Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Brand New $656 Million NYPD Academy Catches Fire (The Gothamist) and Other Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 NYC Police Related News Articles

 

Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 — Good Morning, Stay Safe

 

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2 Alarm Fire at New (Under Construction) College Point Police Academy

 

Brand New $656 Million NYPD Academy Catches Fire

By Lauren Evans — Tuesday, April 16th, 2013; 4:05 p.m. ‘The Gothamist’ / New York, NY

 

 

The brand-new, still-under-construction $656 million police academy in College Point, Queens, suffered a bit of a setback today after a fire sparked in the 10-story site's second floor.

 

Fire fighters were called to the scene at 1:42 p.m., an FDNY spokesperson told us. The blaze required 25 units and 106 members to quell, and the flames were extinguished completely by 2:21 p.m. No injuries were reported, and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

 

According to the Queens Courier, the project was slated for completion in December 2013, with the 30-acre site expected to train thousands of police recruits using such amenities as "a mock-up small city with banks, stores, apartments and streetscapes for simulated scenario-based training."

 

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Fire Details Courtesy of Ken Fisher   (Retired FDNY)

 

QUEENS - 2ND ALARM FIRE - 22-4875 @ 128-10 28 AVE @ LINDEN BLVD. - N/ OF WHITESTONE EXPWY.  FIRE IN THE NEW POLICE ACADEMY WHICH IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION. FIRE IS ON A 2ND FLOOR SET BACK  OF A 13 STORY 350 X 150. REPORT OF HEAVY FIRE CONDITION. BATT 52 HAS ONE LINE BEING STRETCHED &  TOWER LADDERS BEING SET UP. THIS SEEMS TO BE AN EXTERIOR FIRE

 

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Blaze breaks out in College Pt. Police Academy

By Joe Anuta — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The Queens Times-Ledger’ / Queens

 

 

Flames from a two-alarm fire melted portions of the College Point Police Academy’s facade Tuesday afternoon, forcing construction crews off the partially completed job.

 

The fire broke out on the second floor around 1:30 p.m., according to the FDNY, and was under control in a little more than an hour.

 

“We had a challenge out there. We had a significant fire outside the building that was extending inside. Once it got inside, we would have had a catastrophic amount of damage,” said Queens Commander and Deputy Assistant Battalion Chief Robert Maynes.

 

The first units on the scene knew they had to keep the fire from spreading inside, according to Maynes, and immediately began putting water on the flames after hooking up 1,050 feet of hose from a nearby hydrant.

 

“The fire folks did a great job,” he said. “They kept the fire from getting in there, they actually reduced the amount of smoke.”

 

Damage to the roughly $650 million building was minimal, he said, although glass and other material that constitute the outer facade appeared to be completely melted away, exposing the inside of the building, and scorched in several places.

 

The first phase of the 10-story facility is set to be open in December, and according to an NYPD spokesman, Tuesday’s fire will not affect that time line.

 

A police source at the scene said the flames broke out while construction crews were working on what appeared to be a setback or a terrace when some construction materials caught fire, though no one was injured. They may have been tarring the second-story roof, the source said, but fire officials said the cause of the blaze was under investigation by fire marshals.

 

Turner Construction Co., the company working on the job, deferred all questions to the city Department of Design and Construction, which could not be reached for comment.

 

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Extra-Alarm Fire Breaks Out At Unfinished NYPD Academy In Queens

By Unnamed Author(s) (CBS News - New York)  —  Tuesday, April 16th, 2013; 7:12 p.m. EDT

 

 

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — An extra-alarm fire broke out Tuesday afternoon at the new NYPD academy under construction in Queens.

The facility is in College Point, Queens, located on a piece of land bounded by College Point Boulevard, Ulmer Street, 28th Avenue, and 31st Avenue, the FDNY told 1010 WINS.

 

The fire was raised to two alarms at 1:45 p.m., and was brought under control about an hour later.

 

Four firefighters suffered minor injuries in the blaze, and were taken to New York Hospital Queens Booth Memorial, the FDNY said.

The cause of the fire was under investigation Tuesday evening.

The $656 million, 700,000 square-foot academy is expected to be completed in July of next year, according to published reports.

 

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108 Precinct P.O. Rosette Samuel Tragic Suicide

 

Brooklyn murder-suicide: NYPD cop killed her baby to relieve 'burden,' police source says
Officer Rosette Samuel killed little Dylan and her boyfriend before taking her own life. A ripped-up suicide note investigators retrieved from a toilet offers a bizarre reason for the baby's slaying.

By Vera Chinese , Tom Tracy AND Ginger Adams Otis — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’

 

 

An NYPD cop on a murderous rampage killed her baby so he wouldn’t “be a burden on him,” a police source said.

A ripped-up suicide note investigators retrieved from a toilet in Officer Rosette Samuel’s Brooklyn apartment offers that bizarre reason for the year-old boy’s slaying.

Before blowing Dylan Samuel Peters away with a shot to his little chest, the 43-year-old Samuel shot her boyfriend, Dason Peters, dead. Her 19-year-old son from a previous relationship, Dondre Samuel, jumped out of a window and called cops.

In her suicide note, the cop source said, Samuel asked that someone care for her teenage son.

Her motive for killing her 33-year-old boyfriend in her E. 56th St. home in Brooklyn could be as old as time.

“There may have been an issue of another woman,” the source said.

On Tuesday, Dason Peters’ mother said she can’t come to terms with the “evil” double murder and suicide that destroyed her family.

 

“My child never said anything,” a distraught Rosemund Peters told the Daily News at her East Flatbush home, a block away from where Dason and Dylan Peters died in the Monday morning carnage.

Rosemund Peters, a nurse practitioner at SUNY Downstate, said her family barely knew their son’s girlfriend, who had 13 years on the job with the NYPD.

“What she did was evil,” Rosemund said.

She called her son a generous soul, and her only grandson a loving and playful tot.

“He was a sweet child. He wouldn’t cry in church. I would call him Dilly Dill and he would wink at me,” said the grieving grandmother.

Samuel fatally shot Peters about 8:20 a.m. Monday, cops said. The mortally wounded man fell face down in the hallway, covered in blood. Samuel then trained a 9-mm. Glock on the couple’s young son and shot him in the chest. She was found in her bed, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot, with her lifeless baby on her left and her gun near her right side.

No matter what was going on between the two adults, said Rosemund Peters, little Dylan would never have been cast aside.

 

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Trip sparked cop’s slays

By ELIZABETH HAGEN — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

The NYPD cop who shot dead her boyfriend, their 1-year-old son and herself was furious about his plans to travel to Guyana to buy land, police sources and family said.

 

“The government gives away land. He was going to look and see if he could get a piece of land,” said victim Dason Peters’ dad, Colburn Peters, 57.

 

Dason Peters had his bags packed when he was killed by Rosette Samuel, 43, at about 8:30 a.m. Monday.

 

The bags are still in his bedroom.

 

The elder Peters said Samuel, 43, remained a stranger to him and his wife although Samuel would drop off their grandson, Dylan, every day at their home in Flatlands, Brooklyn.

 

“We had no contact. If she has to go to work, she leaves the kid here. She comes back from work, she picks up the kid. That’s all our interaction,” Dylan’s grandfather said.

 

The horrific killings came three months after Samuel, who was assigned to the 108th Precinct in Queens, was docked 20 vacation days for failing to show up for traffic court.

 

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NYPD Counterterrorism     (New York City)

 

Officials Highlight Challenge of Protecting New York From Attacks

By WENDY RUDERMAN — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

NOTE:  See Homeland Security Section of the newsletter below. - Mike

 

As hundreds of thousands of commuters, debarking from a conveyor belt of trains and buses, flowed into New York City on Tuesday morning, they were greeted by a painfully familiar sight:

 

Sentries of uniformed officers with assault weapons strapped to their chests. Bomb-sniffing dogs. And baggage checkpoints outside subway entrances.

 

Such is life, post-Sept. 11, in a city that has learned to take no chances — a lesson only underscored by the bomb attack on Monday in Boston.

 

“The fact is, there remain people who want to attack us,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a news conference at City Hall on Tuesday afternoon. “As a country, we may not be able to thwart every attack; we saw that yesterday. But we must continue to do everything we possibly can to try.”

 

Yet even as the mayor and the police commissioner outlined the steps being taken to protect the city, the challenges of safeguarding a global destination like New York were made clear in the attacks in Boston.

 

The police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation can harden particular buildings, making it more difficult for a terrorist to be able to plant a car bomb nearby. But the Boston Marathon bombings represented a worst possible case realized: a major urban event, like the New Year’s Eve ball drop or the Thanksgiving Day Parade, where amorphous crowds converge in the streets.

 

The New York City police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, who also appeared at the news conference, noted the reality that plugging every security hole during grand-scale events, like the New York City Marathon, would be almost impossible.

 

“You always have to constantly re-evaluate, but there are certain events that are going to be open, just by their very nature,” Mr. Kelly said. “The marathon is 26 miles long so, you know, there are points of vulnerability by definition, there are going to be.”

 

Less than an hour after the Boston explosions, New York City leaders increased the police presence around many landmarks like Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building as well as storied hotels and houses of worship, Mr. Kelly said.

 

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, speaking at a news conference in Albany on Tuesday, said he had directed state agencies, including the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services and the New York State Police, to be on heightened alert.

 

“There are no specific threats against New York City,” Mr. Kelly said. “But in the aftermath of the horrific day that Boston experienced, we prepared as if yesterday was a prelude to an attack here in New York, and that indeed has been our S.O.P., our standard operating procedure, since 9/11.”

 

Mr. Kelly said that he dispatched two sergeants to Boston on Monday evening so they could glean “granular information” about how the bombings were carried out and employ that knowledge to thwart a similar attack here. “Obviously we want to know why it was done and how it was done,” he said.

 

Both the commissioner and mayor urged New Yorkers to remain vigilant, keeping an eye out for suspicious behavior or packages. Within the last 24 hours, the police received 77 reports of a suspicious package, compared with 21 reports during a similar period a year ago, Mr. Kelly said.

 

None turned up any explosive devices; the Central Terminal building at La Guardia Airport was largely evacuated for about 45 minutes as emergency personnel investigated a suspicious device.

 

“It turned out to be part of a light fixture that had wires on it,” a Port Authority spokesman, Ron Marsico, said.

 

The fear of a copycat attack in New York was understandable, especially given the demands that a city like New York presents.

 

“Every weekend there is something, some event here,” Edward Mullins, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said. “The volume of events is tremendous, and the exposure then becomes greater simply because the volume is greater.”

 

He noted the difficulty in securing every garbage can, manhole cover or parked car. And even with the Police Department’s additional baggage checkpoints at subway entrances, there are never enough, he said.

 

“If we set up a check area on 42nd and 8th Avenue, somebody can still get on the subway at 14th Street and 3rd Avenue,” he said. “Just because you are searching me in one place doesn’t mean you can’t go through the backdoor and get into the subway someplace else.”

 

Thomas Kaplan contributed reporting.

