Monday, April 1st, 2013 — Good Afternoon, Stay Safe
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Payback? Could It Have All Started With... Bronx Ticket Fixing; Department Charges, Indictments & Arrests?
Bronx busts down in DA battle
By BRAD HAMILTON — Sunday, March 31st, 2013; ‘The New York Post’
The Bronx is burning mad.
Arrests in the borough are on the decline — and police sources point to a slowdown after the NYPD began penalizing officers for sloppy paperwork.
Starting about two months ago, brass began punishing cops for slip-ups on arrest forms in cases the Bronx DA’s Office decides not to prosecute — yanking vacation days from patrolmen or threatening to do so, sources said.
The crackdown infuriated the rank and file, and busts plummeted.
Total collars in The Bronx fell 6.8 percent between Feb. 28 and March 24 over the same 28-day period last year, while arrests citywide climbed 2.1 percent.
In the 40th Precinct, in the South Bronx, arrests are down 37.5 percent in the last month. In the 42nd Precinct, they’re down 44.9 percent.
One well-placed police source acknowledged the stats were “significant.” Police supervisors were told to discipline officers so that the department can’t be blamed for DA Robert Johnson’s subpar record, which includes more declined cases and fewer felony convictions than the city’s other four prosecutors, the sources said.
In one case, an officer faces the loss of vacation days after failing to note in paperwork that a Spanish-speaking victim was bilingual and didn’t need a translator, one source said.
PBA union President Patrick Lynch took issue with the new policy. “Public safety would be vastly improved in The Bronx if the NYPD would put as much time and energy into pressing the Bronx DA to prosecute more cases as it does trying to blame its own officers,” he said.
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‘One Police Plaza’
Race and the NYPD: it’s Complicated
By: Leonard Levitt – Monday, April 1st, 2013 ‘NYPD Confidential.Com’
(Op-Ed / Commentary)
A shrewd move by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, appointing Phil Banks, a high-ranking black officer, as the NYPD’s Chief of Department.
MEGALOMANIA: As one person much more astute, smarter and wiser than me stated, “Kelly is looking to do whatever he has to do to stay on as the police commissioner under the next mayor, whoever that may be! Why else would he go out of his way to appoint the “black” ‘Chief of Community Affairs’.” Makes sense, for... as most of us know, Kelly is not above selling his soul for the job. Just look at what he did to the department when Dinkins was the mayor. Remember the failed CPOP program, not to mention the destructive and violent Crown Heights Riots? - Mike Bosak
Kelly acted amidst an ongoing federal trial to determine whether the practice of Stop and Frisk — which Kelly maintains has resulted in record low crime rates — has morphed into old-fashioned racial profiling. Since his return as police commissioner in 2002, police have made literally five million stops of people, mostly young black men, ages 14 to 21. Most of them had committed no crime.
Banks is as qualified anyone in the NYPD to serve as Chief of Department.
But as the late Mayor Ed Koch put it when he appointed Ben Ward as the city’s first black police commissioner in 1983 after a series of damning hearings on police brutality: All things being equal, the fact that Ward was black “didn’t hurt.”
In short, race matters in New York City. Especially in the New York City Police Department.
Sworn in last week, Banks seemed to vindicate Kelly’s judgment on Stop and Frisk, pronouncing it “an effective policy” when done properly.
Banks said he himself had been stopped by police as a college student outside a building near his home in Brooklyn that had been the scene of drug dealing. He added that that while he didn’t like it because he felt disrespected, he viewed the practice as a necessary police tool.
Better yet for Kelly, Banks said he opposed an outside monitor — which is anathema to Kelly but which many black leaders, the leading mayoral candidate Christine Quinn and various other police critics, black and white, are clamoring for.
Indeed, Banks’s pronouncements, coming from the department’s highest uniformed officer who is black, may lower the temperature of the increasingly contentious Stop and Frisk trial. The trial reached fever pitch with the secretly recorded remarks of Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack, commander of the high-crime 40th precinct in the Bronx , telling one of his officers to arrest “the right people at the right time at the right location,” a line said to have emanated from the office of Banks’s predecessor, Joe Esposito.
On the tape McCormack added that he was referring to male blacks between the ages of 14 and 21, who commit most of the city’s violent crimes. Virtually all the victims are other black New Yorkers.
To police critics, McCormack’s phrase spelled “racism.” Professional race-baiters like the Rev. Al Sharpton, currently masquerading as a political commentator on MSNBC, called McCormack’s words a “smoking gun” and called for his suspension.
No matter that McCormack also said on the tape that “99 per cent of the people in this community are great, hardworking people who deserve to walk to the train, walk to their car, walk to the store,” without fear of getting shot.
Twenty-five years ago, the then Bronx borough commander, John McCabe, used exactly those words to this reporter to describe that 99 per cent of Bronx citizens, most of whom are black and Hispanic. This might suggest that more than one high-ranking NYPD officer appreciates the struggles and hardships of people living on the edge of poverty in high crime neighborhoods.
Kelly is another of them.
In his brief, 14-month term as police commissioner in 1992-93 under the city’s first black mayor, David Dinkins, he traveled every Sunday morning to black churches to recruit black officers.
That he was only marginally successful reflects another facet of race in New York City and the NYPD. Blacks have historically distrusted the police.
The reasons are multiple but here are just a few over past 40 years.
In 1973, Thomas Shea, a white police officer, shot and killed Clifford Glover, a 10-year-old black boy fleeing across a vacant lot with his grandfather, whom Shea was pursuing. A jury of 11 white men and a black woman found Shea not guilty.
In 1976, Robert Torsney, a white police officer, stopped Randolph Evans, a 15-year-old black youth, in Brooklyn. For no apparent reason, Torsney put his gun to Evans’s head and shot him dead. An all-white jury found Torsney not guilty.
In 1983, Michael Stewart, a 23-year-old black man was arrested by transit police for smoking a joint at Union Square subway station. He died in police custody. Six white transit officers were acquitted of his death.
In 1999, four police officers shot and killed Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, as he stood in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building. The trial was moved out of the Bronx and the officers were all acquitted.
In reaction to this and other criminal justice failings, some black New Yorkers have made heroes of people like Larry Davis, who shot six cops in the Bronx in 1986, and more recently of Kimani Gray, a 16-year-old Brooklyn gangbanger who police shot after they said he pointed a loaded gun at them. Gray’s death sparked protests and vigils, resulting in a mini-riot that followed his wake and funeral.
“Shame on the black community for rioting,” said a retired black NYPD commander last week. But he added: “You have to understand there is a lot of anger and frustration among young people who are tired of cops searching them at will and disrespecting them without lawful authority.
“They [the police] are no different than a robber who runs your pockets,” he continued. “A cop comes up and says, ‘Empty your pockets,’ and you feel disrespected, like they are robbing your dignity. Just because they wear a uniform doesn’t make it any more right.”
There’s an additional NYPD racial factor that the public — including reporters, even police reporters — is largely unaware of. Despite black leaders’ regular denunciations of police practices, many embrace the police.
During Larry Davis’s trial, Father Lawrence Lucas, a charismatic black Catholic priest, entered the courtroom with a class of schoolchildren and gave a bear hug of support to Davis’s attorney, William Kunstler.
Twelve years later, when police officer William Morange, who was known as “The White Prince of Harlem,“ was sworn in at Police Plaza as Chief of Patrol, Lucas appeared and hugged Morange.
Lucas said that another white chief he respected was then Chief of Department Louis Anemone, who years before had commanded Harlem’s 32nd precinct. Because of his aggressive crime-fighting style, the media — this reporter included — portrayed him as “insensitive” to black concerns.
Anemone explained at the time that, while Lucas “distrusted the police, underneath it, he felt we were both men of good will,” and had accepted Anemone’s offer to speak at his precinct.
“And he wasn’t the only local official critical of the police who we met with,” Anemone continued. He cited Calvin Butts, the outspoken minister of the Abyssinian Baptist Church; Virginia Fields, then the Manhattan borough president; and Assemblyman Keith Wright, whose father, Judge Bruce Wright, had allowed so many suspects released without bail that cops called him “Turn ‘em Loose Bruce.”
“In the police department,” said Anemone, “you learn how to work with everyone. I’m amazed you guys are shocked by this.”
Another former top NYPD official last week echoed Anemone’s comments. “Black leaders often have to play the activist in front of their communities but they need the local cops to look the other way when people double park their cars in front of their offices or their churches. They need the cops for crowd control when they are giving away free food.”
“That’s not being two-faced,” he explained. “It’s just a reality. Even Sonny Carson [a Brooklyn civil rights activist, later convicted of kidnapping a drug dealer who was murdered] looked to work with the cops when he wanted to do something. Sharpton in his younger days when he got behind closed doors with cops was very reasonable.”
OK, so what’s gone wrong with Stop and Frisk? Why do so many New Yorkers — not just black New Yorkers — oppose it?
Shrewd as he is, the answer, in this reporter’s opinion, is Kelly himself, who is not the same man as in his first term as commissioner.
“He doesn’t want anyone to suggest anything to him,” said a former top police official. “He thinks he knows what is best about everything. If you tell him it’s not a good idea, he will double down. Stop and Frisk is constitutional. It’s the overuse that is in question. He’s made Stop and Frisk a productivity measure.”
