Monday, June 3rd, 2013 — Good Morning, Stay Safe
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Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’ Editorial:
Assaulting a cop made legal by a nutty judicial ruling
Appellate court made doozy of a mistake and must be overturned
Judicial mania over the NYPD’s stop, question and frisk program has hit an outrageous new height with the decriminalization of deliberately assaulting a police officer.
New York’s Penal Law includes a provision that treats an attack on a cop as a specific and serious felony, punishable by a tougher penalty than would apply for a similar assault on a civilian. The statute is properly aimed at protecting police officers.
In 2007, four uniformed cops in an unmarked car pulled up beside an SUV parked at a Queens curb. Sgt. John Pagnotta questioned the driver, Walter Hurdle, as to his business.
When Hurdle answered evasively, Pagnotta ordered a fellow officer to use the police vehicle to block the SUV and opened the car door. Hurdle floored the SUV, crashed into the police car and dragged Pagnotta down the street. He suffered a broken pelvis and ribs, a fractured backbone and a dislocated shoulder.
The Queens district attorney’s office charged Hurdle with assaulting a police officer, won at trial and saw him sent to prison on a sentence of 17 to 20 years.
He appealed, and four justices on the Brooklyn Appellate Division threw out Hurdle’s conviction for assaulting a police officer. They reasoned that the Penal Law bars assaults that are intended to prevent cops from carrying out lawful duties — and this is where stop-and-frisk insanely enters the picture.
Justices Peter Skelos, John Leventhal, Cheryl Chambers and Plummer Lott determined that Pagnotta had lacked the legal grounds required to subject Hurdle to a stop — in particular, reasonable suspicion that he was engaged in criminality. The justices then made the leap that because Pagnotta had made an improper stop, he was not engaged in lawful duties, and because he was not engaged in lawful duties, Hurdle had not committed the crime of assaulting a cop.
The justices found him liable only for plain old assault. If upheld, and it must not be, their ruling will drastically cut Hurdle’s time behind bars.
Let’s assume that, in fact, Pagnotta did err in approaching Hurdle — never mind that three nights earlier, his narcotics team had made three arrests for possession of marijuana and a handgun at the exact place Hurdle was parked.
Cops will make misjudgments as they gauge reasonable suspicions under street conditions, and courts will dabble in second-guessing whether or not a set of circumstances amounted to reasonable suspicion. But to say that a cop who makes a bad call is not carrying out lawful duties is to impose an impossible standard that will arbitrarily deprive officers of full legal protection.
Here’s where that leads: Believing incorrectly that he or she has grounds to question an individual, a uniformed officer stops the individual not knowing he is a fugitive with a history of violent crime. The thug draws a gun and shoots the officer dead. Skelos, Leventhal, Chambers and Lott would clear the thug of murdering a police officer.
Queens DA Richard Brown has said he will ask these justices or the state’s highest court for permission to appeal. That leave must be granted, and this travesty, this threat to police safety, must be overturned.
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Mayhem in the city: 25 people shot in 48 hours
Three killed Sunday after three were killed Saturday. One of the wounded includes an 11-year-old girl who will never walk again.
By Barry Paddock, , Irving DeJohn AND Shane Dixon Kavanaugh — Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
(Edited for brevity)
Violence surged like the mercury Sunday, with three more fatalities from gun violence — and eight others wounded in shootings — bringing the total number of bullet-riddled in the city to 25 in less than 48 hours.
Only Staten Island was safe from the wide-ranging spray of gunfire and sickening weekend bloodshed. At least 12 people were blasted in Brooklyn, eight in the Bronx and another four in Queens. The sole person shot in Manhattan took several slugs to the chest and perished in broad daylight.
Sunday’s carnage followed the shooting of 14 people — three of whom died — in a terrifying 26 hours that began Friday night. A total of six people were killed during the grim weekend.
The two days of bloodshed represented 5% of this year’s roughly 440 shootings. Despite the violence, that figure represents a 23% drop compared with the 574 victims shot through this time last year.
With Erik Badia, Chelsia Rose Marcius, Edgar Sandoval and Tom Baker
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‘One Police Plaza’
New York's Yellow Press
By: Leonard Levitt – Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘NYPD Confidential.Com’
(Op-Ed / Commentary)
In Washington, the media reared up and the White House backed down.