 

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The following are Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly’s remarks as delivered:

(Edited from NYC Website: “News from the Blue Room”)

 

 

“Thank you, Mr. Mayor. There are no specific threats against New York City. But in the aftermath of the horrific day that Boston experienced, we prepared as if yesterday was a prelude to an attack here in New York, and that indeed has been our SOP, our standard operating procedure, since 9/11.

 

“We reevaluate our deployments, we added resources where we thought they were necessary. We’ve been doing that since the attacks in London and in Madrid. We use both our intelligence analysis capability and just common sense.

 

“Yesterday we redeployed our critical resources, our CRVs as we call them, to hotels for the most part. We also patrolled houses of worship. We will continue to do that.

 

“And significant infrastructure locations in the city, iconic potential targets – Rockefeller Center, Empire State Building, locations such as that. As the Mayor mentioned, we have increased our coverage in the subways. We have the second largest transit system in the world, five million people a day travel that system. We’re doing bag searches in the system and we have increased that somewhat.

 

“We ask the public to be vigilant, particularly as far as packages are concerned. And in doing that, and after yesterday’s events, we anticipated that it would be an increase in reports of suspicious packages and indeed there was. We’ve had in the last 24-hour period 77 such reports. In a 24-hour period similar to this a year ago, we had 21 suspicious packages.

 

“So we prepared for that, we increased our emergency service officers on patrol, and we increased our bomb squad resources. In fact, the bomb squad responded to two jobs, two events yesterday. Neither of them were crank calls.

 

“The public was doing what we asked them to do, if you see something suspicious to give us a call – see something, say something, and that’s precisely what we wanted. We are certainly engaged in the information flow with the FBI through our Joint Terrorism Task Force. We have two New York City police officers, police sergeants, who are in the Boston Regional Intelligence Center. They’re up there, they’ve been up there since last evening. We have an excellent working relationship with the Boston Police Department. They are members of our operation sentry. We are going to maintain the posture that we have now at least for the immediate short-term.

 

“There are two major events, or runs, this weekend. There is the 5K run/walk to the memorial, 9/11 memorial on Sunday. Plus there is a four mile race in Central Park, Support the Parks or a title similar to that. And we are certainly evaluating, or reevaluating them, in light of the event that took place yesterday.

 

“We are vigilant, but we are vigilant for a good cause. If you look at just what happened here in New York City in the last few months, we have Ahmed Ferhani who was convicted of plotting to blow up synagogues, we had Mohammad Nafis who pled guilty to his plan to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank, we had the two Qazi brothers who were arrested in Miami for scouting out iconic targets here in New York City. And just yesterday we had Mohamed Alessa and Carlos Almonte plead guilty, or be sentenced I should say, to 20 years in prison based on the outstanding work on the part of a New York City undercover police officer. They were found guilty for material support. So we are going to continue to do everything we have been doing to make certain that the city remains as safe as possible. Thank you. Mr. Mayor.”

 

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NYPD Sent Two Sergeants To Boston To Obtain ‘Information’

By Hunter Walker — Tuesday, April 16th, 2013 ‘TPM Livewire.Com’

 

 

New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the NYPD has sent two officers to Boston in the wake of the bombings at the marathon Monday.

"We have two New York City police sergeants who are in the Boston regional intelligence center," Kelly said at a press conference alongside Mayor Michael Bloomberg Tuesday afternoon. "They've been up there since last evening. We have an excellent working relationship with the Boston Police Department. They're members of our Operation Sentry."

Kelly said the NYPD officers are in Boston are "engaging with investigators" to relay information back to law enforcement officials in New York City because of the risk of terrorism in the five boroughs.

"We want as much information as we can get as quickly as we can get it," Kelly explained. "We get very granular information quickly. We believe and the intelligence community believes that we're the number one target."

Kelly made clear there is currently "no specific threats against New York City."

 

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NYPD Going All Out To Prevent Terror Attacks

By Tony Aiello  (WCBS 2 News - New York)  —  Tuesday, April 16th, 2013;

 

 

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — NYPD officers have been exercising vigilance on land, sea and air, as the city works to detect and prevent terror attacks like the one in

 

As CBS 2’s Tony Aiello reported, authorities have worked to secure the city by investing in technology to stop bombs like the ones that left three people dead and . The “ring of steel” includes a network of 3,000 cameras that watches streets, sidewalks, and subways, and a computer program analyzes objects and reports them as suspicious.

 

“Instead of watching a camera, the camera will alert and give us an alert on something suspicious happening in the field,” said NYPD Counterterrorism Bureau Inspector Sal DiPace.

On Tenth Avenue Tuesday, a report of a suspicious package brought a new kind of explosives detection dog to the scene. The NYPD now has “vapor wake dogs,” trained to detect molecules of explosives trailing behind someone.

Not long ago, CBS 2’s Aiello tested the vapor wake dog’s ability to detect a black-powder belt hidden under his clothes. He hung in a crowd by the famous bull on Broadway in the Financial District to see what the dog could do.

 

The dog immediately followed her nose right to Aiello, straining at her leash before sitting down to signal her handler to call for appropriate backup.

For more sophisticated bomb threats, New York City has radiation detectors deployed on land, in the air, and on the water – all to detect components of a radioactive dirty bomb.

“The idea is if they’re trying to sneak something in – they want to get it in, get it unloaded, and get it to the target,” NYPD Counterterrorism Bureau Inspector Michael Riggio explained.

The NYPD Scuba Team is also in the water every day, checking bridges and other waterfront landmarks for bombs, and using sonar that can penetrate the murky waters for a clear view of any threats.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the Boston Marathon bombings are a “sobering reminder” why New York City has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on security.

But he added, an aware and involved citizenry is the best prevention, so as the saying goes, if you see something, say something.

 

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Severe case of NYC jitters: 77 suspicious packages in wake of Boston

By JAMIE SCHRAM, KIRSTAN CONLEY and GEORGETT ROBERTS — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

La Guardia Airport was partially evacuated, a Long Island school emptied and cops went scrambling on more than three times the average number of suspicious-package calls amid high anxiety here yesterday.

 

Jittery New York City residents called in about 77 suspicious packages in the 24-hour period immediately after Monday’s terror attack in Boston, compared to about 21 such calls in an average day, officials said.

 

There were 32 reports of suspicious packages alone between 7 a.m. and noon yesterday.

 

“You know, people are just nervous,” one law-enforcement source told The Post at Avenue H and East 16th Street in Midwood, Brooklyn, where cops were called for a report of a suspicious package that turned out to be an empty school binder.

 

Another source added, “It’s not an overreaction, people are just concerned.”

 

A section of La Guardia was evacuated at about 10:30 a.m. after someone in the food court called 911, concerned over wires protruding from a fluorescent light fixture, authorities said.

 

Port Authority authorities allowed people back in the area about 45 minutes later.

 

Passengers also were yanked off a jet at the airport after two bottles in luggage got through security undetected, sources said. They were later cleared.

 

The Unqua Elementary School in Massapequa, LI, was evacuated for more than three hours after someone called in a bomb threat. No bomb was found.

 

In Manhattan, firefighters and cops evacuated an 11-story commercial building at 85 Tenth Ave. in Chelsea after a small white container similar to a pizza box was found on the side of the building.

 

“You can’t be too careful,” said a male resident who left the building along with dozens of other people for about 40 minutes.

 

“The last thing you want to do is question this stuff,” he said. “Just follow instructions and get out.”

 

The box turned out to be empty, witnesses said.

 

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said that despite the alarms, “there are no specific threats against New York City.

 

“But in the aftermath of the horrific day that Boston experienced, we prepared as if yesterday was a prelude to an attack here in New York.”

 

The NYPD has stepped up security at strategic places throughout the city, including Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, hotels and places of worship.

 

Police have also increased bag searches in the subway system.

 

“In this post-9/11 world, we have to be concerned,” Kelly said.

 

A law-enforcement source added that the NYPD is “tracking down a lot of [reports about suspicious packages and threats], but so far none have been credible.”

 

One of the threats was aimed at the Australian Consulate General, warning workers to not go to work tomorrow, sources said.

 

“In this environment, we just feel prudent to pass things on as they come to our attention,” said Darren Sharp, the acting Australian consulate general in New York.

 

Kelly said city officials are “reevaluating” two major racing events planned in New York this weekend: a 5K run to the Sept. 11, 2011, memorial and a four-mile race in Central Park.

 

Mayor Bloomberg said the New York Marathon is expected to go on as usual in November.

 

“As a country, we may not be able to thwart every attack — we saw that yesterday,” he said.

 

“But we must continue to do everything we possibly can to try.”

 

Added Kelly in terms of marathon security, “There’s only so much you can do.’’

 

Additional reporting by Rebecca Harshbarger and Yasmine Phillips, with Post Wire Services

 

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Police Presence To Remain High In NYC As Boston Bombing Investigation Continues

By Bobby Cuza — Tuesday, April 16th, 2013; 6:51 p.m. ‘NY 1 News’ / New York, NY

 

 

City officials say there is no specific threat to New York, but you wouldn't know it from their response to the attack in Boston.

 

"In the aftermath of the horrific day that Boston experienced, we prepared as if yesterday was a prelude to an attack here in New York," said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

 

The result was stepped-up patrols at hotels, in iconic locations like Times Square and at critical infrastructure like the subways. The New York City Police Department also sent two sergeants to Boston to gather intelligence.

 

While the message Tuesday was to go about business as usual, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg making a public point of riding the subway, there was also a plea for vigilance, which police said had to led to 77 reports of suspicious packages in 24 hours.

 

"We don't need these kinds of reminders," Bloomberg said. "It would be easier if we just did pay attention. But if yesterday doesn't refresh your memory, I don't know what would."

 

One response of the city was a symbolic one: flying the flag of the city of Boston at City Hall. It's being flown at half-staff, as are all flags at government buildings.

 

Officials at all levels of government echoed the message.

 

"New Yorkers have a special sensitivity for victims of random violence," said Governor Andrew Cuomo. "And again, the victims and their families are in our thoughts and prayers."

 

The NYPD, already enormously invested in counter-terrorism, said it would also pay close attention to two races being held this weekend, including a 5K run/walk to support the September 11th Memorial, not to mention the New York City Marathon, held later this year.

 

'We're certainly going to re-evaluate it," Kelly said. "We're going to re-evaluate security for every event. But we do that consistently."

 

Residents can expect the increased security to stay, at least until more details are learned about the Boston attack.

 

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Long Island

Nassau cops: 2 merged precincts see crime spike

By MATTHEW CHAYES — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013  ‘New York Newsday’ / Melville, L.I.

 

 

Major crime has spiked this year in two of the three Nassau County police precincts that merged last year under a controversial cost-cutting plan, according to the latest crime reports.

 

From Jan. 1 to April 1 of this year compared to that period in 2012, major crime went up 18.91 percent at Nassau's northwest precinct, the former Third and Sixth precincts; and 10.93 percent at the southwest precinct, the former Fourth and Fifth. Major crime is down by 14.92 percent at the northeast precinct, the former Second and Eighth. Countywide, major crime is up 1.24 percent.