Indeed, under Kelly, Stop and Frisk arrests resemble fishing fleets trolling the oceans for tuna with giant nets that also scoop up lots of smaller fish.
In human terms, Stop and Frisk may or may not have reduced crime to record levels as Kelly claims. What is certain is that Stop and Frisk has produced anger and bitterness.
In the trial last week, two cops described how in 2010 they had stopped, frisked and handcuffed 13-year-old Devin Almonor of West Harlem for jaywalking. After they took him to the 30th precinct and he began to cry, one of them taunted him, saying he was “acting like a little girl.”
When Almonor’s father, a retired cop, went to the 30th precinct, he got into a fight with officers there. He has filed a lawsuit against the NYPD.
Because of public criticism over incidents like this, the number of stops was cut way back 25 per cent over the past year. [That murders continued to fall suggests little or no correlation to Stop and Frisk.]
In cutting back, Kelly seemed to suggest that precinct commanders had gotten it all wrong, absolving himself of responsibility.
He may be too late.
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SO LONG, ESPO. Retiring Chief of Department Joe Esposito said he viewed his police career as “a calling, not a job.” In that, he reversed the words of the former head of the Internal Affairs Division, John Guido, who years before said that unlike the Irish, he viewed being a police officer as a job and not a calling.
Perhaps Espo’s comfort level reflects the rise in numbers of Italian-American officers, who have superseded the Irish as the department’s largest ethnic group. And yet, there has never been an Italian-American police commissioner. There can be only one reason for that: Italians in New York and in the NYPD are not a political force like other ethnic groups.
Take the NYPD Hispanic Society, which recently issued a news release, captioned “Will the next Mayor Appoint a Hispanic Police Commissioner?” It concluded: “We challenge the next mayor to demonstrate their commitment to the Latino community in New York City by appointing a qualified Latino Police Commissioner. The Hispanic society promises we will continue to make our voices heard until our Latino agenda is met.”
Espo, meanwhile, had his “walkout” last week. Kelly gave him a lot of credit and news reports mentioned that he was the consummate behind-the-scenes guy. That’s because, although he stood by Kelly’s side at many news conferences, Kelly didn’t allow him to speak.
Espo has told friends he doesn’t want to hold a retirement dinner. C’mon, Joe. There are so many people who want to wish him well that a dinner might have to be held over two nights.
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HYNES ON CAMERA. Ohboyohboy, a so-called documentary on CBS News Magazine’s 48 Hours will air a six-part reality series about Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes, coming your way on May 21. Lead players: Hynes, his top assistant Michael Vecchione, and his spokesman Jerry Schmetterer, who a CBS news release described as the Daily News police bureau chief in 1979 when Etan Patz disappeared. Wow. Way to go, Jerry.
To paraphrase the former Columbia School of Journalism Professor Melvin Mencher: Don’t ever confuse anything you see on TV with journalism.
With editing by Donald Forst.
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NYPD $$ Lawyer Lotto $$ Bonanza / Transit Bureau Police Officers Maripily Clase, Suranjit Dey and Jermaine Hodge
Mom Says NYPD Pepper-Sprayed Baby
By ADAM KLASFELD — Monday, April 1st, 2013 ‘Courthouse News Service’ / Pasadena, CA
BROOKLYN (CN) - NYPD officers pepper-sprayed three little children, including 2-year- and 5-month old babies, because they thought the kids' mom jumped a subway fare, the family claims in court.
Marilyn Taylor sued New York City, the NYPD and Officers Maripily Clase, Suranjit Dey and Jermaine Hodge in Federal Court, for herself, her three children and their father.
Taylor claims that she and her kids were preparing to board a Manhattan-bound L train on Aug. 9. She was pushing her 2-year-old in a stroller and holding her 4-year-old's hand. The father, Dehaven McClain, carried the 5-month-old close to his chest.
The officers stopped her on suspicion of skipping a fare because they saw her pushing the stroller through a service entrance rather than the turnstile, Taylor says in the complaint.
"The aggressiveness of the officers' demeanors had upset the four-year-old daughter, and her mother bent down to console her and tell her, 'everything will be OK," the complaint states.
But everything was not OK. Taylor says Officer Dey pepper-sprayed her, causing her to fall to her knees and nearly fall from the platform. She says the spray hit every member of the family.
"The pepper-spray caused the children to scream out and choked the two-year old, who went into fits of vomiting," the complaint states.
"Ms. Taylor was then placed in handcuffs as the minor children cried in fear and pain."
Taylor claims that Officers Hodge and Dey then pushed her down the stairs so roughly that the pressure against her handcuffs bruised her wrists and lower back.
"Mr. McClain was left to try to get the minor children, screaming and crying, safely home by himself," the complaint states.
A day later, Taylor says, she was arraigned and received an adjournment in contemplation of a dismissal, meaning the charges would be tossed if she did not get arrested again within a certain time.
She says she and the children needed medical attention because of the lingering effects of the spray.
"After the attack, mother and father suffered ongoing eye injuries and all three children suffer emotional harms, and are now afraid to ride the subways and become afraid when they see police officers. The four year-old cried herself to sleep for weeks, and after the incident the two-year-old began waking up in the night crying for her mother," the complaint states.
Taylor claims that the officers have continued to harass her family.
"Since the incident, plaintiffs have suffered repeated harassment from the officer defendants, forcing them to avoid the MTA through the Atlantic Avenue stop," the complaint states.
The family seeks punitive damages for civil rights violations, assault, battery, negligence, and violations to the state and federal constitutions.
They are represented by David Rankin of Rankin & Taylor, PLLC.
The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Gang initiation violence prompts heavy police presence in Times Square
By Magee Hickey — Sunday, March 31st, 2013; ‘WPIX News’ / New York, NY
NEW YORK CITY (PIX11)- The worst incident of gang “wilding” in Times Square happened three years ago on Easter Sunday night.
Two women were shot during a brawl and several police officers were injured.
More than 50 people were arrested in what has become an unofficial gang initiation night among the city’s crews.
Typically it takes place after the New York International auto show at the Javits Center. This Times Square street vendor remembers a chaotic Easter night in 2010.
The NYPD is said to be monitoring twitter and other social media to figure out where new gang member recruits will be gathering.
They’ll also be mingling with the crowds on Broadway on the lookout for lots of blue and red clothing.
The traditional colors for the crips and bloods street gangs. Tourists and New Yorkers alike were unaware.
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NYPD Stop, Question and Frisk
Stop-and-frisk numbers down on Staten Island last year
By John M. Annese — Monday, April 1st, 2013 ‘The Staten Island Advance’ / Staten Island
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - As a federal court trial casts even more scrutiny on the NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk practices, an Advance analysis of police data shows officers conducted nearly 20 percent fewer stops here than they did in 2011.
On Staten Island, police made 19,189 stops across all three of the borough's precincts in 2012, down from the 23,655 conducted in 2011.
And those stops fell along similar racial trends to those done in previous years.
In the North Shore's 120th Precinct, more than three-fourths of those stopped were black or Hispanic, while in the 122nd Precinct, which covers the middle of the Island, and the 123rd, which covers the South Shore, the majority of those stopped were white.
In fact, the numbers show that police stopped a higher percentage of black and Hispanic people, and a lower percentage of white people in 2012 compared to 2011 in the 120th precinct, while the opposite was true in the other two boroughs.
By the numbers:
* Of the 11,190 stopped in the 120th Precinct, 58.9 percent were black, 13.7 percent white and 24.5 percent Hispanic, compared to 55.5 percent black, 18.1 percent white and 24.1 percent Hispanic in 2011.
* Of the 6,085 stopped in the 122nd, 14.7 percent were black, 62.2 percent white, and 16.9 percent Hispanic, compared to 15.5 percent black, 58.9 percent white and 17.7 percent Hispanic in 2011.
* Of the 1,914 stopped in the 123rd, 5.6 percent were black, 83.3 percent white, and 9.4 percent Hispanic, compared to 5.4 percent black, 82.4 percent white, and 10.2 percent Hispanic in 2011.
The data also shows that Islandwide, 13.7 percent of stops ended in arrest or summons, compared to 14 percent in 2011. The 120th Precinct had the highest percent of arrests and summonses, 18 percent, with the 122nd and 123rd precincts reporting 7 and 8 percent, respectively.
FEDERAL TRIAL
The federal trial, which opened March 18, stems from a class-action lawsuit seeking a court-appointed monitor to oversee changes in the way the police conduct stops.
The Center for Constitutional Rights brought the case on behalf of four suspects, arguing that officers wrongly target people by race, partly because they're pressured to fill quotas. The city denies that claim, stating that police focus on high-crime areas, and crime is overwhelmingly found in minority neighborhoods.
The trial has included testimony from Deputy Chief Michael Marino, now the executive officer of Patrol Borough Staten Island, who defended his decision to hold officers to a minimum 10 summonses and one arrest per month when he commanded the 75th Precinct in East New York.
Marino said he was trying to force poorly performing officers to follow a simple standard: "Do your job or suffer the consequences."
However, it also has included audio recordings of police officers, including one made by Pedro Serrano, an officer in the Bronx's 40th Precinct, where his superior, Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack, criticized him for not making enough stops, and told him to stop "the right people at the right time, the right location."
