as a guide for daily operations and functions.

The Springfield Police Department offers a variety of programs and services that encourage citizen engagement in public safety initiatives. Neighborhood Watch, Apartment Watch and Business Watch are successful programs that have empowered homeowners, tenants and business people to create safer environments in which they live and work. In addition to coordinating these programs, Crime Prevention Officers perform commercial and residential security surveys using established Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design principles. Crime Prevention Officers also present programs on topics including robbery prevention, domestic violence, drugs, residential security, and personal safety.

Police Area Representative (PAR) officers, designated by zone to each area of Springfield, have allowed citizens to feel a direct connection the department – a person to reach out to with concerns about neighborhood crime problems. These officers use problem-oriented policing to produce long-term solutions to the problems of crime or decay in communities. They work with residents to identify the causes for problems, and then develop responses to those problems. In most cases, the responses developed through problem-oriented policing are joint police-community actions, which also involve participation by a variety of other departments within the City of Springfield. By doing this, the PAR officers are able to resolve long-standing neighborhood issues, thereby avoiding an escalation of those specific incidents.

By working together, the police and the community can reduce the fear and incidence of crime, and improve the quality of life in neighborhoods citywide. By working together,we can mobilize the efforts and resources of the police, the community and local government. For more information about how to get involved with the Springfield Police Department, visit www.springfieldmo.gov/SPD or the department's Twitter or Facebook page.

http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2014/12/18/community-policing-engaging-citizens-public-safety-initiatives/20617729/

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Michigan

Achieving both public safety, racial equality is possible

by Sarah Salguera

West Michigan may be separated from Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y., by hundreds of miles — but television, the Internet and radio have put events in these communities in our backyard in recent months.

We have all watched the protests unfolding across the country in response to the failure of grand juries to issue indictments in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases.

This may be causing some to question why people are protesting. Are we not living in a post-racial era of United States history? Is there still a need for rallies and marches addressing issues of race? After all, 2014 marked the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

Much has been accomplished. But there is more that needs to be done.

Reflections from one of the nation's leading scholars on racial equity, jon a. powell, director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, provide some insight on the reasons behind the protests.

In a statement published online on Nov. 25, 2014, powell wrote the following regarding the decision of the St. Louis County grand jury: “It's important to note that this case has never been about one police officer. The spotlight on Ferguson has revealed with a renewed, sharper focus a deep divide in our society highlighting persistent systemic inequalities.”

Powell continued: “What we are witnessing is a reflection of a systematic failure in our society that is revealed wherever we are willing to look — schools, health care, employment, housing, life expectancy, poverty, and the list goes on. The problem is persistent, cumulative and deeply debilitating. The arrest rate or murder rate between African-Americans and whites, as evidenced by a recent set of studies, cannot be explained by the ‘behavior of blacks,' as some will quickly suggest. Nor can it only be explained by explicit racism in the police department or other systems that fail to serve the black community.

“What we are seeing is the consequence of a systematic failure at every level, and a political response that ranges from hostility to neglect. But many people in Ferguson and around the country of different races and from different perspectives are saying no, and demanding ‘enough.'”

Based on research, we know that one of the strongest barriers to racial justice is unconscious bias. (Dr. Shaily Menon wrote about implicit bias — also referred to as unconscious bias — in a community column published in the Grand Haven Tribune on Oct. 28.)

Here in this region, the Lakeshore Ethnic Diversity Alliance has worked with the Ottawa County Sheriff's Department to train officers on unconscious bias, a critical step in promoting racially equitable outcomes. We are grateful to have county and local leaders who are actively working on ensuring an inclusive community.

We believe that achieving both public safety and racial equity is possible. However, it is critical to build a shared understanding of how unconscious biases impact behaviors along with a sense of the ways in which there is a larger opportunity system based on race at work in our society.

We are pleased to be holding for the first time in Grand Haven the Summit on Race and Inclusion, which will be held March 27, 2015, at Grand Haven High School. This will be an opportunity to expand our communitywide understanding of what can complicate our efforts to promote inclusion and gain tools for moving beyond bias.

We invite all members of the community to join in the work of creating an inclusive region. Through joining together, we can create a community which fosters mutual respect, understanding and trust in order to achieve an environment where diversity is valued; positions of influence are shared; justice prevails; and economic, educational and civic responsibilities are accessible to all.

Sarah Salguera, a Tribune community columnist, is program director for the Lakeshore Ethnic Diversity Alliance

http://www.grandhaventribune.com/opinion/community-columnist/1497061

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New York

NYC mayor: 'Put aside protests' after officer deaths

by John Bacon

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio sought to cool the heated controversy swirling around the fatal shootings of two police officers, calling Monday for New Yorkers to "put aside protests" and focus on the families of the fallen patrolmen.

"These families are now our family and we will stand by them," de Blasio said at a fundraising luncheon for the Police Athletic League. "They are suffering unbelievable pain right now."

He reinforced the message later in a news conference with top police officials after visiting the families of the two officers slain by gunfire as they sat in their patrol car Saturday.

"This is a time for every New Yorker to think about these families,'' de Blasio said. "Put aside protests, put aside demonstrations until these funerals are past. Let's focus just on these families and what they have lost.'

Tensions between de Blasio and his 35,000-member police force have grown stronger since Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, fatally shot officers Wenjian Liu, 32, and Rafael Ramos, 40, as they sat in their patrol car Saturday. Brinsley, pursued by other officers, turned the gun on himself moments later.

As the mayor made his plea, funeral arrangements were underway for the slain officers. A viewing is scheduled for Ramos at Christ Tabernacle Church in Queens, N.Y., for Friday afternoon and evening and a funeral at the same church scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday, according to NYPD. Arrangements for Wenjian Liu were still being made as relatives travel from China.

In Washington, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the slayings "an unspeakable act of barbarism.''

"This cowardly attack underscores the dangers that are routinely faced by those who protect and serve their fellow citizens,'' Holder said. "As a nation we must not forget this as we discuss the events of the recent past. These courageous men and women routinely incur tremendous personal risks, and place their lives on the line each and every day, in order to preserve public safety. We are forever in their debt.''

At a news conference with the mayor, Robert Boyce, chief of detectives for New York police in Manhattan, said investigators had found more than a thousand images on the shooter's cell phone, including a short video that he apparently shot as a spectator to protests against police in New York on Dec. 1.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said investigators believe the shooter acted alone and was "a sole operator,'' but are still trying to piece together how Brinsley spent his final two hours in New York City before the attack. Anyone who may have seen him or has information was asked to contact police. De Blasio called the shooter "a deeply troubled career criminal.''

Before his rampage, Brinsley purportedly posted a comment on an Instagram account saying he planned to kill police officers as revenge for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown — unarmed black men killed by white officers in recent months.

Some officers believe de Blasio failed to properly support police after a Staten Island grand jury this month declined to indict an officer in the chokehold death of Garner. When de Blasio went to the hospital in the hours after Ramos and Liu were shot, officers who gathered there turned their backs on the mayor.

Bratton said representatives from the five police unions had agreed to stand down and not issue further criticisms of the mayor until after the funerals. Bratton downplayed tensions between officers and de Blasio.

"Can you point out to me one mayor who has not been battling with police unions in the last 50 years? Name one," he said., speaking with reporters at a news conference. "The experience of this mayor of some cops not liking him, it's nothing new."

Earlier, Patrick Lynch, president of the officers' union, said there was "blood on the hands" of de Blasio.

"I think it's important that regardless of people's viewpoints that everyone realizes it's time to step back and focus on these families," de Blasio said. "It's time to pause political debates, to put aside protests."

The families are eligible for federal death benefits of more than $300,000 each. Attorney General Eric Holder has directed program officials to reach out to the officers' survivors to assist in submitting their claims.

Earlier, Bratton rejected claims that de Blasio has failed to sufficiently support his officers and thus increased the dangers officers face on the street.