 

The southwest precinct merged in September of last year, the northeast in May and the northwest in June. In addition, from the time the northwest was created until March 2013, major crime increased 8.51 percent over the same period in 2011-12.

 

The plan -- intended to save $20 million for a county whose finances are in state receivership -- was to cut in half the number of precincts and reduce the department's supervisor head count. Earlier this month, the last of the mergers -- to create a southeast precinct by moving the First Precinct into the Seventh -- was postponed indefinitely, and may never happen as planned, officials have said.

 

Nassau police say the first-quarter spikes are misleading because county crime is at such low levels -- historically and compared to other similarly sized municipalities -- that even just a handful of incidents can drive a percentage increase.

 

"It doesn't take a lot to spike our numbers," the department's first deputy commissioner, Thomas C. Krumpter, said Friday. "Two guys do 26 robberies and that spikes the robberies."

 

The countywide 1.24 percent increase, for example, represents just 21 more crime reports -- 1,697 in 2012 versus 1,718 in 2013 -- while the northwest precinct's increase represents 87 more crimes, the southwest precinct 47 more incidents and the northeast precinct's decrease 57 fewer.

 

He added: "There are ups and downs in crime stats over the course of the year."

 

But James Carver, president of the rank-and-file officer union, the Nassau Police Benevolent Association, said the major crime spikes have "validated" the union's concerns, voiced before the merger was approved, that the plan would increase crime.

 

"Now what you've done is, you've doubled the workload and you've cut the oversight in half," Carver said Friday. "Something's got to give at some point, and obviously the consolidations -- at least two of these consolidations -- are not working."

 

Krumpter, citing the county's low crime rate, counters that the number of calls to which officers are dispatched has fallen about 25 percent over the past decade.

 

Krumpter noted that total countywide crime reports -- which include major crime and minor ones such as criminal mischief -- are down 7.36 percent for the first quarter, or 552 incidents.

 

Criminologists consider major crime -- a category incorporating offenses such as murder, rape, robbery, burglary, vehicle theft and grand larceny -- to be a barometer of a department's crime-fighting prowess, and the FBI uses a nearly identical metric to track crime rates, said Eugene O'Donnell, a former NYPD cop who's now a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

 

"They're the crimes the FBI collects and publishes and they form the grounds for enforcement and resources and public perception," O'Donnell said.

 

A sampling of individual crime categories in the now-consolidated precincts shows mixed results over the first quarter. Burglaries are up 46.99 percent, or 39 incidents, but robberies are down 15.56 percent, or 7 incidents, in the northwest precinct. In the southwest precinct, burglaries are up 25 percent, or 27 incidents, and robberies are up 38.64 percent, or 17 incidents. And in the northeast precinct, burglaries are down 28.93 percent, or 35 incidents, while robberies are up 33.33 percent, or 6 incidents.

 

The three closed precincts -- the Fifth, in Elmont; the Sixth, in Manhasset; and the Eighth, in Levittown -- have been reopened as lesser-staffed police outposts. But each of the sectors into which the county is divided -- about 180 -- retains a dedicated patrol vehicle within it.

 

The county legislature approved the merger plan, in March 2012, along party lines. During the vote, opponents packed the legislative chamber, in Mineola, arguing that the plan jeopardizes public safety.

 

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Southampton Police Department's Disbanded Street Crime Unit Drug Scandal

 

Convictions dismissed in 2 Southampton cases

By MARK HARRINGTON — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013  ‘New York Newsday’ / Melville, L.I.

 

 

Convictions against two more men who were arrested by the Southampton Police Department's disbanded Street Crime Unit were dismissed in recent weeks, according to a lawyer for one of them and another person familiar with the case.

 

Charges against Christopher Rionero and Romaine Hopkins, arrested on separate drug-related charges by the town police's drug unit in 2010, were dismissed in state court after a review by Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota.

 

The dismissals bring to seven the number of cases set aside by judges as a result of Spota's review. The district attorney last spring announced the first cases in which convicted drug dealers were released because of charges an arresting officer had been addicted to prescription drugs at the time. Mohammed Proctor and Bernard Cooks, arrested in separate incidents by the Street Crime Unit, were released in the interest of justice, Spota said then, saying he was "duty-bound under the law."

 

The dismissals follow revelations that decorated Street Crime Unit police Officer Eric Sickles had been addicted to prescription drugs from 2010 to 2011 before being suspended in 2012, tainting the convictions resulting from his arrests. Sickles was reinstated after drug treatment.

 

Newsday last month reported that three other men charged in a crack-house raid in 2011 also had their charges dismissed. Kwame Opoku, Nathaniel Cooper and Karron Whidbee had been charged with drug offenses. Cooks was arrested during the same raid. The district attorney's office declined to comment on those cases.

 

Rionero, of Islip, had been arrested on July 4, 2010, charged with selling cocaine to an undercover officer at a Southampton nightclub. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year in jail, court records show.

 

Laurence Silverman, an attorney for Rionero, confirmed that his client's charges were dismissed a few weeks ago. Prosecutors, he said, never explained why. Rionero is in an upstate prison on separate charges, he said, and must decide whether to sue the police department and the town.

 

Hopkins, 30, of Riverside, was arrested in a car stop in May 2010, media reports said. He was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance, and had a prior warrant, police said then. Hopkins, represented by a public defender, was not in court when his conviction was overturned. He could not be reached.

 

An attorney familiar with the case said defense counsel appeared in the case "and it was dismissed without the defendant present," with no reason given, the source said.

 

Southampton police Chief Robert Pearce didn't return a call. A Spota spokesman declined to comment. Jeltje DeJong, an outside attorney for Southampton, has said town police officers "acted in accordance with the law."

 

With Sandra Peddie and Adam Playford

 

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U.S.A.

 

New NRA web ad: listen to police, not Obama

By Kevin Bohn and Kevin Liptak (CNN News)  —  Wednesday, April 17th, 2013; 8:05 a.m. EDT

 

 

(CNN) – On the day the Senate begins votes on new gun control measures, the National Rifle Association said they were launching web ad casting President Barack Obama's proposals as detached from the reality faced by America's law enforcement officers.

The 30-second spot, which the NRA says it will spend $500,000 to place on websites like the Drudge Report, the Washington Post, and Hulu, uses polls of police officers showing little support for increasing background checks and banning assault weapons.

"President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg are pushing gun control. But America's police say they're wrong," a narrator says in the ad. "Seventy-one percent of the police say Obama's gun ban will have zero effect on violent crime. Eighty percent of police say more background checks will have no effect. Ninety-one percent say the right answer is swift prosecution and mandatory sentencing. Tell your senator to listen to America's police instead of listening to Obama and Bloomberg."

The poll cited in the spot comes from PoliceOne, an online news site for police officers. The site states "More than 15,000 officers completed the survey, which was promoted by PoliceOne exclusively to its 400,000 registered members, comprised of verified law enforcement professionals."

Earlier this year, an NRA ad drew sharp criticism for referencing the president's children. Attacking Obama as an "elitist hypocrite," the commercial asked why he opposes the idea of placing armed guards in every school-a proposal pushed by the NRA-yet his own children attend a school with similar security.

Pro-gun control groups have also been airing their stance on in television ads. The organization backed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg went up with a spot last week in seven states and Washington, D.C., urging viewers to call lawmakers to convince them to vote for a measure expanding background checks on gun sales.

That effort – which was the product of a bipartisan deal in the Senate last week – goes up for a vote Wednesday, along with a number of other gun control amendments.

 

Like the NRA spot, the ad from Mayors Against Illegal Guns used polling to drive home its point; namely, national surveys showing 9-in-10 Americans support strengthening background checks.

"Some Democrats and Republicans are coming together to support comprehensive background checks on gun sales. That will protect the Second Amendment and help keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals," the ad says.

The senators targeted in the spots from Bloomberg's group were Republicans Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson of Georgia; Dan Coats of Indiana; Dean Heller of Nevada; Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire; and Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee.

Two Democratic senators were also included – Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.

 

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Background Check Battle: More Prosecution Or More Checks?

By Ailsa Chang — Tuesday, April 16th, 2013; 4:12 p.m. ‘NPR News’ / Washington, DC

 

 

One argument that some gun rights groups make against expanding background checks is that the federal government isn't doing a good enough job now of enforcing the law already on the books.

 

They point out that only a tiny fraction of people caught trying to buy a gun illegally are ever prosecuted.

 

But gun control supporters say that argument totally misses the point of background checks.

 

Take this example: Imagine you're 16 years old, and you want to buy a six-pack of beer. So you get a fake ID, walk into a liquor store and, lo and behold, the sharp cashier on duty throws your fake ID back in your face and says, "Nice try, kid."

 

If he doesn't call the cops on you and you don't get prosecuted, did the law work? Some people would argue, "Yeah, because you didn't get your beer." That's what Mark Jones, a former agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, says.

 

"Same with background checks," he says. "When someone goes into a gun store and lies on a federal form, the proprietor tells them, 'You didn't pass. Leave my store.' A preventative effect has been achieved because the guy didn't get the gun."

 

So even if the gun buyer isn't prosecuted later, Jones says the background check has still done its job.

 

Federal data show that in 2010, people lied on federal forms and failed background checks more than 76,000 times. Only 44 of those people were prosecuted, because law enforcement officials say it's a low-priority crime. Proving that someone intended to lie on a federal form is often difficult, they say, and sentences are usually light.

 

That's appalling to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. He says the government needs to focus on getting more prosecutions going, not on expanding background checks. "And I intend to introduce legislation to increase the resources and direct the Department of Justice to start doing its job — to start prosecuting felons and fugitives who are trying to illegally purchase guns," he says.

 

But if Cruz gets his way, 40 percent of gun sales will continue not to require a background check. These are sales that don't involve federally licensed dealers.

 

Gun control supporters say arguing for prosecution instead of expansion of background checks is a weird argument to make for someone who otherwise seems focused on enforcing the law.

 

"It would be like prohibiting the use of radar ... by law enforcement to enforce speeding," says David Chipman, also a retired ATF agent. He's now a consultant for the gun control lobby Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

 

"The background check is enforcing the law on the book, which is: If you're a certain person — a felon, a domestic abuser, a drug user — you cannot possess a firearm," he says. "To me, a background check is enforcing that law."

 

Chipman says he finds it ironic that the same people who spent years trying to get laws passed to limit his agency's power to investigate gun crimes are now hollering for enforcement. For example, gun lobbies worked to make sure ATF agents couldn't make more than one unannounced inspection per year of licensed gun dealers. And records of background checks have to be destroyed within 24 hours after a gun buyer is approved — which hampers investigations.

 

Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, says if aspects of the gun lobby want more prosecutions, they can have that — but it's not a good argument against having more background checks, too.

 

"It's kind of like the NRA's argument about armed guards in schools. I actually think it would be great to have armed guards in a lot more schools, and we'd have some more protection," Winkler says. "But there's no reason why we can't have that and expanded background checks."