MALE BLACKS, 14 to 20'
"Again, take Mott Haven, where he had the most problems ... robberies and grand larcenies. The problem was, what? Male blacks... And as I told you at roll call, and I have no problem telling you this, male blacks 14 to 20, 21," McCormack was recorded as saying.
The airing of that recording sparked a response from Paul Browne, the NYPD's top spokesman, who praised McCormack.
"It's important to note the context of Deputy Inspector McCormack's taped remarks; he was describing suspects in patterns of burglaries and robberies who were victimizing people in a specific part of the precinct, not racially profiling," Browne said.
Historically, Republican City Council members James Oddo and Vincent Ignizio have defended the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policies, while Democrat Debi Rose has criticized the tactic, saying it has "engendered ill-will and distrust" in minority communities.
Oddo said last week that both the Island statistics and the trial testimony solidifies his past support.
"I understand that this is a hot-button issue this election season, but I favor policies that help reduce crime and protect people from being the victims of crime. The data and the testimony at the trial show that crime determines who is stopped by the police," Oddo said. "Stop and frisk, when done correctly and appropriately, is a vital component of a data-driven system employed by the NYPD which has netted historic reductions in crime in New York City that far exceed what has happened across the country."
District Attorney Daniel Donovan echoed those sentiments on Friday, calling the policy "a very effective crimefighting tool when done properly."
"Whether the year-end numbers are up or down means nothing because a variety of factors come into play each time a stop is conducted, and each stop needs to be evaluated on its own merit. The intended purpose is to get criminals off the streets and make communities safer," Donovan said.
CRIME STATS
As for crime on Staten Island, the borough saw a decrease in homicides in 2012 -- with 10 murders, plus two homicides that weren't deemed murder by the NYPD, compared to 16 in 2011. Seven of last year's homicides were shooting deaths, while police attributed three of the year's killings to domestic disputes.
Nevertheless, the borough saw increases in several crime categories. Based on data through Dec. 9, 2012, the borough saw an 11.4 percent uptick in shooting incidents with 39, compared to 35 for that same time frame in 2011.
Rapes rose by 22.9 percent, while felony assaults spiked 17.3 percent, robberies increased by 8.9 percent, and grand larcenies saw a 14.2 percent increase. The Island saw a .7 percent downtick in burglaries, despite fears of looting after Hurricane Sandy.
Associated Press material was included in this report.
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Be Our Guest: Ending stop-and-frisk abuses will help rebuild neighborhood trust in the NYPD
Stop-and-frisks 'eat away at the trust a community should have in the people...they rely on for basic safety.'
By Mark Winston Griffith (Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights Community Organizer) — Monday, April 1st, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
(Op-Ed / Commentary)
While jogging down the street a few years ago, I suddenly found myself surrounded by at least three unmarked vehicles and several plainclothed white men with guns. They ordered me against a car, patted me down and, after a minute or so of undecipherable conversation between them, without any explanation, calmly walked back to their cars and drove off.
I am the co-founder of a community organizing group that works to build grassroots power. But on that day, standing three blocks from my own house in Central Brooklyn, I felt powerless.
I’m not alone. Brooklyn is the city’s most stopped-and-frisked borough. The NYPD’s report for 2011 — which documented a record 685,724 stops — showed that three of the borough’s precincts ranked in the top five citywide. In Bedford-Stuyvesant alone, there were 14,495 stops in the 79th Precinct and 13,651 in the 81st in 2011.
It’s tempting to conclude that this is an unavoidable response to crime. In Central Brooklyn, where I live and work, the threat of crime is real and visceral. Already in 2013, in some categories, violent crime is trending higher in the 79th and 81st Precincts than in 2012. And after a series of random gun-based massacres across the country, the nation is finally coming to grips with the horrors of gun violence.
Unfortunately, stop-and-frisks stand freakishly outside legitimate attempts to address public safety or the threat of guns. Levels of gun violence in our city have remained nearly unchanged during the 11 years and three months of the Bloomberg administration, despite the fact that the use of stop-and-frisk increased more than 600% through 2011. Contrary to assertions by the Mayor’s office, which otherwise seems genuinely committed to national gun control efforts, stop-and-frisk has not been an effective method of removing guns from our communities. Less than 1% of 2011 stops led to the recovery of a gun.
The Bloomberg administration misleadingly claims that the NYPD conducts stops based on suspect descriptions. The NYPD’s report on 2011 stops includes statistics related to crime suspects, but the fact is that the majority of stops — more than 87% between January 2010 and June 2012 — are not triggered by suspect descriptions at all.
Widely known by now, is that nearly 90% of those stopped and frisked are not arrested or issued a summons — that is consistent across the last 11 years. The Constitutionality of the Bloomberg administration’s stop-and-frisk policy is currently on trial in federal court.
But this issue goes beyond statistics and the violation of civil rights. Stops eat away at the trust that a community should have in the people whom they rely on for basic safety and order. They also bypass opportunities to build meaningful partnerships between local stakeholders and designated peacekeepers.
As a community organizer, my job, literally, is to find ways to improve the quality of life in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, rather than looking at the police as allies, I more often view them as an occupying army. Similarly, as a father of two young boys, I shouldn’t be forced to explain that I or they might be stopped one day by the police simply because we are black or Latino, or because we live in Crown Heights.
There is a way to address stop-and-frisk abuses in the form of the Community Safety Act legislative package, which is designed to help end discriminatory police practices. The City Council is progressing toward passing the inspector general component of the act. The Council should also advance the rest of the package promptly, in particular the ban on discriminatory profiling, to make sure all families are afforded the same rights — no matter what neighborhood they live in or the color of their skin — and to ensure there is effective oversight of the NYPD.
At the end of the day, all any family wants to be is safe. Ending stop-and-frisk abuses will allow us the freedom to focus attention where it is truly needed: On reducing gun violence, improving schools and ensuring the health of our communities.
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Harbor
Seattle Shipyard Delivers Third NYPD Boat
Kvichak Marine Industries, of Seattle, WA, recently delivered a third 44.5’ Response Boat Medium to the New York Police Department Harbor Unit.
By Unnamed Author(s) — Sunday, March 31st, 2013; ‘MarineLink.Com’
The first two RB-M C’s were delivered in April 2010 and August 2012. Both have been providing maritime security and law enforcement along with search and rescue in the New York metropolitan area.
These all-aluminum vessels are designed by Camarc Design, UK and powered by tier II compliant twin Detroit Diesel 60 series engines rated for 825 BHP each coupled to Twin Disc MG5114SC marine gears. Rolls Royce Kamewa FF375S waterjets are the chosen propulsion.
A full cabin provides crew protection from the elements and is equipped with a robust navigation system, heat and air conditioning, shock mitigating seats and a communication system capable of communicating with other maritime security partners.
Additional vessel features include:
• Overall length: 44.5’
• Beam, overall: 13.7’
• Draft (RFS): 3.0’
• Fuel capacity: 495 gallons
• Top speed: >40 knots
• (2) Rescue zones
• Vector-Stick integrated control system
• SeaFLIR Voyager III system
• Kohler 9kW genset for AC power
• Deck Heat
• Furuno Navnet system
• Redundant GPS & sounders
• Climate controlled pilot house and cabin
• Heated windows
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Muslim spying has real victims
NYPD tactics sow fear and mistrust
By Diala Shamas — Monday, April 1st, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
(Op-Ed / Commentary)
NOTE: Diala Shamas has also written articles published in Aljazeera News. - Mike
American Muslims: They’re Democrats and Republicans, young and old, bodega owners, doctors, cabbies, bankers, lawyers, students and entrepreneurs.
But the Police Department seems to think they could all be potential terrorists.
Accordingly, the NYPD has decided Muslim communities should be spied on. As part of a vast, costly and, until recently, covert surveillance program that started in 2001, the NYPD had undercover officers and informants go into restaurants and stores, infiltrate mosques and student groups, canvas neighborhoods to record the mundane details of American Muslims’ daily activities. Officers noted, for example, what sort of cuisine was served in an establishment and whether it aired Al-Jazeera.
This was supposedly done to find terrorists or those who would offer them succor. But the truth is that the NYPD was taking a page from the KGB’s notorious playbook.
After a good decade of intensive spying, the NYPD still cannot point to a single lead or prosecution that has resulted from this strategy. And despite the failure to justify blanket surveillance on the basis of religion, the NYPD still asks New Yorkers to trust blindly in these problematic tactics.
Though indiscriminate spying is ineffective, that doesn’t mean that it is harmless. Last month, a civil liberties coalition released a report documenting the devastating impact of NYPD spying on the American Muslim community.
As one of the report’s authors, I spent many hours listening to Muslim New Yorkers from all walks of life as they told chilling stories of how every aspect of their daily routines has been affected, how they have essentially been made to cower from the public sphere that American democracy is supposed to celebrate.
The stories are painful. One student we spoke with recounted how, after he had enrolled at CUNY, officers knocked on his door, offering him money to peruse other Muslim students’ Facebook pages and report their postings. While he resisted despite the pressure, he assumed many of his peers had similarly been approached.