In New York City, however, the media has taken a dive.
The issue in Washington was the Justice Department’s overly aggressive tactics against the media — subpoenaing the phone records of reporters from the Associated Press and Fox News [as well as the phone records of the Fox News reporter’s parents.]
The issue in New York is the lack of accountability and transparency of the NYPD: its failure to respond to freedom of information requests; its setting of arbitrary standards to prevent reporters from obtaining press credentials; and most important, its refusal to provide information about its most controversial policies.
On these issues, the media in New York has remained virtually silent.
After the media outcry in Washington, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder announced a new direction in policies that they claim respects the First Amendment and protects journalists.
Amidst the silence in New York, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly was recently asked what he would do differently in light of the revelations by the AP and NYPD Confidential about one of the NYPD’s most controversial policies — its pervasive spying on Muslims.
Kelly’s response: “Nothing.”
With the city’s mainstream media unable or unwilling to take on the police department, the point man for those seeking information about the NYPD is Chris Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
“You don’t get anywhere with the NYPD unless you are prepared to go to the mat,” says Dunn. “They know we will sue. We are after them all the time.”
Dunn calls the NYPD’s refusal to respond to Freedom of Information requests “a disaster.”
He says the NYCLU has sued the police department at least six times to obtain information about issues from Stop and Frisk to the race of shooting victims.
The Civil Liberties Union is currently representing NYPD Confidential in obtaining Kelly’s schedule after the NYPD turned down this reporter’s Freedom of Information request, saying that “disclosure could endanger the life or safety of the Police Commissioner and/or the people with whom he had scheduled appointments.”
NYPD Confidential sued for the records in 2011, while learning that Kelly had met secretly in his office at Police Plaza with the billionaire financier George Soros, a meeting that was not on Kelly’s public schedule. [See NYPD Confidential, Oct. 24, 2011.]
Dunn has also sued the department over the mass arrests dating from the Republican National Convention in 2004. This led to further litigation over the department’s pervasive spying on political groups.
He has also aided reporters in obtaining press credentials. About a dozen reporters have come to him for help in the past ten years, he says. In 2007 and in 2012, after the NYPD rejected this reporter’s credentials for a press card, the NYCLU threatened a lawsuit. On both occasions, the NYPD reversed itself and granted a press card.
But the department’s lack of transparency goes beyond individual reporters to policy issues.
Despite early promises by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to make the NYPD more transparent than it was under his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, the department under Kelly is more closed to the public than at any time in at least 30 years.
For example, until the disclosures in 2011 by the AP and this column, the city was in the dark about the NYPD’s spying on the city’s Muslim communities.
Although the Queens District Attorney found no criminal conduct, the police department has refused to explain its rationale in forcing police whistle-blower Adrian Schoolcraft into the psychiatric ward of Jamaica Hospital in 2010.
After an internal investigation substantiated Schoolcraft’s charges that commanders from his precinct had intentionally downgraded crimes to make the precinct appear safer than it actually was, Kelly announced a precinct-wide department investigation led by three prominent former prosecutors.
“The integrity of or crime reporting system is of the utmost importance to the Department,” Kelly announced in a press release on Jan. 5, 2011.
Kelly’s spokesman Paul Browne announced that the investigation was expected to last from three to six months. It is now two and a half years. Neither he nor Kelly has explained why no report has been produced.
The media has also been silent over such issues as Kelly’s secret perks from the non-profit Police Foundation and the department’s NYPD Counter-Terrorism Foundation, which raised hundreds of thousands dollars from secret donors and whose president and secretary were high-ranking, civilian police officials.
Then, there is the NYPD’s spying on Muslims, which has all but been ignored by the city’s mainstream media.
No one has questioned Kelly’s claims that the department “only follows leads,” a claim contradicted by internal Intelligence Division documents.
What lead, for example, did the Intelligence Division follow when it sent detectives to Buffalo in 2007 to spy on that city’s Somali community despite its own liaison, Erie County Under Sheriff Richard Donovan, saying he was unaware of any crime trends attributed to Somalis in the Buffalo area? [See NYPD Confidential, Feb. 27, 2012.]