 

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Seeking Gun or Selling One, Web Is a Land of Few Rules

By MICHAEL LUO, MIKE McINTIRE and GRIFF PALMER — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

The want ads posted by the anonymous buyer on Armslist.com, a sprawling free classified ads Web site for guns, telegraphed urgency.

 

Feb. 20: “Got 250 cash for a good handgun something.reliable.”

 

Feb. 27: “I got 200 250 cashlooking for a good handgun please let me know what u got.”

 

Feb. 28: “Looking to buy some 9 mm ammo and not at a crazy price.”

 

The intentions and background of the prospective buyer were hidden, as is customary on such sites. The person posting these ads, however, left a phone number, enabling The New York Times to trace them to their source: Omar Roman-Martinez, 29, of Colorado Springs, who has a pair of felony convictions for burglary and another for motor vehicle theft, as well as a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction — all of which bar him from having guns. Yet he was so determined he even offered to trade a tablet computer or a vintage Pepsi machine for firearms.

 

When questioned in a telephone interview, Mr. Roman-Martinez said he ultimately decided not to buy a weapon. He also insisted that a 9-millimeter handgun he posted for sale on the Web site last month belonged to someone else.

 

“I’m a felon,” he said. “I can’t possess firearms.”

 

The mere fact that Mr. Roman-Martinez was seeking to buy and sell guns on Armslist underscores why extending background checks to the growing world of online sales has become a centerpiece of new gun legislation being taken up in the Senate this week. With no requirements for background  checks on most private transactions, a Times examination found, Armslist and similar sites function as unregulated bazaars, where the essential anonymity of the Internet allows unlicensed sellers to advertise scores of weapons and people legally barred from gun ownership to buy them.

 

The bipartisan Senate compromise under consideration would require that background checks be conducted through federally licensed dealers on all Internet and gun show sales. Gun control advocates argue that such checks might have prevented shootings like that of Zina Haughton, 42, who was killed in October with two other women by her husband, Radcliffe, even though a restraining order barred him from having guns. Mr. Haughton simply contacted a private seller on Armslist and handed over $500 in a McDonald’s parking lot for a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol and three magazines.

 

Seeking a glimpse into the largely hidden online gun market, The Times assembled a database and analyzed several months of ads from Armslist, which has become the dominant player in the arena, and examined numerous smaller sites.

 

Over the past three months, The Times identified more than 170,000 gun ads on Armslist. Some were for the same guns, making it difficult to calculate just how many guns were actually for sale. Even so, with more than 20,000 ads posted every week, the number is probably in the tens of thousands.

 

Notably, 94 percent of the ads were posted by “private parties,” who, unlike licensed dealers, are not required to conduct background checks.

 

Besides Mr. Roman-Martinez, the Times investigation led to Gerard Toolin, 46, of Walterboro, S.C., who is a fugitive from the Rhode Island police and has two outstanding felony warrants as well as a misdemeanor warrant. His legal status bars him from owning guns, but he was recently seeking to buy an AK-47 assault rifle on Armslist and was also trying to trade a Marlin rifle. He posted photos to his Facebook account of an AK-47 he had already purchased, along with a variety of other guns.

 

There was also Martin Fee, who has a domestic battery conviction in Florida and other arrests and convictions in Florida and New Jersey, including for drug possession, burglary and larceny. He was selling a Chinese SKS rifle on the classified section of another Web site, BudsGunShop.com.

 

The examination of Armslist raised questions about whether many sellers are essentially functioning as unlicensed firearms dealers, in contravention of federal law. The law says that people who “engage in the business” of selling firearms need to obtain a license and conduct background checks on customers. While the definition of engaging in business is vague, The Times found that more than two dozen people had posted more than 20 different guns for sale in a several-month span.

 

Among them was Joshua Lovejoy, 32, who since November has advertised more than 100 guns on Armslist, mostly in Canton, Ohio, ranging from AR-15 assault rifles to Glock 19 semiautomatic pistols. He once listed more than 20 guns in a single ad. He insisted in a telephone interview, however, that he had sold only a few.

 

Then there was Ron Metz, 49, who has advertised more than 80 guns from Anderson, S.C., since February. Mr. Metz said in an interview he had needed money, so he started selling some guns and trading for others. He also bought other guns, which he turned around and sold as well. He said he had no real idea how many he had sold, guessing that it was more than a dozen. He never keeps any records and does not do any background checks, explaining: “I can just sort of read people.”

 

“You think I broke a law?” he asked.

 

 

‘A Gun Show That Never Ends’

Armslist was the brainchild of Jonathan Gibbon and Brian Mancini, friends who attended the United States Air Force Academy and then transferred to the University of Pittsburgh.

 

Mr. Gibbon, who did not respond to requests for comment, said in a 2010 interview with Human Events, a conservative Web site, that he got the idea for Armslist during the summer of 2007 when he saw that the classifieds Web site Craigslist.com had decided to ban gun-related ads “because a few users cried out for it.” Mr. Gibbon, who went on to law school at the University of Oklahoma, where he founded the Second Amendment Club, said he had been inspired to “create a place for law-abiding gun owners to buy and sell online without all of the hassles of auctions and shipping.”

 

Mr. Mancini, who designed the site, recently left the company. Mr. Gibbon remains the site’s owner, while also practicing law in Pennsylvania, according to his profile on LinkedIn. Armslist LLC, registered with the Oklahoma secretary of state, lists an office suite in Pittsburgh as its business address.

 

When asked by Human Events to describe the site, Mr. Gibbon said: “Imagine a gun show that never ends.”

 

Gun shows have long been a source of concern for gun control advocates and law enforcement officials, because many allow unregulated sales without background checks. Web sites make such transactions far more widely available, with just a few clicks of a mouse.

 

A 2011 undercover investigation by the City of New York examined private party gun sellers on a range of Web sites, including Armslist, to see if they would sell guns to someone who said that they probably could not pass a background check. (Federal law bars sales to any person the seller has reason to believe is prohibited from purchasing firearms). Investigators found seventy-seven of 125 online sellers agreed to sell the weapons anyway.

 

Armslist posts a disclaimer on its home page, urging users to “comply with local, state, federal, and international law.” But it also makes clear that the site “does not become involved in transactions between parties.”

 

What the site does do is make it simple for anyone seeking to buy a gun without a background check, enabling users to filter gun ads in their state by ones being sold by private parties.

 

Federal law places one significant restriction on transactions among private parties, barring people from directly selling guns to people in other states who are not licensed firearms dealers. Licensed dealers must act as intermediaries in transactions across state lines and perform background checks. But an examination of ads on the Web site shows that illegal interstate transactions can occur.

 

An ad for a “new in box” Ruger rifle posted on April 1 in Indianapolis stated that if the buyer was out of state, the seller would ship to the buyer’s “front door,” “person to private person.”

 

A seller on another ad, posted April 2, in Brighton, Colo., vented about repeated no-shows in his previous attempts to sell the gun, so he made clear, “No more out of state.”

 

Many ads simply require the transactions occur “face to face.” Some even provide assurances: “no questions asked” and “no paperwork.”

 

The loose online atmosphere was evident in the case of an Arizona gun dealer, Walter Young, who pleaded guilty last week to a federal gun charge stemming from an investigation into his sale of a .50-caliber rifle, dozens of gun kits and thousands of rounds of ammunition to an anonymous buyer who contacted him on Gunbroker.com.

 

Mr. Young — a Tea Party activist who posted a YouTube video in February suggesting he was being persecuted for criticizing the government — told federal agents he shipped everything to an address in Texas near the Mexican border, without even knowing the identity of the recipient, according to court records. After initially lying to investigators, he admitted looking the other way in his online dealings, records show.

 

“Young stated there was a general ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy in the gun world when it came to wanting to know why a person was purchasing a particular item, and for that reason he did not question people he sold items to,” federal prosecutors said in a court filing.

 

 

Other cases have had deadly consequences.

 

In 2011, Dmitry Smirnov, a Canadian resident, contacted Benedict Ladera, from Kent, Wash., via Armslist, expressing interest in a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber pistol that Mr. Ladera had posted for sale.

 

Mr. Ladera, who had sold about 20 guns on Armslist over the previous year, agreed to meet at a casino but increased the price of the handgun to $600, from $400, because he was from out of state, according to court records. After buying the gun, Mr. Smirnov drove to Chicago, where he stalked Jitka Vesel, a woman he had briefly dated a few years earlier, and on April 13, 2011, shot and killed her. Mr. Smirnov turned himself into authorities and was later sentenced to life in prison.

 

Federal authorities also arrested Mr. Ladera, who pleaded guilty to making an illegal transfer of a firearm to a nonstate resident and was sentenced to one year in prison. Last year, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Armslist on behalf of Ms. Vesel’s family.

 

In the case of Radcliffe Haughton, the Wisconsin man who killed his wife, the person who sold him the gun on Armslist told federal investigators that he had checked Mr. Haughton’s driver’s license to make sure he was a Wisconsin resident. He also said he asked Mr. Haughton if he was prohibited from having firearms, but he indicated he was not.

 

Despite these cases, it appears that prosecutions of people who illegally buy and sell guns on the Internet are relatively unusual. A review of nearly 100 court cases in which federal authorities seized guns over the last year found that in very few instances were Internet transactions the focus of the investigations.

 

 

Anonymity Is the Rule

Identifying the people who buy and sell guns on these online forums is impossible in most cases because the sites protect the anonymity of their users.

 

On Armslist, potential buyers can contact sellers directly through the Web site, without making their contact information public. In some cases where people included phone numbers in their ads, The Times tried to trace them — a task made more difficult because most were unlisted cellphones — and determine if the people had criminal records or other firearms prohibitions.

 

Many numbers led nowhere. Among the ones that were traceable, most people examined had clean records, or had only misdemeanor convictions that did not disqualify them from having weapons. In some cases that raised questions, it was impossible to conclusively verify identities. But several people emerged who clearly should not be buying or selling guns.

 

Omar Roman-Martinez spent a little more than a year in prison, getting out in 2010, after pleading guilty to second-degree burglary for breaking into a car with some friends, taking a key and an address, and then going to the person’s house, where they made off with jewelry, a safe and electronics. He had prior felony convictions for burglarizing an auto-parts store and for stealing a car from a car dealership, and a misdemeanor assault conviction for biting and repeatedly using a telephone receiver to hit the woman he was living with, according to court and police records.

 

Mr. Roman-Martinez initially posted general inquiries on Armslist, looking to buy a handgun for cash and then ammunition. He also tried to sell a Jimenez Arms 9-millimeter handgun. In mid-March, he offered to trade a tablet computer that “has the works” for a handgun or pistol grip shotgun. Later, he posted an ad offering a “working condition 1970s pepsi machine” for “nice firearms or one nice one.”

 

He explained in the ad: “These machines are very wanted and most dont work mine does shot me an offer.”

 

When queried, Mr. Roman-Martinez initially acknowledged the ads but tried to sidestep, saying that he never acquired a gun and that the one he was trying to sell was not his. By the end of the conversation, however, he denied he had anything to do with the ads.

 

“I’ve heard of Armslist,” he said. “Of course, everybody has. I don’t have anything posted on there.”