His concern was well-justified: Last October, a young man of Bangladeshi origins “outed” himself as an informant on Facebook, telling his friends that he had not only befriended them at the instruction of his NYPD handlers, but that he had been reporting on their conversations, study groups and boyish banter for months.
The result is as unsurprising as it is depressing. At Hunter College, the Muslim student club put up a sign beseeching members not to discuss politics in the group’s club room, because the club feared attracting NYPD surveillance.
Muslim students at Brooklyn College told us they were so afraid of police officers, they would not even ask one for directions. Elsewhere, Muslim students describe not speaking up in class. Parents ask their children to shave their beards or not hang out with their “Muslim-looking” friends, fearing that might trigger NYPD scrutiny.
Muslim men and women from many backgrounds say they have stopped going to the mosque to pray — or now look over their shoulders and wonder whether the person next to them is an informant. Religious leaders assume their every word, even confidential counseling sessions, is recorded.
The list is long, but the point is simple: Surveillance harms individuals and communities, breeding the very mistrust the NYPD has said it wants to dispel.
Proponents of the NYPD’s surveillance program argue that those who have done nothing wrong should have nothing to hide. But the logic of this claim is offensive to the deeply valued American concepts of privacy and freedom of speech. The notion that a community’s speech and actions are being monitored weakens our democracy, essentially reducing an entire segment of the population to silence and second-class status.
During the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II, calls of national security were similarly used to silence those inquiring about the wisdom and fairness of using repressive measures against a single group. We now look back at that dark moment in our history with shame.
What the NYPD is asking New Yorkers to do is essentially the same: Turn a blind eye to the scapegoating of Muslims.
But the truth remains that the NYPD’s surveillance program has failed on every count. It is expensive, it is ineffective and it is discriminatory.
Much as with the department’s stop-and-frisk policy, now on trial in Manhattan, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly should answer questions about what he is doing and why. New Yorkers simply deserve it.
Shamas is a Liman Fellow and staff attorney at the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility project at CUNY School of Law. She is a co-author of the recently released report “Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spying and its Impact on American Muslims.”
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Ret. Det. Louis Scarcella
Ex-detective from Staten Island finds himself in the eye of the storm after Ranta case
By Dean Balsamini — Monday, April 1st, 2013 ‘The Staten Island Advance’ / Staten Island
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Louis Scarcella says his successes as a police detective have made him a marked man in the eyes of the defense attorneys he's locked horns with at trial.
So when the case against David Ranta -- who was wrongly convicted and jailed for 23 years for the 1990 killing of a prominent rabbi, on a case built by Scarcella -- collapsed spectacularly last month, the retired detective says a cadre of his old lawyer foes took the opportunity to look for payback.
Scarcella, now 61 years old and living on Staten Island, has been the subject of media scrutiny since a judge tossed Ranta's conviction -- after a review of the case a then 13-year-old witness came forward to say Scarcella coached him, and a detective told him during a lineup to "pick the guy with the big nose."
In an interview with the Advance, Scarcella stood by his investigation, said he "did nothing wrong," and "never framed anybody in my life."
"There have been a number of high profile cases in the past where I got confessions with my partner, and we went to trial, and the individuals were convicted and allegedly, this group of lawyers, I received word, 'They're gonna get you, they're gonna get you, they're gonna get you, they're gonna get you,'" he said.
"Fast-forward to this point in time, now if you see the situation now, I call it the perfect storm.... Here you have these attorneys, and I believe the same ones are involved in this, they saw this perfect case, where three witnesses recanted and two witnesses died. Three witnesses recanted and two witnesses died. Here you have the perfect storm, and here I am in the eye of that storm."
Ranta was convicted in the Feb. 8, 1990, murder of Rabbi Chaskel Werzberger, who was shot to death in the aftermath of a botched robbery of a diamond courier in Brooklyn. Werzberger was a Holocaust survivor and a leader of the Satmar Hasidic community, and his death brought protests and outrage.
Nothing physically linked Ranta to the crime, but a jury found him guilty in May 1991, based on witness testimony and circumstantial evidence, and signed statements that Scarcella said Ranta made confessing his role in the robbery.
Scarcella said Ranta gave him a confession while the two sat on a bench at central booking. "I told him we were from the same neighborhood, and I played ball in the neighborhood. I was brought up in that neighborhood. I lived there for a number of years... If I remember correctly, I said 'We're a lot alike in some ways.'
"I said, 'Why don't you just tell me what happened,' something along those lines....What I did was, I made a decision. I had a manila envelope, a couple of manila envelopes, and I believe I took the statements on the envelopes, the manila envelopes, and he signed them. That's not standard, but in investigations, you take statements wherever you can."
Ranta has denied making those statements, stating he signed a blank file folder because he thought it was a phone form that would allow him to make a phone call, and no audio or video exists to back up the written confession. Scarcella said the NYPD didn't record confessions back in 1990.
The case began to unravel in 2011, when the conviction integrity unit of the Brooklyn District Attorney's office launched a review, and found several gaps in the paperwork and inconsistencies.
Most notably, a key witness came forward to say detectives pressured him to "pick the guy with the big nose" at a lineup.
Another of Scarcella's high-profile cases has come under renewed scrutiny after Ranta's release -- in 2005, Scarcella probed allegations of Regents exam tampering at a Brooklyn school, while he was working as an investigator for Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon.
Scarcella had concluded that an assistant principal tampered with exams and encouraged teachers to help her, and the school's principal cover it up. Though the principal was later cleared of wrongdoing, the assistant principal was forced to resign.
A second investigation by Condon's office tore Scarcella's findings to shreds, though, and a 2007 report said Scarcella "arrived at a number of conclusions which were not supported by evidence," and was "manipulated" by the untenured teacher who alleged the test-tampering after the assistant principal gave him a negative review that might have cost the teacher his job.
Scarcella still stands by his investigation, noting, "In fact, the Board of Education told me that that was one of-- I'll go as far, one of the best investigations that they have ever seen."
Asked about whether he now believes Ranta killed Werzberger, Scarcella said, "That's a very good question. I believe Mr. Ranta was there. I believe he was involved in the robbery. And I believe he left when the shots were fired."
He pointed out that prosecutors have publicly voiced doubts about Ranta's innocence, but said, "If the judge and the law says this is a legally innocent man, I say wonderful, I did my job to the best of the ability and did not do anything wrong during my investigation. And if the judge says he's innocent, God bless him."
And he strongly denies coaching the young witness.
"I never, ever did that. That is a complete lie. We had other witnesses who identified him. We had a case. I would not jeopardize my career, my honor, my job, in doing something illegal. I believe that's illegal," he said, adding, "I would not be able to sleep nights, and I would not be able to have Christmas dinner with my family. I would never do anything like that. The answer is no."
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New York State
Health experts criticize gun law's reporting rules
By Jessica Bakeman — Sunday, March 31st, 2013; ‘The Poughkeepsie Journal’ / Poughkeepsie, NY
ALBANY — Psychiatrists and county officials are questioning a part of New York’s gun-control law that requires them to take steps that could lead to firearms being seized from potentially dangerous people they encounter or counsel.
Since a mid-March effective date, the state’s Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act has required mental health treatment providers to report to their county governments when a patient is a potential danger to himself or others. Once approved by the county, the report is sent to the state for entry into a database. Local law enforcement then must suspend or revoke any gun licenses issued to people in the database and, if necessary, remove their firearms.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has touted the reporting requirements in the law, saying they will keep guns away from the dangerously mentally ill and prevent the type of mass shootings that have struck the state and nation. But the parties who must participate in the process said it was hastily designed and broadly written.
“When someone drops a whole new set of rules out of the sky, and there isn’t a whole lot of time to discuss them or consider them or appreciate the many dimensions that may be played out in this, it becomes really entangling,” said Eric Caine, psychiatry department chair at University of Rochester Medical Center.
Mental health and other medical groups have pushed for amendments they said would promote consistency with previously existing laws and diminish potential liability. The groups had hoped to see the changes made in the budget, which included tweaks to other parts of the law. The budget passed Thursday.
Changes sought
Cuomo has agreed with legislative leaders on a few changes to the law in the budget. But he was adamant the state would make only “technical” amendments.
“I am not open to any substantive changes on the law, period,” Cuomo said when asked March 20 about the proposed changes to the mental health requirements.
Sen. Jeff Klein, D-Bronx, doesn’t expect mental health changes, he said in a Tuesday interview with the Albany bureau. Klein heads the Independent Democratic Conference, which shares power in the Senate.
“I don’t think it’s too much to ask a mental health professional that if one of their patients tells them that they are going to commit harm to themselves or somebody else that they have a duty to report it,” he said.
Sen. David Carlucci, D-New City, Rockland County, who chairs the Senate Mental Health Committee, said he’s considering holding hearings to discuss “how we can make sure that we’re delivering the best services to residents around New York state and we’re not impeding access or having a stigma attached to mental illness.”
The state Medical Society and the Psychiatric Association petitioned Cuomo for changes in early March. Patients’ advocates, nurses and social workers have since joined the effort. Primarily, the groups seek changes in the reporting standards because they vary from criteria that have previously governed treatment providers’ actions.
Typically, if a therapist thinks a patient presents “a serious and imminent threat” to the health and safety of himself or others, the professional may report the patient to law enforcement or a potential victim without breaching confidentiality.