"I don't believe that at all," Bratton told NBC's Today , adding that the department in 2014 received "over $400 million outside of my normal budget to improve our training, to improve our facilities, to acquire technology."

Bratton said he did not believe the hospital protest was appropriate. "But it's reflective of the anger of some of them," Bratton said.

A union message called on NYPD officers to respond to every radio call with two cars — "no matter what the opinion of the patrol supervisor" — and not make arrests "unless absolutely necessary." The president of the detectives' union told members in a letter to work in threes when out on the street, wear bulletproof vests and keep aware of their surroundings.

Adding to the tension, police were searching for a reputed Brooklyn gang member who posted online a photo of a man opening fire into a marked police cruiser, local media including the New York Post reported.

Devon Coley, 18, wrote "73Nextt" – an apparent reference to the city's 73rd Precinct — on his Facebook page.

Officer safety concerns were not limited to New York.

A directive warned officers in Newark not to patrol alone and to avoid people looking for confrontations.

In Philadelphia, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey urged the leaders of protests over the deaths of Garner and Michael Brown, an unarmed black man fatally shot by a white officer in Ferguson, Mo., to "call for calm and not let this escalate any further."

In Boston, Police Commissioner William Evans said police issued an alert warning officers about the New York City slayings and added that the department had issued several alerts following the Ferguson grand jury's decision.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/22/bratton-de-blasio-nypd-shootings/20754685/

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Australia

Australia PM Tony Abbott warns of heightened level of 'terrorist chatter'

Sydney siege victims Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson memorialized

by Thomson Reuters

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Tuesday security officials had intercepted a heightened level of "terrorist chatter" in the aftermath of the Sydney café siege.

As memorial services were held for the two victims of the 16-hour siege a week ago, Abbott warned that the public needed to remain alert as the country headed into Christmas and New Year celebrations.

"The national security agencies today indicated that there has been a heightened level of terrorist chatter in the aftermath of the Martin Place siege," Abbott told reporters in Sydney.

Man Haron Monis, a self-styled sheikh, held hostages at gunpoint at the Lindt Chocolate café in Martin Place, a central Sydney shopping and office precinct, from mid-morning on Monday last week.

Two hostages, café manager Tori Johnson and lawyer Katrina Dawson, were killed along with Monis when police stormed the café. An official investigation into the final moments of the siege and the deaths of all three is underway.

"I'm alerting people to the fact that the terror level remains high and at this level an attack is likely," Abbott said.

Police have said they would be boosting their presence at prominent locations such as Sydney Harbour, home to the Opera House, over the Christmas period.

Several of the 17 hostages taken by Monis attended the funeral service for 34-year-old Johnson at a church just metres away from the café. New South Wales (NSW) state Premier Mike Baird and Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione also joined mourners, who included Johnson's partner of 14 years.

A quote from philosopher Rumi under a photo of Johnson graced the cover of the funeral booklet: "Outside the ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I will meet you there."

More than 1,000 people attended a separate memorial service for 38-year-old Dawson at her alma mater, Sydney University. Her three children, aged four, six and eight, each chose a song for the service: Santa Claus is Coming to Town , Somewhere over the Rainbow , and The Gambler respectively.

A huge carpet of thousands of bouquets of flowers in Martin Place was removed early on Tuesday as thunderstorms threatened to drench the city. The flowers will be crushed into mulch and scattered at a site to be determined.

Meanwhile, NSW state opposition leader John Robertson resigned after coming under pressure when it was revealed he signed a letter to support Monis gaining access to his children in a dispute with his second wife.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/australia-pm-tony-abbott-warns-of-heightened-level-of-terrorist-chatter-1.2882171

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Arizona

Arpaio kicks off legal campaign against Obama immigration order, in court hearing

by Fox News

A longtime thorn in the side of the Obama administration's immigration policy got the first chance to stick it to the president Monday, arguing in court that his sweeping immigration order -- designed to spare nearly 5 million people from deportation -- is unconstitutional.

Arizona county Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his attorney Larry Klayman argued before U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., in the first courtroom hearing for a case against the immigration actions.

"We have serious issues of constitutionality involved," attorney Larry Klayman told reporters, after the hearing.

Howell, during the hearing, seemed skeptical of the lawsuit brought by Arpaio, the Maricopa County sheriff known for his tough approach to illegal immigration.

Howell repeatedly questioned whether Arpaio has legal standing to challenge Obama's action. She told Klayman that Congress is in a better position to question the president's authority rather than a federal court.

A lawyer for the Obama administration called Arpaio's case a "political dispute" that should be dismissed. Howell, an Obama nominee, said she would issue a ruling soon.

But Klayman voiced confidence in their case afterward and suggested they might take their suit to a higher court if necessary. Their case is separate from one filed by two-dozen states against Obama's immigration actions -- and separate from one in which a federal judge last week declared Obama's immigration plans "unconstitutional." The latter opinion, though, stemmed from an unrelated immigration case; Monday's hearing is the first to consider a direct challenge to Obama's orders.

Klayman and Arpaio say the president violated the Constitution by doing an end-run around Congress and say drastic changes in immigration programs should be stopped.

"President Obama and others recite that the immigration system of the United States is broken," Klayman wrote in a court filing. "It is unmistakable that the only thing that is broken about the nation's immigration laws is that the defendants are determined to break those laws."

Klayman is a conservative who has previously targeted the president, alleging that Obama falsely claimed U.S. citizenship. In October, Klayman petitioned the Homeland Security Department to start deportation proceedings against Obama.

Under the immigration program, the Homeland Security Department would prioritize the removal of immigrants who present threats to national security, public safety or border security.

DHS officials could deport someone if an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office director determined that removing the person would serve an important federal interest.

In the lawsuit, Klayman and Arpaio portray the administration's policy change as a way for more people to enter the country illegally and commit crimes, adding to the burden of law enforcement.

"This theory is speculative and unsubstantiated," the Justice Department argued in its own court filing. Obama's program places greater emphasis on removing criminal aliens and recent border crossers, the government countered.

Among the evidence in the case is a set of Arpaio press releases and letters to Homeland Security officials that say more than 35 percent of immigrants living in Maricopa County illegally who wound up in Arpaio's jails in 2014 were repeat offenders, signifying in the sheriff's view that DHS has done a poor job of deporting criminals.

Jennifer D. Elzea, a spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, says that as a matter of policy, ICE does not comment on pending litigation.

ICE, a DHS agency, can and does release immigrants who have been arrested on criminal charges, including those who have yet to be convicted, for a variety of reasons. In some instances, immigrants are released from immigration jails because they are from countries that won't provide travel documents or otherwise are not likely to be deported within a reasonable time.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/22/arizona-sheriff-aims-to-halt-obama-immigration-order/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New York

Gun-smuggling ring from Atlanta to JFK used Delta flights to move weapons: sources

Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson is expected to announce the arrest of Mark Henry and other co-conspirators on Tuesday. Henry is accused of smuggling 129 handguns and two rifles from May to December with help from a Delta ramp agent. At least some of the guns were hidden in carry-on luggage, sources said.

by Oren Yaniv and Joseph Stepansky

A gun-smuggling ring that brought illegal firearms into Brooklyn via commercial airline flights was dismantled after investigators pinched the mule and then nabbed his hookup — a Delta employee in Atlanta.

Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson was expected to announce on Tuesday the arrest of gun-runner Mark Henry and several co-conspirators, law enforcement sources said Monday.

Henry smuggled at least 129 handguns and two assault rifles over the course of multiple trips between May 1 and Dec. 10, according to an FBI affidavit. At least some of those guns were ferried in carry-on bags on flights from Atlanta's Hartsfield- Jackson Airport to Kennedy Airport, the document said.

Henry was arrested on gun-possession charges in Brooklyn on Dec. 10 as part of an investigation by the NYPD's Organized Crime Control Bureau, the affidavit said. He admitted to running guns from Atlanta to New York when authorities caught him with an Oakley bag holding 18 guns — a bag that was empty when he first passed through security in Atlanta on the day of his arrest, the affidavit noted.