 

The conversation unfolded similarly with Gerard Toolin, the man with outstanding felony warrants from Rhode Island who is now living in South Carolina. The charges against Mr. Toolin, which date to 2002, relate to allegations he defrauded people through his heating and cooling business. He skipped out on court appearances and fled the state, records show.

 

He posted an ad on Armslist on April 9, in which he wrote, “I am looking to buy A ak-47.” Initially unaware of who was calling, Mr. Toolin eagerly explained to a reporter that he already had one and was looking to acquire a second.

 

After the reporter identified himself and asked about his warrants, Mr. Toolin said, “Who says I’m buying a weapon for myself?”

 

But Mr. Toolin had also posted several ads in March, seeking to trade a Marlin 336SC rifle for a 12-gauge tactical shotgun — a combat-style weapon. Pictures posted on Mr. Toolin’s Facebook page, in which he “likes” Armslist’s Facebook page, made clear that he possessed an array of weapons. He posted a picture of an AK-47 in mid-March, saying: “I would like everyone to welcome the newest member of my family ... I adopted her yesterday.” Another photo posted in late November showed him loaded down with weapons, including an assault rifle and several pistols strapped to his body. He captioned the snapshot: “I don’t think I have enough maybe one or two more.”

 

When asked about the photographs, Mr. Toolin said: “You sure they’re real guns? How do you know they’re not reproductions?”

 

Minutes after the conversation, he took his Facebook account offline.

 

The Times also found Martin Fee, of Vero Beach, Fla., while examining a listing for a Chinese SKS rifle on Budsgunshop.com. In the ad, Mr. Fee said he would not sell to anyone living in New York, New Jersey or “the People’s Republic of California.” A Twitter account belonging to “Marty Fee” of Vero Beach is filled with vitriolic postings about President Obama and liberals, including one that says the president and attorney general “should be chained n shot.”

 

Mr. Fee, 45, has an arrest record dating back decades, and it is difficult to verify which charges resulted in convictions. But a domestic battery conviction from 1999, resulting from a dispute between Mr. Fee and his then-wife that turned physical, appeared to disqualify him from possessing firearms.

 

Reached by phone last week, Mr. Fee said he had sold the gun and had it shipped to a licensed dealer. When a reporter asked him how he could own a gun with his domestic violence conviction, he backpedaled, insisting that the SKS rifle was not actually his, and that he “posted it up there for a friend of mine.”

 

“I never saw the weapon, I never touched the weapon,” he said, declining to identify the friend. He then ended the call. Shortly thereafter, his ad disappeared from the Web site.

 

 

When Is a ‘Seller’ a ‘Dealer’?

Under current law, the question of when a background check must occur depends on who is selling the gun. Federal regulations require licensed dealers to perform checks, but the legal definition of who must be licensed is blurry. Regulations define a dealer as a “person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit.” People engaged in only “occasional sales” for their personal collections, or for a hobby, are exempted.

 

But precisely how many guns it takes for the “occasional” seller to become a dealer is not specified.

 

The design of the Armslist site makes it difficult to tie together all of the ads of individual sellers in order to identify the most active. Again, a phone number makes the task easier. Using phone numbers, as well as computer analysis, The Times connected all the ads for some sellers, including Mr. Lovejoy, who has advertised scores of guns for sale on Armslist over the last few months. One ad in January listed more than 20 guns, including several AR-15 assault rifles and an array of AMD-65s, a Hungarian variant of the AK-47.

 

In a telephone interview, Mr. Lovejoy, who is a paramedic and is studying to become a nurse, described his buying and selling of guns on Armslist and other sites as a “hobby.”

 

“A lot of times when I get rid of something that I have, I don’t make a penny on it,” he said.

 

Mr. Lovejoy said he always made sure to look at buyers’ driver’s licenses to check that they were Ohio residents and that he would occasionally record a bill of sale, with phone numbers, but no names and addresses. He said he supported proposals to require background checks on Internet sales.

 

“It would give me more peace of mind,” he said.

 

While Mr. Lovejoy was willing to discuss his ads with a reporter, other Armslist sellers reacted differently. Noel Lee Velarde, who has advertised more than 30 guns out of Flint, Mich., on Armslist dating back to late January, twice hung up on a reporter.

 

Bob Vivona, 69, who describes himself as an Army veteran and retired police detective sergeant, has advertised more than 20 guns on Armslist out of Missouri going back to February. Even though it is not required by law, he said, he takes it upon himself to look people’s names up in a statewide online court database. He said he was simply getting rid of guns he had bought but found he did not like, insisting there was nothing wrong with the number of guns he was selling.

 

“It’s not an issue,” he said. “It’s the Second Amendment.”

 

Sarah Cohen contributed reporting. Jack Styczynski and Jack Begg contributed research.

 

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Taking another shot at gun bill

By GERRY SHIELDS — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The New York Post’

 

 

WASHINGTON — Senate leaders yesterday were trying to save what’s left of gun-control legislation with a new compromise that would exempt some rural gun sales from background checks.

 

The new offer by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) would exempt sellers far from federally-licensed dealers from having to conduct background checks on buyers.

 

Leaders pushing for the bill have yet to line up the 60 votes needed in the Senate to pass background checks, as most Republicans and a handful of Democrats from rural states have balked at the measure.

 

Gun-control advocates in the Senate said the latest compromise is something they can live with in order to expand background checks to gun shows and Internet sales — considered a major loophole in current regulation.

 

The move didn’t appease Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who still intends to vote against the background-checks amendment.

 

“I think the Second Amendment doesn’t just apply to rural America,” Graham said.

 

Three of the Senate’s 55 Democrats have already said they intend to vote against the amendment, with two others still on the fence.

 

Vice President Joe Biden, who has been calling senators lobbying for the background-check amendment, told The Post yesterday he wasn’t concerned about the lack of votes. “It’s not over yet,” Biden said.

 

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Baltimore, Maryland and Bill Bratton

 

City police seek $285,000 to hire consultant
Councilman Brandon Scott questions need for outside advice

By Justin Fenton and Luke Broadwater — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The Baltimore Sun’ / Baltimore, MD

(Edited for brevity and generic law enforcement pertinence) 

 

 

The Baltimore Police Department is asking the city for $285,000 to hire a Massachusetts-based consultant — the highest of five bidders — to recommend how the department should be run.

But a city councilman is questioning the need for a consultant. And he says he's concerned that the department is bypassing lower bidders for a company with ties to former Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton, an ally of Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts.

"In these tough economic times, we have to think about saving taxpayer dollars," said Councilman Brandon Scott, who has called for a hearing on the contract.

 

Strategic Policy Partnership LLC, based in Martha's Vineyard, is the city Police Department's choice to develop a "three- to five-year strategic plan" to make the agency more efficient and improve crime-fighting. The firm is currently working with Bratton, himself a consultant, on a similar plan in Oakland.

If awarded the contract, the company would have 90 days to assess the department, according to procurement documents.

Documents show that Strategic Policy Partnership's $285,800 bid was the most expensive of five proposals the city received.

The low bidder, Florida-based Law Enforcement Accreditation Consultants Inc., has filed a protest.

A spokeswoman for Strategic Policy Partnership declined to say whether Bratton would work on the Baltimore contract, as he has in other places. Scott expressed concern about the firm's ties to Bratton.

"We all know that Mr. Bratton is the grandfather of zero tolerance and stop-and-frisk," Scott said, referring to policies in which people suspected of even minor crimes are routinely stopped by police in hopes of curbing violence. "That should worry everybody. We've been there before. That is not a strategy that works in Baltimore."

According to its website, Strategic Policy Partnership has worked with the Department of Homeland Security and the New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit and Camden police departments, among others.

The company is chaired by Robert Wasserman, who was formerly a senior executive of several large American police departments, including Boston's and Houston's, and director of public safety for the Massachusetts Port Authority. Wasserman served as an adviser to Bratton when Bratton was police chief in Los Angeles and New York.

A spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said the Police Department would respond for the administration. Anthony Guglielmi, the city police spokesman, said Batts and his chief of staff recused themselves because of connections to multiple firms, not just one.

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Boston, Massachusetts

 

Attacks Put Spotlight on Boston Counterterrorism Center

By Joel Schectman — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The Wall Street Journal’ / New York, NY

 

 

Boston’s Regional Intelligence Center is poised to aid investigators as they search for suspects in yesterday’s bombing.

 

The center is one of America’s 77 intelligence-sharing facilities, known as fusion centers, that allow investigators to pool data from local, state and federal sources. The state-run centers were funded by the Department of Homeland Security in the years after 9/11 to address the lack of information sharing among agencies, an issue cited as a factor in the government’s failure to prevent the 2001 attacks.

 

As investigators attempt to connect the dots in yesterday’s attack, Boston’s fusion center will allow authorities to tap thousands of law enforcement data sources, along with public data like information from credit agencies, said Mike Sena, president of the National Fusion Center Association, and a state commander of the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center. “This is what fusion centers were built for,” Mr. Sena said.

 

Boston’s fusion center can help investigators scour for connections among potential suspects, by mining hundreds of law enforcement sources around the region, ranging from traffic violations, to jail records and criminal histories, along with public data like property records, Mr. Sena said. As the investigation widens, and investigators identify suspects, the system can help lead authorities to co-conspirators. For example, the system could flag a possible associate of the suspect by finding a past traffic ticket issued to someone driving the perpetrator’s car.

 

The system also allows local investigators to access the federal Homeland Secure Data Network, giving screened personnel access to classified reports from federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Sena said.

 

The fusion center system has its shortcomings, however. Despite their strengths, fusion centers are hampered by the kinds of data silo issues that are familiar to any CIO of a large company, according to Mr. Sena.

 

For example, while authorities can access an array of data sources from their own state, data collected in fusion centers in other states cannot be automatically accessed–that information needs to be requested and manually uploaded. And interoperability issues that stem from a multiplicity of proprietary search tools—as well as police record systems built by different vendors–means even information from within California’s 70 data systems, often has to be reformatted before it can be pooled and analyzed, slowing investigations, Mr. Sena said. And for security reasons, classified reports from federal agencies cannot be accessed on the same machines, Mr. Sena said. “Not being able to pull that data together is a huge problem,” Mr. Sena said. “When you are dealing with having to pull in information from 70 systems you can never be that speedy and time is of the essence with real time crime support and investigation.”

 

Last year, the Senate subcommittee on investigations released a report questioning the effectiveness of the centers in fighting terrorism and protecting privacy.

 

Still, without the fusion centers, investigators would need to physically pull paper records from dozens of sources, and would need to obtain federal reports through a lengthy request process, Mr. Sena said. “It gives investigators access to an array of data they would not even know about otherwise — it would be stovepiped away.”

 

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Michigan

 

Police oppose state bill to regulate use of drones

By Paul Egan — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The Detroit Free Press’ / Detroit, MI

 

 

LANSING — Michigan law enforcement agencies say they will speak out against state legislation to regulate the use of drones by police and other public agencies when the bills are taken up by a legislative committee today.