Under the SAFE Act, the therapist must report “when in their reasonable professional judgment” the patient “is likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others.”
The state Office of Mental Health, which has issued guidance materials, maintains that the standard is the same. Caine agrees but said therapists will over report.
“Clinicians, not really understanding the nature of the law, may report people that the law never had the intention of being reported and, in the process, destroy all sorts of trust that might be there,” he said. “We’re not sure at all that it’s going to make anybody safer, and it may have unintended consequences.”
In the letter to Cuomo dated March 1, mental health groups wrote that the existence of two standards would lead to the reporting of people who would never require hospitalization and deter people with mental illnesses from seeking treatment.
Therapists’ chief concern has been that patients who were feeling suicidal or homicidal might conceal their troubles to avoid having their guns removed.
The state Nurses Association wrote in a March 13 memo to Cuomo that the law stigmatizes mental illness by linking it to gun violence, creating barriers for those who need treatment.
The groups also think the language in the SAFE Act could make health officials vulnerable to lawsuits. The law shields therapists from civil and criminal liability when the decision to report is made “reasonably and in good faith.” But medical professionals want the law changed to protect them from liability unless they exercise “malice or intentional misconduct.”
Who reports
Also at question is who should be required to report. The law says physicians, including psychiatrists; psychologists; registered nurses; and licensed clinical social workers are obligated to make reports. Experts argue that nurse practitioners, who have a higher level of education, should be included, rather than registered nurses.
“The scope of practice of RNs does not extend to making the diagnosis and prognosis necessary to evoke a report,” the Medical Society and Psychiatric Association wrote in the March 1 letter.
The Nurses Association also objected in its memo, urging an amendment that would relieve non-nurse practitioners from the requirement.
“Without the additional training, certification and ongoing education and experience in reporting at-risk individuals, mental health RNs (non-nurse practitioners) would be subject to liability that is inconsistent with current law,” the memo said.
Under the law, after a report is made, county mental health officials review it. If they agree the patient is dangerous, they forward the report to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.
County officials want to be removed from the process, suggesting that therapists report directly to the state, the state Conference for Local Mental Hygiene Directors wrote in a February memo of opposition. Kelly Hansen, the group’s executive director, questioned the clinical value of the county officials’ involvement.
“If the person isn’t known to you — which, outside of a rural county, it’s very unlikely that they would be — why would anyone … question the clinical judgment of the person who has laid eyes on the patient and is treating them?” Hansen said.
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NYS Senate Co-Leader Jeffrey Klein To Take Up Stalled NYC Speed Camera Bill
(Bloomberg and Kelly Support It!)
BY Ken Lovett — Monday, April 1st, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
Here is the lead item from my "Albany Insider" column today:
One of the two lawmakers who call the shots in the state Senate has vowed to fight for legislative approval of the city’s stalled push to use cameras to bust lead footed motorists.
Senate co-leader Jeffrey Klein (D-Bronx) says he is picking up the bill, which ran into Senate GOP opposition amid an outcry from the city Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.
Klein said he will make it a priority to pass it before the Legislature ends its session in June. He’ll have to wrangle for votes to do so, but his backing vastly improves the measure’s chances of arriving on Gov. Cuomo’s desk for a signature.
“I think this is a very smart approach to alleviate speeding,” Klein said of speed enforcement cameras.
“Our police do an incredible job fighting crime in the city, but they can’t be everywhere at once,” he added. “Let’s get these speed cameras in place so our city’s Finest can continue fighting crime and not writing traffic tickets.”
Klein, who heads a group of five dissident Democrats who jointly run the state Senate along with the Republicans, is one of two senators who has the power to set the chamber’s agenda. Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau County) is the other.
In the lead up to passage of the 2013-14 state budget late last month, the Democrat-led Assembly included in a spending bill a measure that would authorize the city to launch a pilot program to place up to 20 speed enforcement cameras in school speed zones throughout the city.
The measure was backed by Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who wrote letters to Cuomo and legislative leaders, urging the Senate to include the plan in the budget.
But several influential Senate Republicans blocked the effort.
Bloomberg, the Senate GOP’s biggest individual financial backer, said last week that the GOP lawmakers’ “reckless and negligent” decision to oppose the measure will lead to children being killed by speeding motorists.
The mayor singled out Skelos for blame, along with Sens. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn) and Republican-allied Brooklyn Dem Simcha Felder.
Golden, a former city cop, insisted that speed cameras are unreliable. He sided with the PBA in arguing that hiring of more cops is a better way to crack down on speeders.
Recent city data show that speeding was a factor in nearly 30% of all traffic fatalities in 2012.
Klein said the data show speeding is especially common within a quarter mile of schools. He noted that three of the worst areas in the Bronx are in his district.
“If you look at the data released by the city, it’s a clear safety issue,” Klein said.
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U.S.A.
Mexican drug cartels move deeper into United States to maximize profits
By MICHAEL TARM (The Associated Press) — Monday, April 1st, 2013; 9:06 a.m. EDT
CHICAGO (AP) -- Mexican drug cartels whose operatives once rarely ventured beyond the U.S. border are dispatching some of their most trusted agents to live and work deep inside the United States - an emboldened presence that experts believe is meant to tighten their grip on the world's most lucrative narcotics market and maximize profits.
If left unchecked, authorities say, the cartels' move into the American interior could render the syndicates harder than ever to dislodge and pave the way for them to expand into other criminal enterprises such as prostitution, kidnapping-and-extortion rackets and money laundering.
Cartel activity in the U.S. is certainly not new. Starting in the 1990s, the ruthless syndicates became the nation's No. 1 supplier of illegal drugs, using unaffiliated middlemen to smuggle cocaine, marijuana and heroin beyond the border or even to grow pot here.
But a wide-ranging Associated Press review of federal court cases and government drug-enforcement data, plus interviews with many top law enforcement officials, indicate the groups have begun deploying agents from their inner circles to the U.S. Cartel operatives are suspected of running drug-distribution networks in at least nine non-border states, often in middle-class suburbs in the Midwest, South and Northeast.
"It's probably the most serious threat the United States has faced from organized crime," said Jack Riley, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chicago office.
The cartel threat looms so large that one of Mexico's most notorious drug kingpins - a man who has never set foot in Chicago - was recently named the city's Public Enemy No. 1, the same notorious label once assigned to Al Capone.
The Chicago Crime Commission, a non-government agency that tracks crime trends in the region, said it considers Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman even more menacing than Capone because Guzman leads the deadly Sinaloa cartel, which supplies most of the narcotics sold in Chicago and in many cities across the U.S.
Years ago, Mexico faced the same problem - of then-nascent cartels expanding their power - "and didn't nip the problem in the bud," said Jack Killorin, head of an anti-trafficking program in Atlanta for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. "And see where they are now."
Riley sounds a similar alarm: "People think, `The border's 1,700 miles away. This isn't our problem.' Well, it is. These days, we operate as if Chicago is on the border."
Border states from Texas to California have long grappled with a cartel presence. But cases involving cartel members have now emerged in the suburbs of Chicago and Atlanta, as well as Columbus, Ohio, Louisville, Ky., and rural North Carolina. Suspects have also surfaced in Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.
Mexican drug cartels "are taking over our neighborhoods," Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane warned a legislative committee in February. State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan disputed her claim, saying cartels are primarily drug suppliers, not the ones trafficking drugs on the ground.
For years, cartels were more inclined to make deals in Mexico with American traffickers, who would then handle transportation to and distribution within major cities, said Art Bilek, a former organized crime investigator who is now executive vice president of the crime commission.
As their organizations grew more sophisticated, the cartels began scheming to keep more profits for themselves. So leaders sought to cut out middlemen and assume more direct control, pushing aside American traffickers, he said.
Beginning two or three years ago, authorities noticed that cartels were putting "deputies on the ground here," Bilek said. "Chicago became such a massive market ... it was critical that they had firm control."
To help fight the syndicates, Chicago recently opened a first-of-its-kind facility at a secret location where 70 federal agents work side-by-side with police and prosecutors. Their primary focus is the point of contact between suburban-based cartel operatives and city street gangs who act as retail salesmen. That is when both sides are most vulnerable to detection, when they are most likely to meet in the open or use cellphones that can be wiretapped.
Others are skeptical about claims cartels are expanding their presence, saying law-enforcement agencies are prone to exaggerating threats to justify bigger budgets.
David Shirk, of the University of San Diego's Trans-Border Institute, said there is a dearth of reliable intelligence that cartels are dispatching operatives from Mexico on a large scale.
"We know astonishingly little about the structure and dynamics of cartels north of the border," Shirk said. "We need to be very cautious about the assumptions we make."
Statistics from the DEA suggest a heightened cartel presence in more U.S. cities. In 2008, around 230 American communities reported some level of cartel presence. That number climbed to more than 1,200 in 2011, the most recent year for which information is available, though the increase is partly due to better reporting.
Dozens of federal agents and local police interviewed by the AP said they have identified cartel members or operatives using wiretapped conversations, informants or confessions. Hundreds of court documents reviewed by the AP appear to support those statements.
"This is the first time we've been seeing it - cartels who have their operatives actually sent here," said Richard Pearson, a lieutenant with the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department, which arrested four alleged operatives of the Zetas cartel in November in the suburb of Okolona.