FFollowing that confession, authorities arrested Henry's alleged co-conspirator Eugene Harvey, a Delta Air Lines ramp agent at Hartsfield-Jackson, the affidavit said. He was charged on Dec. 19 with trafficking firearms and entering an airport area in violation of security requirements.

Harvey would bring the guns into secure areas of the airport by using his security pass and then handed them off to Henry after the latter had passed through security, according to the FBI affidavit.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/delta-worker-smuggled-guns-flights-atlanta-jfk-article-1.2054257

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Nevada

'Community policing' credited for bridging gap in neighborhoods

by Lauren Rozyla

LAS VEGAS — The valley is no stranger to the shooting deaths of police. Earlier this year, two Metro Police officers were gunned down inside a CiCi's Pizza.

As tensions between police and their communities appear to be increasing across the US, officers in Las Vegas say they've learned you can't arrest your way out of everything.

Darius Jackson has had many unexpected encounters with Metro Police.

"There have been quite a few times where cops have actually stopped me and harassed me, you know what I mean? They've actually checked up on me, like 'how are you doing? Do you need a ride home?' And I appreciate that," said Jackson.

As a young African-American male, he can feel tensions running high between police and minorities across the country. But on Monday, he said he feels west Las Vegas is different.

"They're (Metro) doing their job and they're doing a little bit extra," he said. "They don't have to do those things for me."

On the opposite end of that exchange is Metro Sergeant Kurt McKenzie.

"It tugs really close to home," McKenzie said, who is still recovering from the shooting deaths of his colleagues this summer.

"To see what is still happening, and to see officers ambushed in places, it's a tough pill to swallow," he said.

McKenzie primarily serves in the Bolden Area Command, in the center of one of the valley's predominantly African-American neighborhoods.

"Most people, the only time they see police officers, is when things are bad," McKenzie said. It's only been in the last decade that he's tried to change that with "community policing,"

In short, you'll often see officer's coaching youth football in west Las Vegas, or handing out school supplies. "We've built those relationships with people in the community and those relationships go a long way," McKenzie believes.

Community advocates say proof is there that officers have been working on building community trust.

"It's kind of reinforced a partnership that was going to be needed as we went into the aftermath of a number of these decisions," said Dr. Tiffany Tyler of Nevada Partners.

Darius and his family say for them, they've seen officers' efforts.

"I know it's a tough time for a lot of officers with shootings and things of that nature going on," said Freda Jackson, Darius' mother.

A sentiment Darius echoes. "I see them trying. I can feel it emotionally that they're trying."

If you feel you have been mistreated by police, Metro said they can't do anything unless they know. They recommend you report it by calling 311 and asking for a Metro supervisor.

http://www.8newsnow.com/story/27690649/community-policing-helping-strengthen-valley-neighborhoods

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Pennsylvania

Chester mayor seeks shift to community policing

by Vince Sullivan

CHESTER >> Mayor John Linder is considering a new approach to battling the scourge of crime in the city and wants to focus on community policing as a way to improve the quality of life for Chester residents.

With 2014 registering as one of the most violent in the city's history, with 28 homicides in Chester as of Dec. 22, Linder sees a need to shift the police department's focus. He said that he and other members of council were elected with a mandate to improve the city's crime rate.

“We came in with that as a priority,” Linder said during an end-of-year interview on Friday afternoon. “We've made a number of changes in the police department. We're all dealing with these issues of reducing crime and gun violence.”

He said that when he took office in 2012, the police department did not have a dedicated narcotics unit, but that in 18 months the special detail was up and running.

“Once we got it going, we moved into that 18-month investigation and we arrested 40 people,” Linder said.

The large sweep resulted in a 261-count indictment against 40 individuals involved in the illegal drug trade. An early morning police operation this past fall resulted in more than 35 arrests, and the last of the 40 suspects was apprehended within the last two weeks, Linder said.

He hopes to bring in a police administrator that can oversee a shift to a community policing focus, where quality-of-life crimes are pursued.

“One of our solutions is that the community can have a better dialog and better response from the police department,” Linder said.

He wants to see higher visibility from officers and more consistent exchanges, especially regarding complaints about police service.

To that end, Linder would like to see an Office of Ethics and Accountability to resolve residents' issues with police service, for the benefit of the officers and the community.

“I'm excited about that because it would help to pre-empt a lot of things,” Linder said. “I think we need to have the people with the right experience in that area.

Linder said that he has been discussing the role with former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson.

“It'll be great to have him on board, conversing with the community,” Linder said.

A large part of that position would be geared toward securing grants to help fund new police initiatives, like increased patrols in the city's neighborhoods and surveillance systems in the city's business districts.

http://www.delcotimes.com/general-news/20141222/chester-mayor-seeks-shift-to-community-policing

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Washington

How guns make police less safe, their jobs more difficult and communities less trusting

by Emily Badger

Guns change the equation in so many ways. They make it harder for police to retreat, and more likely that a stand-off that might have been resolved peacefully will escalate. They make it harder for police to give suspects the benefit of the doubt, and more likely that a suspected criminal may not deserve it.

They make it easier for a mentally ill man to forever alter two families' lives in the name of "revenge."

After the killing of New York police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos over the weekend, it feels perhaps more satisfying to place blame elsewhere: on protesterswho've cried for better policing, on public officials who acknowledge that the protesters' grievances are valid. But both claims deflect attention toward a vague culprit — "anti-police rhetoric" — and away from a more concrete and systemic one: the ever-presence and easy availability of guns.

Ismaaiyl Brinsley killed Liu and Ramos with a semi-automatic pistol. NYPD Officials couldn't immediately determine how Brinsley had obtained the gun — only that it was purchased at a Georgia pawn shop by another man more than 15 years ago. We also know that Brinsley was previously convicted in Georgia and sentenced to two years in prison for illegal gun possession.

Today we should be talking about the guns not simply because one was used Saturday in the shooting deaths of two police officers, but because guns underlie the very tension between police and communities in America that voices saner than Brinsley have been trying to resolve.

In other countries, homicides, police shootings, shootings by police, and gun violence are much more rare. It's more rare that patrolmen even carry guns. It's more rare that the civilians they encounter will be carrying one, too. In this country, by contrast, the ubiquity of firearms — the possibility of a gun, legal or illegal, in any coat pocket or waist band — injects a level of tension into police encounters that may be hard to entirely disarm even with the most thoughtful community policing reforms.

In the United States, the ever-presence of guns makes it seem plausible that a 12-year-old boy handling a toy might actually possess one. And it makes it more likely that an officer responding to him would pull his own trigger. The ever-presence of guns also makes it plausible that an officer interacting with a teenager might fear for his life — and act in that fear. And it makes it plausible — even responsible — that communities who often encounter law enforcement feel they must teach their sons how to respond to policemen capable of killing them.

In comparing American police tactics and relations to other countries, it's hard to separate the role of guns here from all of the mistrust, defensiveness and aggression that arise around them.

"There's not a big gun culture in Australia," Geoffrey Alpert, a professor at the University of South Carolina who has studied police use of force there, recently told me. "So the cops don't have to worry the way our cops do. There's not always a gun in every encounter. They don't have to think about that."

They're freer to retreat, to reassess, to leave their own weapons holstered.

This doesn't mean that we can't ever improve police tactics in a county where guns are commonplace. Alpert believes policing reforms are possible and worth pursuing. But this does mean that we can't really address police-community relations without talking about the fear of guns tugging at both sides — andhow guns make the job of policing that much harder, how guns fatally narrow the margin of error for poor policework, how guns turn misunderstandings, mental illness and suspicion into something terribly deadly.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/22/how-guns-make-police-less-safe-their-jobs-more-difficult-and-communities-less-trusting/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New York

New York Officers' Killer, Adrift and Ill, Had a Plan

by KIM BARKER and AL BAKER

Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who had drifted between friends and family members for most of his short life, alienating most of them and failing at almost anything that he tried, decided to come home on Saturday. He boarded a bus in Baltimore, arrived in Midtown Manhattan just before 11 a.m., and then disappeared onto the N train at the Times Square subway stop.