 

Rep. Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills, sponsored the legislation and says he is concerned about the privacy implications of the growing use of the unmanned aerial devices.

 

“We don’t want Big Brother flying over watching all our activity,” McMillin said.

 

McMillin’s two bills would authorize and regulate the use of drones by public agencies; ban the use of weapons on drones; require search warrants or court orders absent an emergency; and require public disclosure of information obtained through the use of drones.

 

Robert Stevenson, executive director of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police, said the legislation isn’t needed and it’s too restrictive.

 

“Everybody just needs to slow down,” Stevenson said. “We don’t have a problem, so let’s not make bad legislation that we’d have to come back later and fix.”

 

Stevenson said the only use of a drone by a Michigan police agency that he’s aware of is a flyover last year by the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department during an incident involving a barricaded gunman in West Bloomfield.

 

Oakland Sheriff Michael Bouchard and the Michigan Sheriffs’ Association also oppose the legislation.

 

Stevenson said the courts and existing law already regulate the use of search technology such as drones. No Michigan police agencies are currently using them, but the state shouldn’t ban the arming of drones with tear gas or other weapons in circumstances where they might be needed, he said.

 

His biggest concern is the public reporting requirements, he said. “Al-Qaeda would love that.”

 

McMillin said testimony will be heard today but he doesn’t expect his bills will be voted out by the House Criminal Justice Committee. A working group might be needed to refine the legislation, he said.

 

Since 2007, the Federal Aviation Administration has issued more than 1,400 certificates allowing drone use by police, universities and other public agencies.

 

McMillin said the state has no power to control the armed or unarmed use of drones by federal law enforcement and national security agencies and his bills won’t affect those areas.

 

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Arizona

 

Ariz. bill passed makes cities sell turned-in guns

By BOB CHRISTIE (The Associated Press)  —  Wednesday, April 17th, 2013; 10:11 a.m. EDT

 

 

PHOENIX (AP) -- Arizona cities and counties would have to sell guns turned in at community buyback events instead of destroying them under a law passed by the Legislature.

The bill doesn't have any effect on guns seized by law enforcement, which already have to be sold to a federally licensed dealer under a law passed last year. But that didn't stop a lengthy debate that veered into the possibility that the gun used to shoot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords might end up back on the street.

The bill is designed to eliminate a loophole in last year's law that requires police agencies to sell seized guns. Cities, including Tucson, have continued to hold buyback events and destroy the weapons, arguing that because they were voluntarily surrendered, they aren't covered by the law.

The Senate passed House Bill 2455 Tuesday on an 18-12 party-line vote and it now goes to Republican Gov. Jan Brewer for action.

Democrats argued that Republicans complain about the federal government when it requires the state to take action, yet they're quick to force local governments to do what they want.

"We hate it when the federal government mandates it to the state, and we're doing the same thing," said Sen. Lynne Pancrazi, D-Yuma. They also complained about victims having to deal with the knowledge that a gun that killed a loved one could end up back on the streets.

Republicans countered that allowing cities and counties to destroy guns that could be sold is a waste of taxpayer's money.

"It's not about protecting Second Amendment rights, it's about protecting the taxpayers," said Sen. Rick Murphy, R-Peoria. He also argued that the state doesn't require the destruction of cars involved in fatal accidents, so requiring guns to be destroyed is simply a feel-good measure that protects no one.

Murphy and Senate President Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, pushed back at the argument against the state telling cities and counties what to do. Both noted that states retain rights not given to the federal government through the U.S. Constitution, while under the state constitution, cities and counties are subdivisions of the state.

During testimony before a House committee in February, Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox said buyback programs give people who no longer want guns in their homes a safe way to dispose of them. Some are worried the weapons could be stolen, and others want to prevent a family member from accessing them, she said.

"There are many, many reasons, but they would never fathom that the guns they turn in would be recirculated again," Wilcox said.

 

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Homeland Security

Bombings End Decade of Strikingly Few Successful Terrorism Attacks in U.S.

By SCOTT SHANE — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

WASHINGTON — The bombing of the Boston Marathon on Monday was the end of more than a decade in which the United States experienced strikingly few terrorist attacks, in part because of the far more aggressive law enforcement tactics that arose after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

 

In fact, the Sept. 11 attacks were an anomaly in an overall gradual decline in the number of terrorist attacks since the 1970s, according to the Global Terrorism Database, one of the most authoritative sources of terrorism statistics, which is maintained by a consortium of researchers and based at the University of Maryland.

 

Since 2001, the number of fatalities in terrorist attacks has reached double digits in only one year, 2009, when an Army psychiatrist killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., officials say. That was a sharp contrast with the 1970s, by far the most violent decade since the tracking began in 1970, the database shows.

 

But the toll of injuries in the double bombing in Boston, with 3 dead and 176 wounded, ranks among the highest casualty counts in recent American history, exceeded only by Sept. 11, the 1993 World Trade Center attack, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the poisoning of restaurant salad bars with salmonella bacteria by religious cultists in Oregon in 1984.

 

“I think people are actually surprised when they learn that there’s been a steady decline in terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 1970,” said Gary LaFree, a University of Maryland criminologist and the director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, which maintains the database.

 

In the 1970s, about 1,350 attacks were carried out by a long list of radical groups, including extremists of the left and the right, white supremacists, Puerto Rican nationalists and black militants, Dr. LaFree said. The numbers fell in the 1980s, as the groups were eroded by arrests and defections, and again in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had inspired or covertly supported some violent leftist groups, Dr. LaFree said.

 

He said there were about 40 percent more attacks in the United States in the decade before Sept. 11 than in the decade after.

 

“As a result of 9/11, there’s been a revolution in the way law enforcement treats this problem,” Dr. LaFree said. “Police agencies, led by the F.B.I., are far more proactive. They’re interrupting the plots before the attacker gets out the door.”

 

Spectators at the Boston Marathon described a heavy security presence, as has become standard at public events since 2001, including bomb-sniffing dogs that were deployed before the race. But the attack demonstrated an adage in counterterrorism: security officials have to be good all the time, and terrorists have to be good only once.

 

The terrorism consortium counted six past marathons disrupted by violent episodes: three in Northern Ireland and one each in Bahrain, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The only deaths occurred in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 2008, when a Tamil Tiger militant blew himself up as a marathon started, killing 14 people and wounding 83 others.

 

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, said that a marathon was a particularly difficult event to secure. “It’s a 26-mile route, densely packed in places, and you can’t search people the way you can for a stadium event,” he said.

 

One other statistic offers a cautionary note as investigators search for clues about the identity of the perpetrators of the Boston attack. About half of the attacks worldwide, and nearly a third of those in the United States, have never been solved, Dr. LaFree said.

 

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Boston Bombs Were Loaded to Maim

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE, ERIC SCHMITT and SCOTT SHANE — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

BOSTON — The explosives that killed three people and injured more than 170 during the Boston Marathon on Monday were most likely rudimentary devices made from ordinary kitchen pressure cookers, except they were rigged to shoot sharp bits of shrapnel into anyone within reach of their blast and maim them severely, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

 

The pressure cookers were filled with nails, ball bearings and black powder, and the devices were triggered by “kitchen-type” egg timers, one official said.

 

The resulting explosions sent metal tearing through skin and muscle, destroying the lower limbs of some victims who had only shreds of tissue holding parts of their legs together when they arrived at the emergency room of Massachusetts General Hospital, doctors there said.

 

Law enforcement officials said the devices were probably hidden inside dark nylon duffel bags or backpacks and left on the street or sidewalk near the finish line. Forensic experts said that the design and components of the homemade devices were generic but that the marking “6L,” indicating a six-liter container, could help identify a brand and manufacturer and possibly lead to information on the buyer.

 

New details about the explosives emerged as President Obama announced that the F.B.I. was investigating the attack as “an act of terrorism,” and made plans to come to Boston on Thursday for an interfaith service at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

 

But officials said they still had no suspects in custody and did not give the impression that they were close to making an arrest as they repeatedly noted that the investigation was in its infancy.

 

“The range of suspects and motives remains wide open,” Richard DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.'s Boston office, said at a televised briefing on Tuesday afternoon. And, he added, no one has claimed responsibility.

 

At this stage of an inquiry, officials said it was not unusual for there to be no suspects. But with the paucity of leads, Mr. DesLauriers and others pleaded with members of the public to submit any photographs or video they may have taken at the blast site to help in the investigation. At the briefing, Mr. DesLauriers said that someone somewhere almost certainly heard a mention of the marathon or the date of April 15.

 

“Someone knows who did this,” he said. “Cooperation from the community will play a crucial role.”

 

Officials said that as of Tuesday afternoon, they had received more than 2,000 tips from around the world. As marathoners left through Logan Airport on Tuesday, security personnel reminded them of the importance of sharing their pictures with the F.B.I.

 

Counterterrorism specialists said the authorities would aim to match the faces of any possible suspects, using facial recognition software, against an array of databases for visas, passports and drivers’ licenses. “It’s our intention to go through every frame of every video that we have to determine exactly who was in the area,” Edward Davis, the Boston police commissioner, said at the news briefing. “This was probably one of the most well-photographed areas in the country yesterday.”

 

Boston was deserted on Tuesday morning, not only because many of the runners and spectators were leaving town, but also because yellow police tape and metal barriers still marked off a nearly mile-long area encompassing the two explosion sites, one that the police described as the most complex crime scene they had ever encountered.

 

At the morning commuter rush, the city’s subway system was uncharacteristically quiet, watched over by the police and SWAT teams. Stores on Newbury Street, Boston’s busy retail thoroughfare, were closed, and tables on the patio at Stephanie’s, a restaurant there, were still covered in dishes left there on Monday.

 

Among the three dead was an 8-year-old boy, Martin Richard of Dorchester. The boy had been watching near the finish line and then moved back into the crowd; the blast killed him and severely injured his mother and his sister.

 

Another spectator, Krystle Campbell, 29, of Arlington, Mass., also died Monday from injuries she suffered while watching the marathon, her grandmother Lillian Campbell said Tuesday.

 

The third person who died was identified by Boston University officials as a graduate student there, and the Chinese Consulate in New York said that she was a Chinese national. The university is waiting for permission from the family before releasing her name. She was watching the race close to the finish line, said Robert Brown, president of the university, in an e-mail to the university community.

 

Given the force of the blasts, doctors at area hospitals said that the death toll could have been much higher but that the triage teams at the blast site had done a good job of sending the victims to the hospitals capable of handling them.

 

“The distribution worked wonderfully,” said Dr. Stephen K. Epstein, attending emergency physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “It was very easy to match the number of patients to the resources available at each of the hospitals.”

 

Boston is home to some of the most renowned medical institutions in the country. Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital said that none of the hospitals were overwhelmed, allowing victims to be attended to in rapid order and saving lives in the process. Some victims were wounded so badly that even a delay of a few minutes could have been fatal, doctors said.

 

The scale of the attack and the crude nature of the explosives, coupled with the lack of anyone claiming to have been the perpetrator, suggested to experts that the attacker could be an individual or a small group rather than an established terrorist organization.