People who live on the tree-lined street where authorities seized more than 2,400 pounds of marijuana and more than $1 million in cash were shocked to learn their low-key neighbors were accused of working for one of Mexico's most violent drug syndicates, Pearson said.
One of the best documented cases is Jose Gonzalez-Zavala, who was dispatched to the U.S. by the La Familia cartel, according to court filings.
In 2008, the former taxi driver and father of five moved into a spacious home at 1416 Brookfield Drive in a middle-class neighborhood of Joliet, southwest of Chicago. From there, court papers indicate, he oversaw wholesale shipments of cocaine in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana.
Wiretap transcripts reveal he called an unidentified cartel boss in Mexico almost every day, displaying the deference any midlevel executive might show to someone higher up the corporate ladder. Once he stammered as he explained that one customer would not pay a debt until after a trip.
"No," snaps the boss. "What we need is for him to pay."
The same cartel assigned Jorge Guadalupe Ayala-German to guard a Chicago-area stash house for $300 a week, plus a promised $35,000 lump-sum payment once he returned to Mexico after a year or two, according to court documents.
Ayala-German brought his wife and child to help give the house the appearance of an ordinary family residence. But he was arrested before he could return home and pleaded guilty to multiple trafficking charges. He will be sentenced later this year.
Socorro Hernandez-Rodriguez was convicted in 2011 of heading a massive drug operation in suburban Atlanta's Gwinnett County. The chief prosecutor said he and his associates were high-ranking figures in the La Familia cartel - an allegation defense lawyers denied.
And at the end of February outside Columbus, Ohio, authorities arrested 34-year-old Isaac Eli Perez Neri, who allegedly told investigators he was a debt collector for the Sinaloa cartel.
An Atlanta attorney who has represented reputed cartel members says authorities sometimes overstate the threat such men pose.
"Often, you have a kid whose first time leaving Mexico is sleeping on a mattress at a stash house playing Game Boy, eating Burger King, just checking drugs or money in and out," said Bruce Harvey. "Then he's arrested and gets a gargantuan sentence. It's sad."
Because cartels accumulate houses full of cash, they run the constant risk associates will skim off the top. That points to the main reason cartels prefer their own people: Trust is hard to come by in their cutthroat world. There's also a fear factor. Cartels can exert more control on their operatives than on middlemen, often by threatening to torture or kill loved ones back home.
Danny Porter, chief prosecutor in Gwinnett County, Ga., said he has tried to entice dozens of suspected cartel members to cooperate with American authorities. Nearly all declined. Some laughed in his face.
"They say, `We are more scared of them (the cartels) than we are of you. We talk and they'll boil our family in acid,'" Porter said. "Their families are essentially hostages."
Citing the safety of his own family, Gonzalez-Zavala declined to cooperate with authorities in exchange for years being shaved off his 40-year sentence.
In other cases, cartel brass send their own family members to the U.S.
"They're sometimes married or related to people in the cartels," Porter said. "They don't hire casual labor." So meticulous have cartels become that some even have operatives fill out job applications before being dispatched to the U.S., Riley added.
In Mexico, the cartels are known for a staggering number of killings - more than 50,000, according to one tally. Beheadings are sometimes a signature.
So far, cartels don't appear to be directly responsible for large numbers of slayings in the United States, though the Texas Department of Public Safety reported 22 killings and five kidnappings in Texas at the hands of Mexican cartels from 2010 through mid- 2011.
Still, police worry that increased cartel activity could fuel heightened violence.
In Chicago, the police commander who oversees narcotics investigations, James O'Grady, said street-gang disputes over turf account for most of the city's uptick in murders last year, when slayings topped 500 for the first time since 2008. Although the cartels aren't dictating the territorial wars, they are the source of drugs.
Riley's assessment is stark: He argues that the cartels should be seen as an underlying cause of Chicago's disturbingly high murder rate.
"They are the puppeteers," he said. "Maybe the shooter didn't know and maybe the victim didn't know that. But if you follow it down the line, the cartels are ultimately responsible."
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Killing of TX District Attorney, Wife, Likened to Violence by Mexican Drug Cartels
By Ted Gest — Monday, April 1st, 2013 ‘The John Jay College of Criminal Justice Crime & Justice News’ / Washington, DC
Whoever bashed in the door of Texas District Attorney Mike McLelland and gunned down him and his wife over Easter weekend unleashed a level of brazenness felt across the state and used tactics chillingly similar to those of drug-cartel assassins, says the Houston Chronicle. "
At this point, we can just speculate, but whatever it is, it ain't good," said Robert Kepple of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. A McLelland assistant was murdered on his way to work two months ago.
Mike Vigil, retired chief of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said regardless who carried out the Kaufman County attacks, the link to Mexican drug cartels is clear. "It really paints a portrait of individuals who are either affiliated with Mexican drug trafficking organizations [ ] or individuals who have learned (their) tactics," Vigil said.
In Mexico, an ongoing war between drug cartels and security forces has turned regions of the country into lawless lands, where cartel hit men have shown no hesitation to spray people with gunfire in their homes or businesses, or kick down their doors and make them disappear in the night. "It could be a world of possibilities," he continued. "But it is a common tactic used by Mexican drug cartels, and it is signature given the fact that this is what they do in Mexico."
To read the Houston Chronicle article, go to:
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F.B.I.
Woman among those under consideration to lead FBI
By Sari Horwitz — Monday, April 1st, 2013 ‘The Washington Post’ / Washington, DC
The Obama administration has begun to search for a replacement for FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, and for the first time one of the leading contenders is a woman.
One of several people under consideration, according to current and past administration officials, is Lisa Monaco, who left a senior post at the Justice Department this month to become President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser.
Mueller, 68, will step down Sept. 4 after 12 years on the job. Since taking the helm a week before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Mueller has overseen the bureau’s transformation into a worldwide counterterrorism operation.
The director’s job is limited to 10 years by law, but the Senate in 2011 extended Mueller’s term for two years at the request of President Obama after a search for a replacement failed.
Officials said the administration wants to find a successor soon so that person can be vetted, nominated and confirmed before Congress goes on summer recess. In the early stages, the process is being coordinated by the Justice Department.
“Mueller will leave very big shoes to fill,” said one Justice Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. “Two years ago, he was portrayed as the indispensable man. Now, the FBI is going to have to do without the indispensable man in a matter of a few months.”
Among the names that have surfaced as contenders are Monaco, who oversaw the National Security Division at Justice before moving to the White House; Merrick B. Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; James B. Comey, deputy attorney general in the George W. Bush administration; Neil MacBride, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; and Patrick J. Fitzgerald, former U.S. attorney in Chicago.
Spokeswomen for the White House and the Justice Department declined to comment on the search. Other current officials described the process on condition that they not be identified when talking about internal deliberations.
“The problem we quickly ran into two years ago is that there just aren’t a lot of people who have Bob Mueller’s stature, but eventually you have to face the fact that he can’t stay in the job forever,” said Matthew Miller, a former Justice spokesman. “No one can fill his shoes on day one, but we’re four years into the administration now, and there are a number of talented people who have added some significant experience to their résumés.”
The next FBI director will lead an agency with a more complex and demanding mission than the agency Mueller took before the Sept. 11 attacks. Since then, he has led the bureau’s evolution from traditional crime fighting to a heavy focus on preventing terrorist attacks.
While Mueller has won bipartisan support through two administrations, the bureau has increased its surveillance operations in ways that critics say sometimes violate civil liberties.
Law enforcement experts said that the new director will need to be experienced in both law enforcement and management, given the vast expansion of the FBI’s operations over the past decade.
Monaco, 44, would be the first woman to lead the FBI. Before heading the National Security Division at Justice, she was a counsel to former attorney general Janet Reno, an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and Mueller’s chief of staff at the FBI.
One concern about Monaco mentioned by department insiders is that she just became Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, replacing John Brennan when he became CIA director.
“The president is going to be personally relying on her to fulfill that role,” said one Justice official. “They might not be open to having a revolving door in that critical position at the White House.”
But another administration official said Monaco’s move to the White House might work in her favor because the president can closely observe her leadership skills.
Other contenders have pluses and minuses. Garland and Comey, both of whom were considered two years ago, are highly respected and experienced, but there are questions about whether either would want the job.
Fitzgerald, regarded as an independent-minded prosecutor, might face a tough confirmation because he prosecuted and convicted I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former vice president Dick Cheney’s top aide, in the Valerie Plame leak case. MacBride has established a strong track record for prosecuting national security cases, a mainstay of the bureau’s operations.
Konrad Motyka, president of the FBI Agents Association, which represents more than 12,000 active and retired agents, said several possible candidates have contacted him for advice and support. Motyka declined to name anyone, but he said he will be discussing them with members of Congress and administration officials in the coming weeks.
Jim Pasco, national executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, which represents more than 325,000 officers, said that the next FBI director needs to possess a deep understanding of law enforcement. Pasco suggested that the White House consider a veteran police official, such as Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey or New York City Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.
“The FBI is a huge bureaucracy, so the director has to be someone who can manage, first and foremost,” Pasco said. “To his credit, Bob Mueller has done a yeoman’s job in trying very hard to reach out and work with other agencies. But there is a continuing gap in the relationship the FBI has with state and local law enforcement and other federal agencies.”