He was bound for Brooklyn, where he had been born 28 years before, carrying the silver Taurus 9-millimeter pistol he had used earlier to shoot his ex-girlfriend.

He had a plan, which he soon shared with the world via Instagram: He wanted to kill two police officers.

What exactly pushed Mr. Brinsley to fatally shoot two police officers before shooting himself is not clear. But by Sunday evening, several things had become obvious. He had an extensive history with the police, having been arrested 20 times — mainly for petty crimes like stealing condoms from a Rite Aid drugstore in Ohio. He spent two years in prison after firing a stolen gun near a public street in Georgia.

Mr. Brinsley had also suffered from mental problems. Relatives told the police he had taken medication at one point, and when he was asked during an August 2011 court hearing if he had ever been a patient in a mental institution or under the care of a psychiatrist or psychologist, he said yes. He had also tried to hang himself a year ago, the police said.

By this year, Mr. Brinsley had become isolated. He was estranged from his family. His on-again, off-again relationship with Shaneka Thompson, 29, who works for the Maryland Department of Welfare and serves in the Air Force Reserve, was off again. By Saturday, he had seized on the deaths at the hands of police officers of Eric Garner on Staten Island and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., focusing his rage against the authorities. In his short life, during which Mr. Brinsley failed to finish high school, to hold a steady job or, seemingly, to commit even the smallest crime without being caught, thoughts of revenge seemed to be the one thing giving him purpose.

“Most of his postings and rants are on the Instagram account, and what we're seeing from this right now is anger against the government,” Robert K. Boyce, the Police Department's chief of detectives, said at a news conference on Sunday. Chief Boyce added that one of those posts showed a burning flag, and in others Mr. Brinsley talked of the anger he felt toward the police. There were, Chief Boyce said, “other postings as well, of self-despair, of anger at himself and where his life is right now.”

No members of his family spoke of Mr. Brinsley with fondness. He bounced from family home to family home growing up, attending high school in New Jersey but reaching only the 10th grade. A sister in Atlanta, Nawaal Brinsley, said she had not seen him in two years. Another sister who had lived in the Bronx could not be reached, but the police said they had been called to a dispute with Mr. Brinsley at her home in 2011. Mr. Brinsley's mother, who lives in Brooklyn, told the police she feared her son and had not seen him in a month. She said “he had a very troubled childhood and was often violent,” Chief Boyce said.

Mr. Brinsley was so transient that the police did not have a solid address for him. That made tracing his movements difficult, even as his disintegration was there for anyone to see online. But his movements on Saturday had become clearer by Sunday, according to the police.

About 5:30 a.m. Saturday, Mr. Brinsley arrived at the apartment complex of Ms. Thompson, who lives in Owings Mills, Md., just northwest of Baltimore. The two had known each other for about a year. Mr. Brinsley entered Ms. Thompson's third-floor apartment using a key. Ms. Thompson called her mother, complaining about Mr. Brinsley's being there. Ms. Thompson's mother overheard the two arguing. Then the phone went dead.

A neighbor heard a woman scream, and a pop. “She was yelling, ‘You shot me, you shot me!' ” said the neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous. “I heard him run out the door. She was yelling for help, banging, yelling: ‘Help me, help me.' ”

The Baltimore police arrived about 5:50 a.m. Ms. Thompson then told Baltimore County police that Mr. Brinsley had shot her in the stomach and taken her cellphone, leaving his behind.

As Mr. Brinsley made his way to the Bolt Bus stop in Baltimore, he called Ms. Thompson's mother from her daughter's phone at about 6:05 a.m. He told her that he had shot her daughter by accident, and that he hoped that Ms. Thompson survived. (She remained hospitalized Sunday.)

By 6:30 a.m., the Baltimore County police started tracking Ms. Thompson's cellphone. It soon pinged, moving northbound on Interstate 95. Mr. Brinsley was on the bus to New York.

As the bus traveled north, Mr. Brinsley kept calling Ms. Thompson's mother, trying to find out Ms. Thompson's condition.

Meanwhile, the Baltimore police were tracking his progress. By 10:49 a.m., Mr. Brinsley had arrived in New York. The phone let out a signal near 43rd Street and Eighth Avenue. A video camera caught him get on the N train.

Once in Brooklyn, he used Ms. Thompson's phone to make posts to Instagram. One showed a leg of his camouflage pants and his greenish shoe, spattered in blood. The other showed his pistol. “I'm Putting Wings On Pigs Today They Take 1 Of Ours...... Let's Take 2 of Theirs #ShootThePolice,” he wrote.

At 12:07 p.m., Mr. Brinsley dropped the phone near the Barclays Center and disappeared.

The phone kept pinging, though, and the Baltimore County police contacted the police in Brooklyn. At 2:10 p.m., Baltimore County authorities reached the 70th Precinct, near where the signal had been detected, and said they had faxed over a wanted poster of Mr. Brinsley.

It was not clear if the fax was received. Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said on Saturday that it did not show up until about 2:45 p.m.

By then, time had run out. Mr. Brinsley was in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He stopped two men on a street corner. He asked them what gang they belonged to. He urged them to follow him on Instagram. Then he said they should watch what he did next.

That was when Mr. Brinsley walked past the patrol car where Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos sat, near Myrtle and Tompkins Avenues. Crossing the street, he approached the car from behind. He fired four shots, killing both men. He fled to a nearby subway station, where he shot himself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/nyregion/new-york-police-officers-killer-was-adrift-ill-and-vengeful.html?_r=0

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Florida

Florida suspect shot police officer then ran him over

by WTSP TV

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — A man trying to avoid arrest shot a Florida police officer and then ran him over early Sunday, killing the officer, police said.

The Tarpon Springs Police Department said officer Charles "Charlie K" Kondek was shot and killed Sunday while responding to a call regarding a noise complaint about 2 a.m.

Investigators say the suspect, identified as 23-year-old Marco Antonio Parilla Jr., was banging on doors in the community about 25 miles northwest of Tampa, looking for a neighbor who he said "dimed him out" to police.

When Parilla saw Kondek, he fired multiple rounds at the officer, striking him once above his bullet-proof vest.

The shooting did not appear to have any connection to the ambush-killings of two New York police officers a day earlier.

"We know we have the right guy in custody," Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said. "This guy knew what he was doing, he killed a cop and he needs to be held accountable for that."

Parilla was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder.

Police say Parilla and a woman arrived at a home on Grand Boulevard. While Parilla was banging on doors, a neighbor asked the woman, who remained in the car, to lower the music in the car. When she refused, the neighbor called 911 with a noise complaint. Detectives said the woman then began to back out of the driveway.

Kondek arrived and exited his vehicle. Detectives said Parilla walked toward him and opened fire. Kondek managed to return fire just before falling to the ground.

Parilla ordered the woman out of the vehicle, took the wheel and as he fled the scene, ran over Kondek. Parilla fled in the vehicle. Tarpon Springs Police engaged in a brief pursuit before Parilla crashed into a pole and then into a parked vehicle.

Parilla fled on foot and was apprehended short time later.

Kondek was taken to a hospital where he later died from his injuries.

According to the Florida Department of Corrections, Parilla served more than two years in prison for several offenses, including drug charges, and was released in March. He was listed as a fugitive for violating his probation. It wasn't immediately clear what the violation was.

The sheriff said Parilla told investigators that when he saw the officer he "felt like a caged rat" and didn't want to go back to prison.

"I apologize to the family" of the officer, Parilla told media outlets while being escorted to jail. "That was not my intention."

Kondek served the city of Tarpon Springs as a sworn law enforcement officer for 17 years, many of which were on the midnight shift. Originally from New York, he previously served for more than five years as a New York City police officer before moving to Florida.