 

“This could have been a one-person job,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism specialist at Georgetown University. “That makes it much harder to track. When we catch terrorists, it’s usually because they’re part of a conspiracy and they’re communicating with one another.”

 

Nonetheless, a senior law enforcement official said that authorities were also looking into connections between pressure cookers and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Qaeda franchise in Yemen, largely because the design of the explosive device was described in a 2010 issue of the group’s online English magazine, Inspire.

 

“The pressurized cooker is the most effective method,” the article said. “Glue the shrapnel to the inside of the pressurized cooker.” The article was titled “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”

 

Pressure cookers are designed to cook food quickly at high pressure. Pressure cooker bombs work when explosive powder is set off inside the pot and the resulting pressure builds until it exceeds the ability of the pot to contain it, creating a blast of tremendous force. Rudimentary explosive devices made from pressure cookers have been widely used in attacks in Afghanistan, India, Nepal and Pakistan, all countries where the cooking device is common, according to a Department of Homeland Security warning notice issued in 2010.

 

But they have occasionally turned up in attacks in the United States as well: Faisal Shahzad, an American citizen who attempted a car-bomb attack on Times Square in May 2010, had a pressure cooker loaded with 120 firecrackers among the improvised explosives in his S.U.V. The devices smoked but never exploded.

 

Instructions for assembling such devices can be found in many places on the Web, including in terrorism “cookbooks” popular among domestic extremists, and the Qaeda magazine is also easily available on the Internet. So the design did not necessarily point to a foreign connection.

 

A law enforcement official said that the pressure cooker in Boston “was badly damaged,” but that enough of it remained intact to identify it.

 

One brand of pressure cooker with “6L” on the bottom is made by the Spanish company Fagor, which, according to its Web site, is the fifth-largest appliance maker in Europe, with factories in six countries, including Spain, China and Morocco, and subsidiaries in nearly a dozen more.

 

The company sells about 50,000 of the six-liter pots in the United States every year, said Sara de la Hera, the vice president for sales and marketing at Fagor’s United States subsidiary.

 

Ms. De la Hera said she was unaware of whether the company had been contacted by investigators. It could not be immediately determined whether any other brand of pressure cooker also has “6L” etched on the bottom.

 

“It will have to go through a many tests to see what they can glean further and identify where it was produced and sold, and then look at it forensically,” a law enforcement official said. Officials said on Tuesday that evidence from the scene was being shipped to labs in Quantico, Va. Fox News showed pictures that it said were from the crime scene that showed a chunk of a somewhat pulverized stainless steel pressure cooker, with its UL number visible.

 

Steven Bartholomew, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said that the blast was powerful enough to toss debris on top of buildings. “Some of that debris got projected on top of buildings, and embedded in buildings in that finish line area, so that tells us we have a lot of work to do,” Mr. Bartholomew said.

 

In Boston, as Tuesday wore on, many runners, clad in blue and gold jackets, made pilgrimages to the police blockade on Boylston Street, pausing to take pictures with their cellphones. Others came wearing jackets from previous marathons — a symbol of accomplishment that in Boston turned into a sign of solidarity.

 

Bonnie Yesian was among many visitors marooned in the city, because her hotel — and her luggage and identification — are inside the crime scene.

 

“I can’t fly, so I’m stuck,” said Ms. Yesian, who added that strangers and marathon volunteers had offered her guest rooms and supplies.

 

Hundreds of people, including many runners, held a candlelight vigil Tuesday night in Boston Common. “Such a perfect day, such a wonderful celebration, and then to have this happen,” said Susan Springer, a psychologist. She said she was there because “I wanted to find a way to come together as a community.”

 

 

Katharine Q. Seelye reported from Boston, and Scott Shane and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Reporting was contributed by John Eligon, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Jess Bidgood from Boston, Michael Cooper and William K. Rashbaum from New York, and Mark Landler and Michael S. Schmidt from Washington.

 

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Boston bomb probe looking at pressure cooker, backpacks

By Scott Malone (Reuters News)  —  Wednesday, April 17th, 2013; 6:50am EDT

 

 

BOSTON (Reuters) - Boston Marathon bombing investigators on Wednesday entered the third day of their hunt with an emerging picture of the target: a suspect or suspects carrying heavy bags or backpacks made of dark nylon.

 

While still unable to conclude whether a group or individuals were responsible for the attacks that killed three people and wounded 176, and whether they were foreign or American, investigators gathered enough evidence at the crime scene on Tuesday to slightly narrow their search.

 

The two blasts struck seconds apart on Monday at the finish line of the race, maiming victims with shrapnel-packed bombs that investigators suspect were contained in pressure cookers. Seventeen people remained in critical condition.

 

President Barack Obama, who will travel to Boston on Thursday for a memorial service, has called the bombings an "act of terror." It was the worst bombings on U.S. soil since security was stepped up following the suicide hijack attacks of September 11, 2001.

 

No suspects were in custody and there were no claims of responsibility.

 

Evidence collected at the scene was being reconstructed at the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, said Richard DesLauriers, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's special agent in charge in Boston.

 

Among the items recovered were pieces of black nylon that could be from a backpack, fragments of ball bearings and nails, and possibly the remains of a pressure cooker device, DesLauriers said.

 

Bomb scene pictures produced by the Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force and released on Tuesday show the remains of an explosive device including twisted pieces of a metal container, wires, a battery and what appears to be a small circuit board.

 

One picture shows a few inches of charred wire attached to a small box, and another depicts a half-inch nail and a zipper head stained with blood. Another shows a Tenergy-brand battery attached to black and red wires through a broken plastic cap. Several photos show a twisted metal lid with bolts.

 

A U.S. government official, who declined to be identified, made the pictures available to Reuters.

 

In addition, Boston's WHDH television showed a picture of an unattended, light-colored bag on the ground right at one of the bomb sites before the explosion. The bag was gone in a picture from a similar angle taken after the blasts. Authorities had yet to comment publicly on the significance of the pictures.

 

The youngest to die was an 8-year-old boy, Martin Richard, from the city's Dorchester neighborhood.

 

Officials identified a second person killed as Krystle Campbell, 29, of Medford, Massachusetts.

 

The third fatal victim was a Chinese citizen whose identity was not being made public at the request of the victim's family, the Chinese Consulate in New York said in a statement. The victim was a graduate student at Boston University, the university said in a statement.

 

(Editing by Daniel Trotta and Philip Barbara)

 

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Boston Marathon bombs have hallmarks of 'lone wolf' devices, experts say

By Tim Lister and Paul Cruickshank (CNN News)  —  Wednesday, April 17th, 2013; 5:27 a.m. EDT

 

 

(CNN) -- The devices used in the Boston Marathon attack Monday are typical of the "lone wolf:" the solo terrorist who builds a bomb on his own by following a widely available formula.

In this case, the formula seems very similar to one that al Qaeda has recommended to its supporters around the world as both crudely effective and difficult to trace. But it is also a recipe that has been adopted by extreme right-wing individuals in the United States.

The threat of the "lone wolf" alarms the intelligence community.

"This is what you worry about the most," a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN's Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger. "No trail, no intelligence."

 

Officials have told CNN that among the materials used in the attack on the marathon were some sort of timing device, a basic mixture of explosives and some sort of metal container containing nails and other projectiles. The FBI said late Tuesday that what appeared to be fragments of ball bearings, or BBs, and nails had been recovered and had possibly been contained in a pressure cooker.

One federal law enforcement source told CNN's Deborah Feyerick the devices contained "low-velocity improvised explosive mixture -- perhaps flash-powder or sugar chlorate mixture likely packed with nails or shrapnel."

An explosives expert told CNN the yellowness of the flame probably came from carbon or some organic fuel such as sugar that contains it. The expert, who is frequently consulted by the FBI and other government agencies, said the white smoke made it "unlikely that a military-grade high explosive, such as those used in shells and bombs, which is usually grey or black, was used."

U.S. Rep. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said "most likely gun powder" was used in the devices.

Such improvised devices use readily available materials that cannot be easily traced. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in its English-language online magazine Inspire, noted such "ingredients are readily available" and they are "easily disposed of if the enemy searches your home."

There is no evidence that AQAP or any of its supporters was involved in the Boston attack. Nor is it clear whether the attack was the work of one or more individuals. But AQAP has championed 'do-it-yourself terrorism' in the last three years, urging Muslims in the West to take action on their own.

"How to Make a Bomb in Your Mom's Kitchen," published in a 2010 edition of Inspire, has been downloaded by Islamist militants plotting terrorist attacks in both the United States and the U.K., according to counterterrorism officials.

Eight pages were devoted to building a basic but lethal device. The ingredients included sugar and a black powder made from match heads. Combining step-by-step instructions and diagrams, the magazine described wiring a "timed circuit as it is simple" and using small nails as shrapnel. It said gunpowder or powder from fireworks can be used as a substitute for match heads.

It continues: "It only works if contained in a high-pressure environment. So you may use iron pipes, pressure cookers, fire extinguishers or empty propane canisters ... The pressure cooker is the most effective method."

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has issued several unclassified bulletins about the use of pressure cookers as part of an explosive device. In July 2010, the DHS said that while pressure cookers are common in countries such as Afghanistan, "the presence of a pressure cooker in an unusual location such as a building lobby or busy street corner should be treated as suspicious."

Such a formula is certainly not unique to AQAP. Variations appear all over the Internet. A senior U.S. counterterrorism investigator told CNN that pressure cooker bombs have also been a signature of extreme right-wing individuals in the United States who he said tend to revel in building homemade bombs.

For example, the devices planted by Erich Rudolph at an Atlanta park during the 1996 Olympic Games were pipe bombs filled with gunpowder and nails to increase their lethality; it also had an alarm clock as a timing mechanism. Like the bombings in Boston, those devices were concealed in a backpack, according to a Department of Homeland Security report detailing the 1996 attack.

At least two previous terrorist plots on U.S. soil have involved variations on the Inspire recipe, and both involved "lone wolves." Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad tried to detonate a vehicle bomb in Times Square in 2010 that included "a pressure cooker containing approximately 120 firecrackers," according to the 2010 DHS bulletin.

The indictment against another alleged "lone wolf" militant, Jose Pimentel, described a video "showing the defendant following precisely the instructions from the Inspire Magazine article by (i) scraping the heads from the matches and collecting the incendiary powder in a bowl; and (ii) connecting a Christmas tree light to the battery using wiring to create an ignition device."

Pimentel was arrested by New York police in November 2011 and pleaded not guilty to state terrorism charges. He had not received training overseas, but Shahzad had received training from a bomb-maker with the Pakistani Taliban.

And exactly one year before Pimentel's arrest, Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly flew to Sweden from England. There he built a powerful but rudimentary bomb, using ingredients he was able to purchase locally: pressure cookers, fireworks, explosive chemicals, and nails and ball bearings. He too had received bomb-making training, not in Pakistan, like many others, but in Iraq.

Abdulwahab died when he tried to detonate a device in central Stockholm in December 2010.