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Earth to Mike Lupica and the ‘N.Y. Daily News’: “Read This”
Pushing back on arbitrary gun bans
Restrictive laws won’t save lives
By Laura Shackelford — Monday, April 1st, 2013 ‘The Washington Times’ / Washington, DC
(Op-Ed / Commentary)
COMMENT: Nicely said! - Mike Bosak
Even though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has stripped the controversial “assault weapons” ban out of the Democratic gun-control package headed to the Senate floor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein has vowed to graft parts of her arbitrary ban onto other gun-control legislation with bipartisan support. Throughout this process, the California Democrat and some of her colleagues have engaged in predictable public theatrics, factual distortions and outright scare tactics to obscure the real issues regarding gun violence in America.
In addition to offering a bill that does nothing to actually reduce gun crime, Mrs. Feinstein and her supporters are promoting legislation that erodes the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens who have every right to own the firearm of their choice for recreational shooting or personal defense.
Her rationale — that such a ban would yield a supposed reduction in violent crime — is not supported by evidence or facts.
Mrs. Feinstein’s gun ban arbitrarily targets 160 guns, magazines and various firearm accessories; yet, as Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, has pointed out, an analysis of Clinton-era Justice Department statistics reveals no link between the original 1994 “assault weapons” ban and any drop in crime. Why is Mrs. Feinstein reintroducing legislation that was ineffective the first time? Can’t lawmakers in Washington pass a law that realistically reduces gun violence?
A first step is helping law enforcement. We must give our law enforcement agencies the necessary budgets and manpower to arrest criminals with guns and pursue those who falsify background checks. Vice President Joseph R. Biden admits that federal law enforcement agencies don’t have the resources to investigate and arrest people who possess guns illegally. Yet instead of creating legislation that targets criminals with guns and people who lie on firearms applications, Mrs. Feinstein’s bill punishes all law-abiding citizens.
Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, noted how the Feinstein gun ban focuses on guns that appear to be “scary looking.” Mrs. Feinstein’s criteria for banning certain types of guns and gun accessories are superficial and arbitrary. An older model carbine rifle escapes the Feinstein gun ban, but a newer model that resembles the look of a military-style assault rifle is banned — purely for cosmetic reasons. A $15 pistol grip attached to any rifle or shotgun would suddenly classify that gun as a deadly “assault weapon” and subject to the Feinstein ban.
The theory that banning certain types of guns will reduce violent crime simply has no merit. According to a Dec. 21, 2012, article in The Washington Post, last year alone the president’s hometown of Chicago — which boasts some of the most restrictive gun laws in America — recorded nearly 2,400 shooting incidents and almost 500 homicides, 87 percent of which were gun-related. While Chicago’s homicide rate climbed 19 percent, restrictive gun laws have done nothing to stop violent crime.
If President Obama is serious about reducing gun violence, he should work with Congress to dedicate millions of dollars to federal law enforcement agencies and to federal prosecutors so they can lock up criminals with guns and go after people who blatantly lie on background-check forms. Under existing law, if you are a convicted felon, you cannot legally own a gun. We need to pursue felons, not deny the Second Amendment rights of honest folks who have every right to enjoy recreational shooting or have a reliable firearm with ample magazine capacity for personal defense.
As Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, has said, arbitrarily banning certain types of guns and gun accessories creates a “false sense of security,” which solves nothing. The simple truth is that any gun — from a single-shot revolver to the most modern rifle — is safe in the hands of a law-abiding citizen. The converse is also true. Any gun — from a single-shot revolver to the most advanced rifle — is dangerous in the hands of a criminal with no regard for human life.
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Chicago, Illinois (Garry Francis McCarthy)
Chicago murders down in March, police say
By Jessica D'Onofrio — Monday, April 1st, 2013 ‘ABC News’ / Chicago, IL
April 1, 2013 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- New numbers from Chicago police show a significant decline in murders for the month of March.
Police say 36 fewer murders were reported in March 2013 than in March 2012. They say that is a 69-percent reduction in the murder rate.
The drop in the murder rate is encouraging news for Chicago's religious leaders, community activists, elected officials and police.
"We have the ability to stop the violence in Chicago. We've seen the numbers come down. Now, we've got to create this to become the norm of Chicago, rather than exception," said Fr. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Church on Chicago's South Side.
"These numbers are progress, but they are by no means victory," Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy was quoted in a news release. "This progress is a result of the hard work of the dedicated men and women who work tirelessly to protect our streets, our partners in the community, ministers, teachers, principals, parents and citizens. We will continue to build on larger crime reduction strategy to bring the same sense of safety to every corner of Chicago."
February's murder rate was the lowest in more than 50 years. For the first three months of 2013 together, the murder rate is down 42 percent with 50 fewer murders reported than for the same period last year.
Why the drop?
Many say new policing strategies and anti-violence community outreach, and some say weather and prayer.
"Prayer counts, prayer works, and in March, we asked God for no more than 19 [murders]. So far, the number is 13," Salem Baptist Church Pastor James Meeks said last week.
The numbers also reverses a fear many had in January after the city recorded 43 murders for the month. January 2013 had the highest murder rate for that month in a decade. Many feared 2013's murder rate would top the numbers from 2012, but instead of climbing, the city's murder rate actually fell.
"You don't want to declare victory right now because numbers are phenomenal, but they're certainly trending in that way. When the weather warms up, that will be the real test of the [police] department's strategies, and I hope they work well because we all want a safe Chicago," said ABC7 Public Safety Expert and former Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis.
Superintendent McCarthy and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said they planned to release more information on crime prevention efforts later Monday.
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Chicago Murders Down 69 Percent: 'By No Means Victory,' Top Cop Says
By Mark Konkol — Monday, April 1st, ‘DNAinfo.Com News’ / Chicago, IL
CHICAGO — Murders in Chicago decreased 69 percent last month compared with March 2012, according to Chicago police data.
In all, there were 16 homicides in March — 36 fewer than March 2012, when 52 people were murdered. That makes it two months in a row with a significant decrease in murders. In February, the number of murders dropped 48 percent — 14 compared with 27 homicides in 2012.
Police said the March murder numbers continue a "six-month trend of a declining murder rate." That's welcome news after a particularly bloody January when 42 people were murdered — including 15-year-old Hadiya Pendelton, whose slaying made national news. The 42 slayings were just two more than January 2012, but enough to keep negative national media attention focused on street violence in Chicago, where 506 people were murdered in 2012.
Since the beginning of the year, there have been 69 murders — a 42 percent decrease compared with the 119 murders during the same three-month stretch in 2012.
Nonfatal shootings also significantly decreased citywide, police sources said.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy are slated to reveal more detailed violent crime statistics at an appearance in Pullman Monday morning.
McCarthy, who is approaching two years on the job, has rolled out a number of anti-violence initiatives that target gang hot spots and “hot people," violent gang members and their known associates. He’s also reorganized police districts, appointed new commanders and put an emphasis on catching fugitives, busting open drug markets and cracking down on quality-of-life violations.
Last week, McCarthy unveiled “Operation Impact,” which deploys rookie cops on foot patrol on the night shift in violent gang turf that accounts for 20 percent of violent crime citywide.
In a recent interview, McCarthy said the downward trend in murders shows his department is making “good progress” in battling Chicago’s shooting epidemic.
“Looking back it’s been a fast and furiously changing [police] department,” McCarthy said. “The strategies we’re using now are not the same ones we used in 2011 and 2012. And that’s why we’re having success.”
Since October 2012, the murder rate has dropped 28 percent, according to police.
"These numbers are progress, but they are by no means victory,” McCarthy said. "This progress is a result of the hard work of the dedicated men and women who work tirelessly to protect our streets [and] our partners in the community — ministers, teachers, principals, parents and citizens. We will continue to build on larger crime-reduction strategy to bring the same sense of safety to every corner of Chicago.”
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Las Vegas, Nevada
Homicide rate up 50 percent in Las Vegas over first quarter of 2012
By ANTONIO PLANAS — Monday, April 1st, 2013 ‘The New York Post Las Vegas Review-Journal’ / Las Vegas, Nevada
Four bloody days in 2013 fueled a 50 percent increase in homicides during the first quarter of the year, a Las Vegas police official said.
There were 27 slayings through March 27, up from 18 slayings through the same period in 2012.
The uptick concerns Capt. Chris Jones, head of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Robbery/Homicide Bureau.
“What’s really pushing our numbers up this year are the events that resulted in multiple deaths,” Jones said last week . “We have four events that accounted for 10 victims.”
On Jan. 8, three men and a woman broke into a south valley apartment with the intent to steal, police said. Gunshots were fired during the home invasion that left two men dead.
On Jan. 29, a 54-year-old man fatally shot his wife and her two adult children at their north valley home in a murder-suicide, police said.
On Feb. 3, a 57-year-old man, who only hours earlier had physically threatened his ex-girlfriend, kicked in her apartment door on South Paradise Road and fatally shot her and her boyfriend, police said.
On Feb. 21, a boastful pimp and an aspiring rapper had a pre-dawn dispute at the valet of the Aria resort.
When the two men crossed paths minutes later on Las Vegas Boulevard, each behind the wheel of a luxury vehicle, several gunshots were fired from a Range Rover at the driver of a Maserati.