In a statement released Sunday, Florida Gov. Rick Scott said, "We are saddened by the death of Officer Charles Kondek who was killed in the line of duty early this morning. Ann and I pray that God provides comfort to his loved ones and all those who have been affected by this terrible tragedy."

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio also released a statement Sunday. It read in part, "Earlier today my wife and I were saddened to hear of the killing of Tarpon Springs police officer Charles Kondek, just hours after the nation was shocked by the horrific murder of two NYPD officers. These killings are stark and somber reminders of the risks our men and women in law enforcement take each and every day to keep us and our families safe."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/21/police-shooting-florida/20723027/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

France

French driver reportedly heard yelling 'Allahu Akbar' slams pedestrians, injures 13

by Fox News

French authorities say that 13 people were injured Sunday when a driver deliberately slammed his car into crowds in several locations around the city of Dijon in eastern France, amid reports that the driver was heard shouting "God is great!" in Arabic.

Sky News reported that witnesses also heard the driver shouting that he was acting on behalf of "the children of Palestine" during the rampage, which lasted approximately 30 minutes. Two of the injuries were described as serious, though no further details were immediately available.

The Interior Ministry told the Associated Press that the driver in Sunday's car attack, a 40-year-old driving a Renault Clio, was known to police for minor offenses in the 1990s. Eric Delzant, a local police official, told Europe 1 radio the driver, who was detained, suffered from psychological problems.

French officials Monday cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the attacker or his motives. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that the investigation in Dijon was just beginning.

The government has stepped up security measures for police and other authorities.

The Sunday night rampage came a day after a knife attack on police in the town of Joue-les-Tours in central France that counter-terrorist police are investigating. In that incident, two police officers were seriously injured and the 20-year-old attacker was killed, according to the ministry. Anti-terrorism police are involved in the investigation, and Sky reported that police suspect the attack was motivated by radical Islam. Cazeneuve described the station attack as "very unstable" in an interview with television station TF1.

It was not immediately clear whether the two weekend incidents were connected.

The Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations have repeatedly called for attacks against France, notably because of the French military's participation in U.S.-led airstrikes in Iraq. Some extremists have specifically suggested that anyone angry at the French government could use weapons easily at hand — such as cars or knives — to stage "lone wolf" attacks.

In an indication of how seriously the government is taking the incident, Cazeneuve was to head to Dijon on Monday.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/12/22/in-tense-france-driver-rampages-in-lyon-area-slamming-into-passersby/

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Washington

The Other Torture Report: The Secret CIA Document That Could Unravel The Case For Torture

by Ali Watkins

As the public grapples with the gruesome realities put forth in the Senate Intelligence Committee's damning report on the CIA's torture program, the agency has dug in to defend itself. The CIA claims the torture tactics it used in the years following 9/11 were legal and saved American lives. And despite what the Senate study alleges, the agency insists it never lied about the torture program.

One internal CIA document, though, could be key to discrediting this defense. And at this very moment, it's tucked away in a Senate safe.

Over the past five years, this document, known colloquially as the Panetta Review, has made its way to the center of an unprecedented feud between the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA. Committee members, who have spent those years investigating the torture program the CIA ran between roughly 2002 and 2006, believe the Panetta Review reveals that there was doubt within the agency itself about the morality and effectiveness of torture.

While the CIA's official response to the Senate committee's allegations has been to deny many charges of wrongdoing, senators on the intelligence panel say that the still-classified Panetta Review contradicts that official line. In fact, lawmakers believe the document actually confirms some of the incriminating charges that the committee made in its report.

A meticulous condemnation of the agency's failings, the executive summary of the Senate document, released Dec. 9, accuses the CIA of using gruesome techniques like waterboarding, rectal feeding and sleep deprivation, all the while lying to authorities around Washington about the efficacy of these tactics.

Some senators say the Panetta Review concedes that the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” -- the spy agency's often-used euphemism for what is widely considered to be torture -- did not make detainees any more willing to talk, despite the CIA's public insistence that the program was successful.

Similarly, the document apparently admits that the agency lied about the program to Congress, the White House and the public -- another conclusion that aligns with the findings of the Senate report, and one that the CIA's official response vehemently denies.

As the debate over torture intensifies, the Panetta Review could dent the spies' credibility just as they're trying to salvage it.

The content of the document, though, is only one part of a sensational story, which involves a feud so explosive that months later, some lawmakers are still calling for CIA Director John Brennan's head.

It's unclear whether the Panetta Review will ever be made public, and much remains unknown about it. But new details are emerging that paint the clearest picture yet of the document, its significance and the timeline of events that led Senate staffers to pilfer it from right under the CIA's nose.

Outgoing Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who lost a tough re-election bid after a year of fighting fiercely with the agency over the Panetta Review, revealed previously unknown information this month in a farewell address on the Senate floor. Combined with other public statements, court documents and news reports, these details are helping to better shape the story, showing just how complicated the feud between the CIA and lawmakers has become.

'THE AGENCY'S VOICE MUST BE HEARD'

Soon after President Barack Obama took office in 2009, he outlawed the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. Shortly after that, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) announced that her committee would conduct a massive study on the CIA's purported use of torture.

The nation was still reeling from details that were trickling out from the darkest corners of the CIA's detention facilities into public view. Although the agency's torture program had been officially revealed in 2006 by then-President George W. Bush, new and disturbing information kept coming out, stoking the flames of the discussion and inspiring outrage at the apparent departure from American values. In late 2007, Americans learned that the CIA had destroyed certain interrogation videotapes. The public outcry -- along with concern within the legislative branch that the agency had evaded its oversight mechanisms -- inspired several congressional inquiries, including Feinstein's.

When the Senate Intelligence Committee began its investigation of the program in 2009, the CIA agreed to provide a massive trove of documents to the committee investigators. In an effort to catalog those documents, then-CIA Director Leon Panetta commissioned an internal review group tasked with summarizing the millions of records. The review group was made up of officers from the agency, including undercover National Clandestine Service officers, who would be responsible for reading and summarizing the documents before they were provided to the committee.

Their summaries would collectively come to be known as the Panetta Review.

According to Panetta's original statement as well as recently filed court documents, the collection of summaries was intended to eventually serve as a foundation for putting together official agency responses to the Senate report's final conclusions.

“The Panetta Review appears to have been created in response to Director Panetta's instructions to figure out what the records being provided to the [Senate Intelligence Committee] would reveal,” said a Senate source familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity given its extraordinary sensitivity.

Agency leadership, in Panetta's vision, could use the internal summaries and analysis as a basis for constructing and issuing an official CIA position on the Senate study.

At this time, the CIA itself was struggling to find a voice in the ongoing national conversation about torture. The new Obama administration had made very clear it would not continue to support the practices of the Bush-era CIA, and the agency was quickly starting to feel the heat from the Senate investigation, an inter-branch executive review of detention policies and a soon-to-be-commissioned Justice Department review. Coming up with official agency positions to defend against these probes, it seemed, was in the CIA's best interest.

“In each case, the Agency's voice must be heard,” Panetta wrote when first commissioning the review group.

In a series of letters exchanged in 2009 between then-CIA Director Leon Panetta and Feinstein, an agreement was reached. Feinstein's staff could have access to an unprecedented number of agency records -- but only, the CIA insisted, at an off-site facility operated by the spies.

The terms of the agreement were outlined in both a March 2014 floor speech from Feinstein and a February 2014 court filing from the agency, in which it denied a Freedom of Information Act request for the then-unreleased Senate torture study.

According to the agreement, Feinstein said, the agency would be required to provide a “stand-alone computer system” with a “network drive … segregated from CIA networks” on which Senate investigators could construct the study. That “walled-off” drive was only to be touched by the agency's IT personnel, and only for upkeep purposes.

Beginning in late 2009, millions of documents, cables and records were shoveled from the agency to the committee. In the process of sifting through these documents, two committee staffers who led the torture investigation -- Daniel Jones, 39, and Alissa Starzak, 41, who left the panel in 2011 and is currently nominated to serve as the Army's general counsel -- discovered a certain set of documents whose markings were unique.