 

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Security Experts Ponder Whether Any Long Race Can Be Completely Safe

By KEN BELSON — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

Investigators in Boston are still sifting through evidence to determine who set the bombs that killed three people and injured scores on Monday.

 

But the explosions at the Boston Marathon have already raised a chilling and perhaps unanswerable question for organizers of other major road races: how to better police events that can include tens of thousands of runners and millions of spectators spread across miles of roads.

 

It is all but impossible to control every corner of a racecourse, especially for marathons in cities like Boston, London and New York that wind through and over narrow city streets and bridges, offering places to hide for bombs and snipers.

 

But the police can secure the most vulnerable parts of a course, including the start and finish lines and grandstands, to ward off would-be attackers, and use searches, bomb-sniffing dogs and other techniques to minimize the risks elsewhere, security experts said.

 

“There’s no way you’re going to 100 percent protect an event like that, but you can come up with countermeasures,” said Michael O’Neil, the president of MSA Security and the commanding officer of the New York Police Department’s counterterrorism division from 2002 to 2007. “What you’re really trying to do is to create a hostile environment for them to carry out an attack.”

 

Race organizers, the police and security experts will have just days to prepare for their next major challenge, marathons in London and Hamburg, Germany, which will be run Sunday. Frank Thaleiser, who is organizing the race in Germany, said 400 police officers would be on duty guarding the 15,300 runners and diverting traffic.

 

In London, the police are on alert because of the funeral Wednesday of Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister. The city’s marathon, which nearly 36,000 runners finished last year — about a third more than in Boston — winds through central London and typically attracts hundreds of thousands of spectators.

 

Hugh Robertson, the sports minister, said he was absolutely confident the course could be protected. Nick Bitel, the chief executive of the London Marathon, added that organizers had “fairly detailed contingency plans which one hopes can deal with anything that occurs.”

 

The Tour de France, held in July, presents a much wider-ranging challenge, covering more than 2,000 miles.

 

While the French government does not publicize most of its security measures for the cycling race, the police presence approaches the scale of an Olympic Games. Last year, about 13,000 members of the Gendarmerie Nationale, the force that provides rural policing, helped protect the three-week race at various times.

 

When the Tour briefly entered Spain in 2007, ETA, the Basque separatist group, detonated two bombs along the road after the riders had passed.

 

New York City Marathon organizers and the city police have more time to prepare because that race is in November. But it is one of the largest road races in the world, with nearly 60,000 runners registered and about two million spectators.

 

Security experts expect the police to add security near the most susceptible parts of the course, including the starting line at the foot of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in Staten Island and the finish line in Central Park, which are already heavily guarded. Spectators could see more random searches and displays of force by the police to keep would-be attackers off guard.

 

“It’s a huge challenge and one that’s virtually impossible to protect from start to finish,” said Robert S. Tucker, the chief executive of T&M Protection Resources. “This is like calling an audible in a football game. We’re going to have to deal with it differently.”

 

The police in New York will face their first test this weekend when two smaller races will be run in Manhattan, including the 9/11 Memorial 5K in Lower Manhattan and a four-mile run in Central Park. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Tuesday that his department would evaluate its security plan for patrolling the marathon and other road races based in part on what happened in Boston.

 

“We don’t want to necessarily fight yesterday’s war,” Kelly said at a news conference with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “We want to take a fresh look at what we are doing. The marathon is 26 miles long so, you know, there are points of vulnerability by definition. There are going to be.”

 

The mayor underscored the difficulty in preparing for potential threats. “The one thing that we can be reasonably sure of is, they are not going to do the same thing two times in a row, which makes protecting the public that much more challenging,” he said.

 

While security experts are confident that the police can adjust, challenges remain. New York Road Runners and many other race organizations are nonprofit groups that lack the resources to vastly expand their security budgets. Last year the police in New York started to charge race organizers for the cost of their security details, which were passed on to runners in the form of higher entry fees. If police charges rise significantly, the number of entrants may decline, which could hurt the city’s economy.

 

Mary Wittenberg, the chief executive of New York Road Runners, said in a statement that “the safety and security of all New York Road Runners’ races is and will always be our top priority. We will continue to work hand in hand with the City of New York and the N.Y.P.D. as we plan for upcoming events.”

 

Yet complications remain, especially the handling of the thousands of bags that runners bring to races. John Korff, who organizes the New York City Triathlon, said the police had asked participants to put their belongings in clear plastic bags to make it easier for them to be inspected, something that is also required at the marathon. He expected other requests from the police, who are likely to take other steps out of view.

 

“With any race, the police look at your security plan and they do what they have to based on what you’re doing,” Korff said. “New York City is probably 10 steps ahead of everywhere else, and we don’t know about nine of the steps.”

 

In some ways, the New York City Marathon is different from other races because the police here have been preparing for potential terrorist attacks on large sporting events for more than a decade. Before the marathon in November 2001, Road Runners was asked to give law enforcement officers a list of the participants that could be checked against lists of known criminals. Security checks were run on all volunteers, coaches, managers and reporters.

 

The Coast Guard patrolled the harbor, especially near the bridges that the runners pass over. Trash cans along the route were removed, and the police were placed on rooftops along the course. Many of these measures continue.

 

Unlike in Boston, where the finish line was largely open to the public, access to the finish line in Central Park is tightly controlled. Last year, Road Runners gave participants the choice of not leaving a bag at the starting line, an option that may have to be expanded this year.

 

“You’re going to see a heightened diligence at sporting events because that’s the hand that you’ve been dealt,” said Patrick Brosnan, the president of a risk consulting firm that works with sports teams and venues. “Each one is a Rubik’s cube.”

 

Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London, Ian Austen from Ottawa and Wendy Ruderman from New York.

 

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Boston Investigation Moves Into Third Day    (Posted 9:20 a.m. EDT)

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and MICHAEL COOPER — Wednesday, April 17th, 2013 ‘The New York Times’

 

 

BOSTON — Law enforcement officials on Wednesday continued their investigation into the explosion that killed three people and injured more than 170 during the Boston Marathon. Meanwhile, the blast’s third fatality was identified as a young woman whose ambitions and hard work took her from her rust-belt hometown in northeast China to graduate studies at Boston University.

 

The young woman was identified as Lu Lingzi by a classmate, a Chinese university official and a state-run newspaper in her home city. Ms. Lu, 23, had moved to Boston to study statistics at Boston University after studying international trade at the Beijing Institute of Technology, according to a résumé that was posted online. In her hometown, Shenyang, the Shenyang Evening News, the state-run newspaper that announced her death, darkened its Web site in honor of a “Shenyanger who passed away in a faraway place.”

 

The three people killed in the blast were a cross-section of Boston, brought together seemingly at random to watch one the city’s proud traditions, the marathon. There was Ms. Lu, one of the thousands of international students drawn to the area’s universities. There was Martin Richard, a vivacious 8-year-old third grader from a well-loved family in Dorchester, a tight-knit community. And there was Krystle Campbell, 29, of Arlington, Mass., a hard-working woman known for her sense of humor who had started working at restaurants as a waitress in high school and now worked as a restaurant manager. Boston prepared to mourn them at a service with President Obama on Thursday.

 

Law enforcement officials said that the bombs that killed them and injured more than 170 others on Monday were most likely rudimentary devices made from ordinary kitchen pressure cookers, except they were rigged to shoot sharp bits of shrapnel into anyone within reach of their blast and maim them severely, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

 

The pressure cookers were filled with nails, ball bearings and black powder, and the devices were triggered by “kitchen-type” egg timers, one official said.

 

The resulting explosions sent metal tearing through skin and muscle, destroying the lower limbs of some victims who had only shreds of tissue holding parts of their legs together when they arrived at the emergency room of Massachusetts General Hospital, doctors there said.

 

Law enforcement officials said the devices were probably hidden inside dark nylon duffel bags or backpacks and left on the street or sidewalk near the finish line. Forensic experts said that the design and components of the homemade devices were generic but that the marking “6L,” indicating a six-liter container, could help identify a brand and manufacturer and possibly lead to information on the buyer.

 

Details about the explosives emerged as President Obama announced that the F.B.I. was investigating the attack as “an act of terrorism,” and made plans to travel to Boston on Thursday for an interfaith service at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

 

But officials said they still had no suspects in custody and did not give the impression that they were close to making an arrest as they repeatedly noted that the investigation was in its infancy.

 

“The range of suspects and motives remains wide open,” Richard DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.'s Boston office, said at a televised briefing on Tuesday afternoon. And, he added, no one has claimed responsibility.

 

At this stage of an inquiry, officials said it was not unusual for there to be no suspects. But with the paucity of leads, Mr. DesLauriers and others pleaded with members of the public to submit any photographs or video they may have taken at the blast site to help in the investigation. At the briefing, Mr. DesLauriers said that someone somewhere almost certainly heard a mention of the marathon or the date of April 15.

 

“Someone knows who did this,” he said. “Cooperation from the community will play a crucial role.”

 

Officials said they had received more than 2,000 tips from around the world. As marathoners left through Logan Airport on Tuesday, security personnel reminded them of the importance of sharing their pictures with the F.B.I.

 

Counterterrorism specialists said the authorities would aim to match the faces of any possible suspects, using facial recognition software, against an array of databases for visas, passports and drivers’ licenses. “It’s our intention to go through every frame of every video that we have to determine exactly who was in the area,” Edward Davis, the Boston police commissioner, said at the news briefing. “This was probably one of the most well-photographed areas in the country yesterday.”

 

Given the force of the blasts, doctors at area hospitals said that the death toll could have been much higher but that the triage teams at the blast site had done a good job of sending the victims to the hospitals capable of handling them.

 

“The distribution worked wonderfully,” said Dr. Stephen K. Epstein, attending emergency physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “It was very easy to match the number of patients to the resources available at each of the hospitals.”

 

The scale of the attack and the crude nature of the explosives, coupled with the lack of anyone claiming to have been the perpetrator, suggested to experts that the attacker could be an individual or a small group rather than an established terrorist organization.

 

“This could have been a one-person job,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism specialist at Georgetown University. “That makes it much harder to track. When we catch terrorists, it’s usually because they’re part of a conspiracy and they’re communicating with one another.”

 

“It will have to go through a many tests to see what they can glean further and identify where it was produced and sold, and then look at it forensically,” a law enforcement official said. Officials said on Tuesday that evidence from the scene was being shipped to labs in Quantico, Va. Fox News showed pictures that it said were from the crime scene that showed a chunk of a somewhat pulverized stainless steel pressure cooker, with its UL number visible.

 

Steven Bartholomew, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said that the blast was powerful enough to toss debris on top of buildings. “Some of that debris got projected on top of buildings, and embedded in buildings in that finish line area, so that tells us we have a lot of work to do,” Mr. Bartholomew said.

 

Katharine Q. Seelye reported from Boston, and Michael Cooper from New York. Reporting was contributed by John Eligon, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Jess Bidgood from Boston; Scott Shane, Eric Schmitt, Mark Landler and Michael S. Schmidt from Washington; and William K. Rashbaum from New York.

 

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                                                          Mike Bosak

 

 

 

 

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