February 20, 2012
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Oakland "100 Blocks" Plan To "Hack" At Roots of Crime Woes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Oakland Mayor Jean Quan has offered the first details of a "100 Blocks" anticrime plan to focus city resources on the 100 most deadly blocks - areas where 90 percent of the city's homicides and shootings occur, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Most are clustered around public housing. Some residents are skeptical. Many say they haven't seen any changes and didn't even know that their neighborhoods had been identified by city officials. The plan calls for virtually every local government agency - including the Police Department, libraries, Parks Department, Public Works Department, public housing and the school district - to focus resources on the 100 blocks. The rationale is that most of the city's crime is somehow linked to those areas. If those neighborhoods can improve, then crime throughout the city will fall. "We don't want to displace crime, so it just moves elsewhere. We want to hack it at its roots," said Oakland police Sgt. Chris Bolton, chief of staff for Police Chief Howard Jordan. That means job fairs, cleaning graffiti and other blight, a free summer camp for kids, extra police officers on patrol, enhanced efforts to track parolees, more block parties and other efforts. Similar tactics have reduced crime in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, said Reygan Harmon, Quan's public safety policy adviser
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Drug Enforcement Administration Cases Hit 11-Year Low
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Federal criminal prosecutions referred by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have dropped to the lowest level in 11 years, say Justice Department data reported by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. In November 2011, the most recent month for which data are available, 968 such prosecutions were filed, down 21 percent from the previous month's total of 1,219. It was the third straight month that DEA prosecutions have fallen; they had averaged 1,337 per month during federal fiscal year 2011.
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NYPD Has Monitored Muslim Students Throughout the Northeast
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The New York Police Department's intelligence division focused far beyond New York City as part of a surveillance program targeting Muslims, reports the Associated Press. Police trawled daily through student websites run by Muslim student groups at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers, and 13 other colleges in the Northeast. They talked with local authorities about professors in Buffalo and sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip, where he recorded students' names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed. Asked about the monitoring, police spokesman Paul Browne provided a list of 12 people arrested or convicted on terrorism charges in the U.S. States and abroad who had once been members of Muslim student associations. "I see a violation of civil rights here," said Tanweer Haq, chaplain of the Muslim Student Association at Syracuse University. "Nobody wants to be on the list of the FBI or the NYPD or whatever. Muslim students want to have their own lives, their own privacy and enjoy the same freedoms and opportunities that everybody else has." AP has reported on secret programs the NYPD built with help from the CIA to monitor Muslims at the places where they eat, shop, and worship.
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Outed AZ Sheriff Quits Romney Campaign, Continues Congress Run
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Known only as "Jose," a Mexican immigrant outed Pinal County, Az., Sheriff Paul Babeu, an immigration-hawk congressional candidate who rose to conservative stardom after a cameo appearance in John McCain's "Dang Fence" campaign ad. In an explosive story published in the Phoenix New Times, relates Newsweek/The Daily Beat, Jose claims that Babeu's lawyer threatened him with deportation if he spilled the beans about their alleged love affair. Babeu called a press conference on Saturday during which he announced, "I'm gay." He admitted having a "personal relationship" with Jose but said "at no time" did he or anyone who worked for him threaten Jose with deportation. Babeu, 43, a Mitt Romney supporter, said he chose to step down as a co-cochairman of Romney's campaign. Babeu said the Republican Party had a big tent and he would continue campaigning for an Arizona congressional seat.
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D.C. Boosts Homicide Clearance Rate by Including Previous Years
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Washington, D.C., Police Chief Cathy Lanier touts the city's astronomically high homicide closure rate - 94 percent for 2011 - but the Washington Post calls the figure "a statistical mishmash." D.C. had 108 homicides last year; a 94 percent closure rate would mean that detectives solved 102. But only 62 were solved as of year's end, for a true closure rate of 57 percent. Police achieved the high closure rate last year by including about 40 cases from other years that were closed in 2011. The cases date from 1989, records show. The pattern was first reported by the Web site homicidewatchdc.org. Lanier said the department followed FBI Uniform Crime Reporting guidelines. But James Trainum, a longtime D.C. homicide detective, said, "They're fostering the false perception that they've accomplished something when actually what they're doing is fudging their numbers." David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said it is "very confusing" to combine homicides from more than one year.
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Police Anonymous Tip Line Helps Drive Down D.C. Crime
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Why is crime way down in Washington, D.C., in the last two decades? There are many reasons, but one of them, Police Chief Cathy Lanier tells Jeffrey Goldberg, writing for Bloomberg View, was that police have tried hard to convince residents of high-crime neighborhoods that law enforcement isn't the enemhy. Says Lanier: "We put beat people on the streets, handing out business cards with their cell numbers, BlackBerry numbers, and told them to call if they needed anything. After a shooting people don't want to talk to an officer on the street, but they will call." This, Lanier said, brought the police closer to their goal of quickly inserting themselves into the retaliatory cycle that begins after each homicide. As many as 60 percent of last year's murders, she says, were committed in retaliation for earlier killings. Homicide detectives are making arrests much faster these days, thanks to better street-level intelligence. In 2007, the average D.C. homicide investigation was closed in 52 days; by 2011 that number had been halved. Many of the arrests grow out of an anonymous tip line Lanier established. "In 2008, we got 292 tips," she said. "By 2011 we were at over 1,200, and you would not believe the detailed tips we get. People are trusting us now much more."