The unique notations on these documents were recently revealed in a new court document that the CIA filed in response to a separate FOIA request to turn over the Panetta Review. (The agency denied the request). The top of the documents read:

This classified document was prepared by the CIA Director's Review Group for Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation (DRG-RDI) for DRG-RDI's internal discussion purposes and should not be used for any other purpose, nor may it be distributed without express permission from DRG-RDI or CIA's Office of General Counsel. This document contains [certain classified information]. This document also contains material protected by the attorney-client and attorney work-product privileges. Furthermore, this document constitutes deliberative work product, protected by the deliberative-process privilege, and is not a final, conclusive, complete, or comprehensive analysis of DRG-RDI or CIA. Rather, it was created to suit the needs of DRG-RDI, in support of informing senior Agency officials about broad policy issues. While every effort was made to ensure this document's accuracy, it may contain inadvertent errors. For this reason, and because this document selectively summarizes, draws inferences from, or omits information from the sources it cites, it should not be relied upon by persons outside DRG-RDI.

It's not clear how exactly the documents ended up in committee hands.

“One possibility is that the CIA placed those documents in the database accessible to the Committee, intentionally or unintentionally,” said the Senate source familiar with the matter. “Another possibility is that an individual CIA officer placed them in that database without authorization. A third possibility is that CIA built a system in which it appeared to them that the Panetta Review documents were unaccessible to the Committee, but were in fact accessible because either the database or the search tool did not work as intended. We don't know.”

The precise timing of this discovery is also unclear. Feinstein has said that some of the Review Group's summaries became available to Senate investigators at some point in 2010. But Udall, another member of the intelligence committee, said in his farewell speech that it's not clear when exactly the panel found the Panetta document.

It's not known what became of the document between the Senate investigators' initial discovery and 2013. Panetta's review group stopped compiling the summaries in mid-2010, apparently due to a parallel Justice Department inquiry into the torture program. With millions of documents already being cataloged and turned over, the extra paper trail was deemed unnecessary.

As far as the Senate is concerned, the committee's investigators were working on constructing the torture study. According to Feinstein's March 2014 floor statement, they had largely put the Panetta Review out of their minds during this time. But sometime in 2010, Feinstein says, the CIA began removing access to the “vast majority” of the summary documents that constituted the Panetta Review. It's unclear whether this was a deliberate effort by the agency to hide the internal review from the committee, a fix to a previous technological glitch or something else.

In any case, Senate committee staffers had somehow preserved their own copy of the Panetta Review, either by printing the document or transferring it to their side of the walled-off hard drive and saving it.

A DOCUMENT IS SLIPPED AWAY

Fast forward to December 2012. After three years of examining millions of cables, Feinstein's committee voted to consider the torture study “complete,” though certain writing adjustments continued to be made.

The day after approving its completion, Feinstein sent the 6,700-page report to the CIA for its review. The spy agency had 60 days -- until Feb. 15, 2013 -- to provide an official response.

As the agency began to compile a rebuttal to the Senate panel's incriminating report, its seventh floor executive offices were reshuffling. John O. Brennan, the Obama White House's counterterrorism advisor, had been nominated to run the CIA. He appeared before the Senate intelligence committee in a friendly confirmation hearing just one week before the CIA's response deadline. Pledging transparency and cooperation, Brennan promised Feinstein that the agency would take an honest look at her committee's study. He made clear, though, that he had little to do with the agency's formal response, whose construction had begun prior to his confirmation.

“I very much look forward to hearing from the CIA on that and then coming back to this committee and giving you my full and honest views,” Brennan said.

The niceties wouldn't last long.

In June 2013, not long after Brennan took the helm of the CIA, agency leadership provided the official response to the intelligence committee.

The CIA's response took serious issue with many of the torture study's damning conclusions, such as the allegations that the gruesome tactics yielded no valuable intelligence and that the spies had lied about the torture program to authorities on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

What had started off as a promising new chapter in Senate-CIA relations quickly turned sour: According to Udall, Brennan rescinded on his earlier promises to meet with panel staff about the torture study.

Following receipt of the official CIA response, Senate staff members began to recognize discrepancies between the official position and the analysis in the internal Panetta Review document -- which had been preserved in some form, but only at the off-site CIA facility used to construct the study.

It was at this time that committee staff realized the importance of the Panetta Review. Feinstein was also mindful of prior instances in which the agency had made important documents disappear. In an effort to preserve the document before anything could happen to it, staffers slipped a printed copy of the internal review from the secure agency facility back to Capitol Hill.

McClatchy Newspapers broke the news in March 2014 that Senate staff had taken the document. After Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. that the committee investigators may have “penetrated” a CIA firewall to find the Panetta Review, the panel's chairwoman took to the Senate floor to respond. Feinstein's March 2014 floor speech was her first public acknowledgement that her staff had removed the Panetta Review.

The circumstances surrounding the incident are unclear. It's not known when exactly the document was taken back to the Senate committee's secure office spaces, though it's certain that the removal occurred sometime after June 2013, according to later statements from both Feinstein and Udall. Similarly, it's also unclear whether Senate committee staff consulted with their bosses before taking the document, informed them immediately after the fact, or didn't let the senators -- including Feinstein -- in on the secret until much after the document had already been removed.

The committee also refuses to indicate which staffers slipped the printed Panetta Review out of the facility, or whether the document's removal was authorized by David Grannis, the committee's majority staff director.

Grannis declined to comment on the circumstances of the document's removal.

While it's not known whether or not members of the intelligence panel were aware that their staffers had taken the Panetta Review, senators soon began to raise questions about the mysterious document.

Feinstein later claimed that in “late 2013,” she wrote to the agency requesting a “final and complete version” of the Panetta Review. This was her first indication to the CIA that her committee had somehow learned of the internal review. (Similarly, Udall says he was made aware of the document in “late 2013.”)

While Feinstein was lobbying behind closed doors for a copy of the document, Udall helped shed public light on the effort.

At a December 2013 confirmation hearing for CIA general counsel nominee Caroline Krass, Udall noted that the committee had become aware of draft copies of the internal CIA document. He asked that his panel be provided with a final copy of the Panetta Review.

It's unclear whether either senator knew at this point that parts of the document were already in the committee's possession.

What is clear, though, is that the panel's majority Democrats held tightly to their knowledge about the Panetta Review.

Immediately following Udall's revelation in December 2013, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the intelligence committee's ranking member, was asked about the document.

“I'll be honest with you, that's the first I've heard about it,” said Chambliss to this reporter, then with McClatchy. “I don't know what he's talking about.”

In the months since the Panetta Review's existence was publicly revealed, the panel's Republicans have raised several concerns about the way the majority staffers handled the document. They say that the Democratic staffers should not have accessed the document, nor should they have removed it from the CIA facility. In addition, the minority members allege, staff members breached committee protocols even further by leaving the minority out of the loop when deciding how to handle the Panetta Review.

The Republicans on the committee mentioned the issue in a separate set of views that accompanied the release of the Senate torture report. Their response accuses the committee's majority staff members of mishandling the highly sensitive document.

“The Panetta Internal Review document that was brought back to Committee spaces was not handled in accordance with Committee protocols,” the Republican response says, noting that no member of the minority has handled or even read the Panetta Review. “It appears the existence, handling, and the majority's possession of this document was not disclosed for months.”

Regardless, though, the Democrats' revelations had set the stage for a bitter dispute between the committee and the CIA.

THE SPYING SCANDAL ERUPTS

The news that the Democrats knew about the Panetta Review sent the CIA into a frenzy over how the panel had managed to access or take parts of the document.

The agency rejected Feinstein's formal request for the document, informing her that it would not provide a copy of the Panetta Review to the panel. Then, after Udall publicly revealed the document's existence, the CIA commissioned a secret “security review” of the computer network on which the broader torture study had been constructed, according to Feinstein's March speech. This review, she said, included a “search” of the walled-off committee drive that was supposed to be off-limits to CIA employees.