The shooting caused a domino-effect fiery crash, with the Maserati colliding with a taxi that exploded.
The cabby and his passenger, a female tourist from Washington, were killed. The driver of the Maserati died from a gunshot wound to his chest.
The triple homicide on the iconic Las Vegas Strip garnered national headlines.
Other than those four days of carnage in 2013, Jones said investigators can’t point to increases in specific homicide categories, such as domestic, drug-related or gang.
However, 15 of the 27 homicides up to March 27 were the results of “disputes,” or an argument between two or more parties that results in a killing. There were only five dispute homicides through late March in 2012, Jones said.
He added that because of Police Department budget cuts and hiring freezes, fewer officers are patrolling streets. Their presence in neighborhoods acts as a deterrent.
“The first defense in those disputes is the patrol force,” Jones said.
Las Vegas police face a $46 million budget deficit. In recent years, Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie has used reserve funds to cover the shortfall. He has also cut about 500 police and civilian positions.
Department spokeswoman Laura Meltzer said no matter how much police push preventative measures, people will continue to kill each other.
“You won’t be able to prevent all of them,” she said.
Bill Sousa, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas criminal justice professor, said that while the spike in homicide figures is concerning, it’s difficult to glean much from just three months of data because the sample size is too small.
Sousa also said homicides are difficult to prevent because they often involve impulsive decisions.
“Just because they’ve had a bad few months, I don’t know if that’s indicative that the problem will continue to go up,” Sousa said. “Homicides are a quirky thing.”
Although this year’s homicide numbers have perturbed him, Jones points to some of his bureau’s successes, specifically, the high number of arrests his 24 homicide detectives have made.
In 2012, detectives made arrests in 78 percent of homicide cases. As of late March, detectives have made arrests in 81 percent of their cases this year, Jones said. He gave the credit to detectives.
“They work tirelessly,” Jones said.
There are no outstanding suspects in the deaths of the 10 victims in four days of multiple homicides.
Police arrested six men and one woman in those cases. That includes the man who shot his family and then turned the gun on himself. He died days after the shooting, police said.
Despite this year’s challenges, Jones is focused on reducing the number of homicides from the total for 2012, when the department saw only 84, a record low in recent history.
Sousa said homicides can happen in clusters followed by lulls, and because of that, the recent occurrence of frequent slayings might slow.
“There is no reason to say why they (Las Vegas police) can’t wind up with (homicide) numbers even lower than last year,” he said.
Jones said his agency will continue to utilize certain initiatives to combat homicides.
In 2009, police introduced a “lethality assessment program” aimed at identifying people at high risk for being killed by their partner.
Officers were required to ask abuse victims a series of questions, including whether their abuser had ever used a weapon, left threatening messages, stalked or choked them.
Choking is a particular precursor for a homicide, police say. A 2009 law increased choking from a misdemeanor to a felony.
If police feel abuse victims are at high risk for being murdered by their partner, an officer will encourage them to visit a domestic-violence shelter as well as conduct follow-ups with them.
Police also have emphasized community-orientated initiatives, such as the Safe Village program of West Las Vegas begun in 2006. The initiative focuses on bringing police and community and religious leaders together to educate youth and prevent retaliations after shootings. The program model has been used by other neighborhoods.
Jones said police will continue to work to prevent homicides while detectives tackle the cases that come across their desks.
“Our goal each year is to reduce not just homicides, but crime in general,” he said. “We have a vision to be the safest community in America.”
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California / Perverts Gone Wild
Tests found major flaws in parolee GPS monitoring devices
One company's devices were deemed so unreliable that California ordered a complete switch to another firm's, citing 'imminent danger' to the public. A lawsuit ensued.
By Paige St. John — Sunday, March 31st, 2013; ‘The Los Angeles Times’ / Los Angeles, CA
A little more than a year ago, California quietly began conducting tests on the GPS monitoring devices that track the movements of thousands of sex offenders.
The results were alarming.
Corrections officials found the devices used in half the state were so inaccurate and unreliable that the public was "in imminent danger."
Batteries died early, cases cracked, reported locations were off by as much as three miles. Officials also found that tampering alerts failed and offenders were able to disappear by covering the devices with foil, deploying illegal GPS jammers or ducking into cars or buildings.
The state abruptly ordered parole agents to remove every ankle monitor in use from north of Los Angeles to the Oregon border. In their place, they strapped on devices made by a different manufacturer — a mass migration that left California's criminal tracking system not operational for several hours.
The test results provide a glimpse of the blind spots in electronic monitoring, even as those systems are promoted to law enforcement agencies as a safe alternative to incarceration. The flaws in the equipment raise the question of whether the state can deliver what Jessica's Law promised when voters approved it in 2006: round-the-clock tracking of serious sex offenders.
In a lawsuit over the state's GPS contracting, corrections attorneys persuaded a judge to seal information about the failures, arguing that test results could show criminals how to avoid being tracked and give parole violators grounds to appeal convictions.
The information, they warned, would "erode public trust" in electronic monitoring programs. The devices, they said, deter crime only if offenders believe their locations are being tracked every minute.
"The more reliable the devices are believed to be, the less likely a parolee may be to attempt to defeat the system," GPS program director Denise Milano wrote in a court statement.
State officials say the replacement devices have largely resolved the problems, but officials so far have refused to release test data showing what, if any, improvements were gained.
Through interviews and by comparing censored documents obtained from multiple sources, The Times was able to piece together most of what the state persuaded the courts to black out.
GPS tracking devices are designed to alert authorities if the wearer tampers with the device, tries to flee or strays too close to a school or other forbidden area. Currently, 7,900 high-risk California parolees and felons — most of them sex offenders or gang members — wear the devices strapped to their ankles.
The monitors work by picking up signals from GPS satellites and transmitting the location information by cellular networks to a central computer. Just like GPS devices used by drivers or hikers, the monitors can fail where buildings block signals or where cell reception is spotty.
But that is not the monitoring system's sole vulnerability: A Times investigation in February found that thousands of child molesters, rapists and other high-risk parolees were removing or disarming their tracking devices — often with little risk of serving time for it because California's jails are too full to hold them.
The state's testing was conducted as part of a winner-take-all contest for the nation's largest electronic monitoring contract, worth more than $51 million over six years. Industry experts said they were the most exhaustive field trials they had seen.
When statewide monitoring began in 2008, California split the work between a division of 3M Co. and Houston-based Satellite Tracking of People, or STOP. The 3M device was used to track some 4,000 parolees in all but six Southern California counties. STOP had the rest of the state, including Los Angeles.
When California later sought to switch to a single provider, 3M came in with the low bid.
For a week in late 2011, parole agents abused both companies' devices. They were dropped four feet onto concrete, wrapped in foil to block their signals and submerged as long as three hours in a swimming pool. Testers allowed batteries to run dead, cut ankle straps and traveled into areas beyond the reach of satellite and cellular phone signals.
Without revealing full details of the tests, officials declared 3M's devices so faulty that the state rejected the company's bid. When 3M protested, Milano began a second round of tests that she said showed 3M's ankle monitors posed a public safety emergency.
The state claimed that 3M's devices failed to meet 46 of 102 field-tested standards for the equipment, although the company said a fourth of the failures occurred because the state had not provided the phone numbers needed to send automated text alerts.
One agent who participated in the tests, Denise LeBard, said in a court statement that 3M's ankle monitors were "inundated with defects."
Among the problems: 3M's devices failed to collect a GPS location every minute, phone in that information every 10 minutes and forward a text message to a parole agent if a problem was detected. Without revealing how well STOP performed, the state said 3M collected only 45% of the possible GPS points.
Testers also were able to fool 3M's GPS devices by wrapping monitors in foil, something that triggers an alarm on STOP's device because it has a metal detector.
Engineers and experts within 3M's electronic monitoring division vigorously dispute the alleged faults. They accused California of rigging the tests to steer the contract to STOP.
"This is one agency's testing," said Steve Chapin, vice president of government relations for 3M's electronic monitoring division. "We have the most widely used system in the world. It's been proven time and time and time again to be very safe and reliable."
In a heavily censored declaration, Milano also disclosed a test in which the 3M ankle monitor failed to "wake" from a battery-saving sleep mode, creating uncertainty about an offender's location. She cited the rest mode issue, along with what she described as a four-year history of other problems, as grounds to order parole agents in April 2012 to immediately replace every state-issued 3M monitor in California with one from STOP.
3M argued in court that GPS signals are blocked so frequently that no ankle monitor can really distinguish between accidental and deliberate interference. Its device triggers tamper alerts only when both GPS and cell signals are lost for more than two minutes, a feature even the company said is not foolproof.
"Neither 3M nor STOP can produce a device that will read the offender's mind to determine his or her intent, so the devices can only 'assume' that a tamper is intentional," 3M said.
A Sacramento County judge in February ruled that Milano had violated state contract laws, but he upheld her decision that 3M failed state standards.
Industry experts say the issues raised with 3M are not unique to that company, and problems with the state's monitoring system probably still exist.
Peggy Conway, editor of the Journal of Offender Monitoring, said every electronic monitoring system has blind spots and weaknesses.
"There is no one perfect product," she said.
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Mike Bosak
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