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TN Woman Faces Homicide Charges For Letting Drunk Friend Drive
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Tennessee woman who had been out drinking one night gave her car keys to her boyfriend, thinking he was sober enough to drive. The night turned tragic when her boyfriend struck and killed two young men about their same age om Nashville, then drove her car across a median and hit a taxicab head-on, The Tennessean reports. Erin Brown's boyfriend was charged with vehicular homicide and assault. She had been in the passenger seat. But in a rare use of the law, prosecutors are charging Brown with the same crimes. She faces as many as three decades in prison. Police and prosecutors says Brown, 21, violated a state law that makes it unlawful for the owner of a vehicle to direct, require or knowingly permit the operation of a vehicle in any manner contrary to the law. Allowing someone to drive your car when you know they are drunk, prosecutors say, makes you criminally responsible for their actions. The vehicular homicide charge, a felony, against Brown is the first of its kind in Nashville. The unprecedented nature of the case has caught the attention of defense attorneys, who say their clients are often unaware they could be criminally responsible for someone else driving their car.
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Breyer Robbery Points To Lack of Supreme Court Justice Security
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed in his Caribbean vacation home 10 days ago, the crime was unremarkable except for one fact: a machete-wielding intruder was able to walk right into the residence of one of the highest members of the U.S. government, says the New York Times. In an era when many top officials are blanketed in security, the Supreme Court justices are exceptions. According to longtime observers and Congressional budget requests, security arrangements vary depending on a justice's location. In the capital, the justices are protected mainly by the court's own small force, said spokeswoman Kathy Arberg. When the justices leave Washington, the United States Marshals Service takes over, and local police departments help, too. Protection may be relatively light because justices have worked to preserve their freedom of movement, and the Supreme Court has a lucky history - its members have not met with serious violence.
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Arrest in Capitol Bombing Plot Illustrates Lone-Wolf Terror Threat
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The arrest of a 29-year-old Moroccan living illegally in the U.S. has focused attention again on the danger posed by "lone-wolf" terrorists, CNN reports. Amine El Khalifi has been charged with plotting to bomb the U.S. Capitol and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against federal property. He is alleged to have worked with others he believed to be al Qaeda operatives, who provided him with a suicide vest and conducted a demonstration of explosives in a quarry in West Virginia. Such cases are among the worst nightmares of counterterrorism officials: individuals acting alone, untraceable through any contacts with other terror suspects, capable of teaching themselves how to launch a terror attack. President Barack Obama has said that a lone-wolf attack was "the most likely scenario that we have to guard against right now." He pointed to Anders Breivik, who went on a bombing and shooting rampage in July in Norway, killing 77. No evidence has been uncovered linking Breivik to other conspirators. In the past two and a half years, 11 of the 17 Islamist terrorist plots on U.S. soil involved individuals with no ties to terrorist organizations or other co-conspirators.
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Wilmington, De., With Stubborn Crime Woes, Tries High Point Strategy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wilmington, De., with the nation's third-highest violent crime rate among similarly sized cities in 2009 and 2010, will try the successful anticrime strategy used in High Point, N.C., Police Chief Michael Szczerba tells the Wilmington News-Journal. High Point has used the "focused deterrence" strategy to eliminate five violent drug markets, cut gang crime, and reduce robberies. It plans to target chronic domestic-violence offenders this month. David Kennedy, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor whose work underpins the strategy, says it has to be viewed as a fundamental way of doing police work, not a special project. "When it becomes a program or a grant-funded project or somebody's pet, it gets swamped by business as usual," he says. "It is a tough switch to make, but lots of people have made it, so it's far from impossible."
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10 Million Doses of PCP Worth $100 Million Seized in L.A.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About $100 million worth of PCP was seized this week in the Los Angeles area in what authorities described as a major bust of a national drug-trafficking organization, the Los Angeles Times reports. Officials found huge amounts of PCP - totaling roughly 10 million individual doses, which in the Los Angeles area sell for between $10 and $20 each - at several locations. They recovered nearly $400,000 in cash. Authorities believe the trafficking organization included at least 10 individuals and that it was distributing to Texas, New York and Washington, D.C., and other U.S. cities. "They were shipping and moving and dealing a huge amount of product," said Lt. Scott Fairfield of the Los Angeles Interagency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Crime Task Force, known as L.A. IMPACT. "It's the largest PCP seizure I've ever heard of." Two suspects were arrested at a UPS store where they were allegedly trying to ship narcotics. One is believed associated with a street gang named Bounty Hunter Bloods.
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KY Sheriff Finds 5-Year Fugitive Couple Via Facebook
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ They were on the run for a half decade, but two Clay County, Ky., fugitives were caught in Texas, thanks in part to Facebook, reports WKYT-TV in Hazard, Ky. Clay County sheriff's officials did some digital detective work to find two fugitives who had been on the run for a long time. Jerry Lee Callahan, 44 and his wife, Rebecca, 40, were on the run for five years. Officials tracked them down using social networking and found out they had even applied for a driver's license in the lone star state. The two were arrested in 2007. Between the two of them, they faced a combination of 20 counts of rape, sexual abuse, sodomy and incest. Someone who knew them chatted with them online, which enabled officials to locate them in Victoria county Texas. "They had been talking to them on Facebook, back and forth and we obtained some IP addresses," said Clay County Sheriff Kevin Johnson. "Even if you are on the run you are going to stay in contact with friends and family which in the future it is going to be a tool that law enforcement will use and has used and will be continuing to use."
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