Brennan requested an emergency meeting with Feinstein and Chambliss on Jan. 15, 2014, in which he informed them that this initial “search” had taken place. According to Feinstein, Brennan also informed the committee leadership that he intended to conduct a more thorough “forensic” investigation into the staff hard drive.

Two days later, an angry Feinstein wrote to the CIA, warning Brennan that the search raised major concerns over the constitutional balance of powers. She said she would not support any further action by the agency.

The Senate Intelligence Committee maintains to this day that the search of the walled-off hard drive violated prior agreements between Feinstein and then-Director Panetta. But Brennan and the agency say that Senate investigators breached the agreements as well, by slipping the Panetta Review back to committee headquarters.

The accusations didn't stop. Shortly after Feinstein sent her letter to Brennan, the CIA chief wrote back to her. His letter indicated that the CIA didn't believe that Senate staff had simply stumbled upon the Panetta Review. Instead, Brennan suggested, staff may have penetrated the walled-off agency hard drive and dug around restricted databases in order to find the document.

Feinstein insists that regardless of how the Panetta Review was accessed, the committee, as a legislative oversight mechanism, is entitled to the document. She also argues that the CIA has a history of making inconvenient documents vanish, and said her staff was concerned that something similar might happen with the Panetta Review.

After the exchange of letters in January, tensions between the CIA and the Senate committee exploded behind closed doors. According to news reports, the committee was furious that the CIA had sniffed around Senate computers, and suggested the agency had violated the Constitution.

Brennan and the CIA balked at Feinstein's allegation and staunchly denied that their security review had led to any such violation. The agency also lobbed its own accusations, saying that congressional investigators had nefariously dug into CIA hard drives to find the Panetta Review.

As the dispute continued to unfold, the CIA's general counsel sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department, alleging that Feinstein's investigators had improperly accessed the CIA's network drive and requesting an investigation. Meanwhile, the CIA Inspector General -- the agency's independent accountability office -- sent the Justice Department a competing referral, accusing the CIA of illicitly accessing the Senate committee's walled-off drive while conducting the security review.

The feud soon spilled into public view. Feinstein addressed the matter in her explosive floor speech in March 2014. “I have grave concerns that the CIA's search may well have violated the separation of powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution,” Feinstein said. “It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function.”

The Justice Department decided in July that it would not pursue investigations into either charge. But the battle continued.

In addition to sending a referral to the Justice Department, the CIA Inspector General opened its own investigation into the spying allegations early this year. That inquiry, which concluded in July, found that the spies had, in fact, improperly monitored the computers that the committee was using to construct the study. In an unclassified, one-page summary of the full report, the IG detailed how five CIA employees had accessed the Senate's off-limits network drive and had searched through certain emails of Senate investigators.

But Udall said in his farewell address that the CIA hedged on the IG investigation, refusing for a time to provide the panel with a full copy of the report. He said that under duress, the agency eventually agreed to issue a full, classified version of the IG report to the committee. But this wasn't enough.

“The longer, classified version was only provided briefly to members when it was first released, and I had to push hard to get the CIA to provide a copy to the Committee to keep in its own records,” Udall said. “Even the copy in Committee records is restricted to Committee members and only two staff members, not including my own.”

Still, the IG's conclusions were enough to force Brennan to issue a personal apology to Feinstein. The spy chief also commissioned an independent accountability review board to determine what, if any, punishment should be doled out to those responsible for the transgression. That effort is ongoing.

The IG also determined that there was insufficient evidence to support the agency's criminal referral against Senate staff -- specifically, the allegation that the staff had improperly accessed agency computers to obtain the Panetta Review.

Brennan has declined to provide the committee with further details of the IG's findings.

“For almost nine months, Director Brennan has flat-out refused to answer basic questions about the computer search – whether he suggested the search or approved it, and if not, who did,” Udall said in his farewell address. “He has refused to explain why the search was conducted, its legal basis, or whether he was even aware of the agreement between the Committee and the CIA laying out protections for the Committee's dedicated computer system.”

On the other side of the dispute, the Senate staffers who accessed the Panetta Review weren't off the hook yet.

As the CIA wrestled with its own computer breaches, the Senate sergeant-at-arms, the chamber's law enforcement office, was tasked with investigating how, exactly, the Senate investigators originally obtained the Panetta Review.

There was hope that the sergeant-at-arms investigation would put to rest the agency's accusations that Senate staffers had hacked into CIA computers. But the probe was completed without resolution. The sergeant-at-arms office said that it could not authenticate the agency computer records that would have shed light on the matter.

The CIA actually invited the Senate law enforcement office to agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to confirm the accuracy of the records in question. But the sergeant-at-arms declined to take the spies up on the offer for reasons that remain unclear, leaving one half of the storyline unresolved.

As the story swirls, at the center of it all is the still-secret Panetta Review.

NEW DETAILS ABOUT A CONTROVERSIAL DOCUMENT

Despite the tensions that the Panetta Review appears to have caused between the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee, neither side has disclosed much about what's actually in the document. Feinstein and her allies insist that the summaries back up the findings in the Senate report, while the CIA maintains the review was nothing more than a draft document. Beyond that, however, public information has remained elusive.

Now, though, recent court documents, along with Udall's new information, are allowing observers to piece together a more complete picture of what the Panetta Review consists of and what, exactly, Senate investigators found when they stumbled upon the document in 2010.

Although a CIA court filing indicated that the text at the top of the Panetta Review documents was unique, Feinstein says the markings were not significantly different from the millions of other documents that were provided to the committee, meaning her staff had no reason not to read the review.

“There is a claim in the press and elsewhere that the markings on these [Panetta Review] documents should have caused the staff to stop reading them and turn them over to the CIA. I reject that claim completely,” Feinstein said in her March floor statement, days after the feud became public.

Regardless of what markings the documents had, though, Feinstein said that Senate investigators were entitled to read them because of congressional oversight privileges.

“We have discussed this with the Senate Legal Counsel who has confirmed that Congress does not recognize these claims of privilege when it comes to documents provided to Congress for our oversight duties,” she said.

The Senate source familiar with the dispute says there's nothing to substantiate the CIA's claim that the markings should have raised red flags.

“A number of the “privileges” cited are made-up claims that are not recognized by the Senate,” said the source. “The fact that this particular language referred to ‘DRG-RDI' as opposed to another CIA entity does not seem particularly significant -- from the Senate's perspective this particular component of the CIA doesn't have any special powers to restrict the dissemination of information, beyond what anybody else in the CIA has.”

The CIA offered some initial hints about the Panetta Review in the court document it filed in response to the FOIA request for the document. The Panetta Review itself consists of “more than forty draft documents” relating to the torture program. (It's unclear, though exactly what portions of the document Feinstein's staff discovered and transported back to the committee's offices.) The agency has denied the FOIA request, in part because it says the document is a draft record and was never fully vetted. The court filing notes that the summaries analyze less than half of the more than six million documents provided to Senate investigators by the agency, and varied in format. A handful of the summaries were in a more “polished” form, while others, presumably the most recent ones, were only in the preliminary stages when the review was stopped in 2010 and consist only of rough interpretations. And the summaries, despite their initial purpose, were never reviewed by senior agency leadership.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's description isn't much clearer. The panel simply says that the Panetta Review, draft or otherwise, makes several of the same conclusions that the Senate itself drew in its own report on the torture program -- conclusions that the CIA refutes, at least publicly.

But in his farewell address on the Senate floor, Udall shed new light on what exactly the summaries say. He said that the Panetta Review acknowledges that the agency had, in fact, provided inaccurate information to lawmakers and administration officials, an allegation made in the Senate report. In contrast, the CIA's official response denies that it engaged in this cycle of misinformation.

Perhaps most importantly, Udall said the Panetta Review undercuts -- from within the agency -- the CIA's own staunchest defense of the torture program. The agency's official position is that enhanced interrogation techniques were effective and did produce valuable intelligence. But according to Udall's statement, the Panetta Review acknowledges that torture didn't yield the kind of valuable information the CIA claims it did.

“The Panetta Review further describes how detainees provided intelligence prior to the use of torture against them. It describes how the CIA –- contrary to its own representations -– often tortured detainees before trying any other approach. It describes how the CIA tortured detainees even when less coercive methods were yielding intelligence,” Udall said. “The Panetta Review further identifies cases in which the CIA used coercive techniques when it had no basis for determining whether a detainee had critical intelligence at all.”

“In other words,” Udall continued, “CIA personnel tortured detainees to confirm they didn't have intelligence -- not because they thought they did.”

WHAT'S NEXT FOR THE PANETTA REVIEW?

If Udall's characterizations are true, the Panetta Review could be key to unravelling the case made by defenders of torture.

Yet despite the sensational feud it inspired, the document played no role in the executive summary of the intelligence committee's torture report that was released last week. Feinstein has said her investigators didn't rely upon it when constructing their study.

And the Panetta Review itself, which Udall touted in his farewell address as the “smoking gun,” isn't likely to ever see the light of day.

Asked last week whether her committee had any intention to do anything with the document, Feinstein said no.

"It's classified," she said. "We know what the Panetta Review says, and it essentially backs up our findings. So I think the important thing is to get people to understand the report and understand the strength of the report.”

The Panetta Review isn't actually the Senate committee's to release, since it's a CIA document, although the panel still has its pilfered copy. And the CIA continues to fight the FOIA request to turn over the document. As the agency says in the FOIA suit, even finding the summaries required CIA staff to dig through the office that contains all of its draft records.

Brennan reiterated in a recent press conference that the Panetta Review was a draft, internal document, and therefore should never have found its way into Senate hands. Additionally, he made clear that his agency was not interested in providing the public with any more information.

“I think there's more than enough transparency that has happened over the last couple days,” Brennan said. “I think it's over the top.”

The feud, meanwhile, has continued to fester unresolved. The CIA's accountability review is ongoing, and agency leadership has continued to hedge on questions about the computer search. And since the Senate sergeant-at-arms investigation ended inconclusively, the public will likely never know how exactly staff came to discover the Panetta Review in the first place.

The document itself remains locked away in that Senate safe. The Senate committee continues to believe its importance is monumental, while the agency says it's nothing more than draft opinions from a handful of agency personnel.

With no clear resolution -- and, apparently, no intention on either side to release the document -- the public may be the ultimate loser.

“There's reason to be pessimistic about our ability as a society to deliberate over these issues,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, a program dedicated to government transparency. “No amount of gruesome detail seems to change the minds of those who, like Dick Cheney, would ‘do it again in a second.' And so I think the most discouraging thing to me is the inability of people to rethink their positions. And it may be that nothing will change that.”

But Aftergood added, “If we don't reach a consensus position on what to do about this, then the issue will just fester, and it'll recede from the headlines but it will continue to have negative consequences.”

Could the Panetta Review help reach that consensus?

A year after the feud erupted, we still don't know. The Senate believes that releasing the document would help the country reckon with its dark history of torture. But the agency insists that isn't true.

The American people aren't likely to find out anytime soon.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/22/panetta-review-cia_n_6334728.html

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California

Isla Vista Report Recommends Uniform Community Policing Practices, Restorative Court

To strengthen shared civic responsibilities among stakeholders, UC Santa Barbara trustee committee emphasizes success of policing, justice court, task force

by Gina Potthoff

In the minutes and hours after last spring's murderous rampage in Isla Vista, law enforcement agencies scrambled to respond to the unincorporated Santa Barbara County area adjacent to the UC Santa Barbara campus.

Coordinated confusion was how UCSB senior Ali Guthy described the aftermath.

Blue uniform-clad UCSB police officers, Isla Vista Foot Patrol officers in green and sheriff's deputies in tan swarmed the area, doing their jobs yet illustrating a potential problem outlined in a recent report by the UCSB Foundation Trustee's Advisory Committee on Isla Vista Strategies.

The independent report recommended making resources and community policing training more uniform, an interesting idea for an area with so many possible first responders.

“They all look the same to us,” said Guthy, the UCSB Associated Students president who served on the trustee committee that began meeting in May. “Are they being trained the same? Isla Vista is a very unique place. That's a specialized interaction.

“It's just getting everyone in sync. The question is always whose job is it? The people who ultimately suffer are the people in the community.”

Establishing an Isla Vista neighborhood restorative justice court, hiring a dedicated deputy district attorney and creating a joint safety task force made up of representatives from local law enforcement, students and local residents were among the other two dozen report recommendations to improve viability and safety in Isla Vista.

The committee also hoped authorities could better compile crime data — a major frustration in developing the report, said Dan Burnham, retired CEO of Raytheon and a member of the panel.

He said statistics back community policing models as a way for officers to work closely with the community they serve, whether that means meeting regularly with residents and business owners or finding ways to unify training and resources to better communicate when it matters most.

“Not simply to fight crime but to be aware of the factors that create crime, and to do that you have to be plugged into the community,” Burnham explained. “The cars look different. The bikes look different. Is that good or isn't it good? The solution to I.V. is not more policing.”

UCSB police and the Sheriff's Department already cross-train to some extent, and have the same state-mandated education, but officials from both agencies believe more could be done.

Acting Undersheriff Don Patterson said the department will consider asking the county Board of Supervisors in June for funds to hire the first-ever community resource deputy exclusively serving Isla Vista, similar to the beat coordinator positions used by Santa Barbara police.

“Over the years, the population and the calls for service have increased, but the staffing levels have not,” sheriff's spokeswoman Kelley Hoover said. “Now deputies are busy handling calls and it would be beneficial to have a deputy who is designated to handle community outreach services.”

UCSB police already embrace a community policing model — regularly meeting with students and residents — but Sgt. Rob Romero said the department is open to more joint, formalized training.

The model's main challenge lies with a transient population. As a result, officers are continuously teaching students before more rotate in and out of campus and Isla Vista.

“A lot of these young people are out (on their own) for the very first time in their lives,” Romero said. “This is a growing-up age for a lot of them, and we understand, and we don't want to ruin their good time. We don't want to be the party poopers out there. It needs to be a combined effort from law enforcement and the community.

“Everyone can do better. We're not the experts at everything. It's the responsibility of the officers to do their best to explain why we do what we do.”

Community policing first came up in a separate joint task force called IV Safe, led by District Attorney Joyce Dudley.

That's also where Dudley debuted her Isla Vista community restorative court idea.

A veteran district attorney would work from an Isla Vista office to prosecute all local cases, and a paralegal would decide whether offenses could instead go to a restorative court made up of community member volunteers.

“When you live and work in the community, you understand it better,” Dudley said of the dedicated prosecutor. “Most district attorneys haven't even been to Isla Vista. You have a higher level of vestment in that community.”

Instead of being prosecuted and building a criminal record, a young person charged with minor offenses such as vandalism, public urination, drunk in public, minor battery or other crimes deemed an affront to the community could be sentenced by restorative court to clean up the beach, etc.

“This gives back to the community,” Dudley told Noozhawk. “What we have found is that when people do that ... the community feels better, and the person who committed the crime feels better because they actually improved the community.”

Ideally, Dudley said a joint effort from the county, UCSB and Santa Barbara City College would fund the salary and benefits of the new prosecutor, paralegal and one office staff person at $500,000 annually.

She would want at least a two-year commitment, so she needs $1 million to be safe.

All the entities like the proactive idea, but so far no one has stepped up with money, Dudley said.

“Isla Vista would not be Isla Vista without UCSB and SBCC,” she said. “In my world it seems like a win-win.

“It would be so sad if nothing came out of this report. It's frustrating for me because I feel like I have one of the answers.”

http://www.noozhawk.com/article/ucsb_report_isla_vista_community_policing_restorative_court_20141221