So why doesn’t the New York City media pursue these unanswered questions?
While the Times is not as aggressive as it was, and no one expects anything from the Post, the most egregious offender in this reporter’s opinion has been the Daily News, the one-time “honest voice of New York,” as it called itself.
Back in 1999, the News, spurred on by its counsel Eve Burton and its then managing editor Art Browne, persuaded a coalition of media executives at the Times, Newsday and the AP to prepare a federal lawsuit against Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s violation of his own internal regulations that allowed reporters and photographers to cover public events without police interference.
Since then the News has undergone a sea change.
In 2009, when a sergeant in the department’s Public Information Office cursed and threatened a Daily News police reporter, the News said and did nothing.
In 2011, after eight cops were indicted for gun-running, the News pooh-poohed their crimes. “Not to minimize their alleged offenses,” it editorialized, “but it must be noted that the stated crimes did not involve abuse of the badge or misuse of power.“
When one of its own reporters was arrested while covering an Occupy Wall Street demonstration, a News editorial backed the police and maintained the reporter would have a good story to tell his grandchildren.
Guess who now runs the News’ s editorial page? The same man who in 1999 was its managing editor.
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MORE LIPSTICK ON THE PIG. Here’s a summary of the second part of CBS’s six-part “48 Hours’’ series, called “BROOKLYN DA,” about the office of Joe Hynes, now running for re-election for a seventh term.
The series has been criticized for prettifying Hynes and his top assistant Michael Vecchione, while obscuring their failings — in particular, Hynes’s continued support of Vecchione despite his having been accused of numerous prosecutorial failings.
According to a press release, sent by CBS’s Executive Director of Communications Richard Huff: “The series focuses on an eclectic group of men and women in the Kings County District Attorney’s Office and their lives inside and outside of the courtroom.
“The second broadcast takes viewers inside as Deputy District Attorney Ken Taub, chief of the Homicide Division, creates a case against the alleged killer of NYPD officer, Pete Figoski. … Elsewhere, Mike Vecchione, Chief of the Rackets Division, pursues a doctor whose patient — a former model — died after undergoing liposuction.”
No mention of whether the program focuses on Vecchione’s life outside the courtroom — in particular his relationship with a former female staffer with whom he traveled to Puerto Rico to question a key witness in the case of Jabbar Collins.
Collins was convicted of murdering Rabbi Abraham Pollack and spent 16 years in prison before a federal judge threw out the conviction, citing Vecchione’s prosecutorial misconduct.
Edited by Donald Forst
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N.Y.C. Medical Examiner's Office
Reputable DNA analysis program slammed by former lab manager
Dr. Eli Shapiro, a retired DNA testing trainer who worked at the city Office of Chief Medical Examiner, said the Forensic Statistical Tool used by the lab is not scientifically sound.
By Shayna Jacobs — Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
NOTE: See below articles on the ‘U.S. Supreme Court Upholding the Warrantless Collection Of DNA’ - Mike
A once-lauded DNA analysis program is so flawed that its evidence should not be admissible in trials, a former lab manager testified last week.
Dr. Eli Shapiro, a retired DNA testing trainer at the beleaguered city Office of Chief Medical Examiner, said the program, called the Forensic Statistical Tool, is not scientifically sound.
The main problem is that mixed DNA samples from crime scenes are often degraded or too small, making it difficult to separate out a single person’s DNA.
The program produces probabilities — based on guesstimates — and does not account for other potential curveballs, Shapiro said.
“I don’t think that is the job of the DNA analysis to make a lot of assumptions,” Shapiro testified Thursday a hearing in the Manhattan Supreme Court case of accused robber and burglar William Rodriguez.
Shapiro, who left the medical examiner’s office in 2011, said he was “concerned about the idea that a DNA analysis is exonerating people and determining guilt or innocence.”
His testimony is part of a major challenge brought by the Legal Aid Society over the Forensic Statistical Tool and testing that involves small amounts of DNA.
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Sgt. Andrew Dunton 2009 Slay of PSA 5 Rookie Omar Edwards
My cop slay still haunts
By M.L. NESTEL — Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘The New York Post’
An NYPD cop who accidentally killed a fellow officer spoke about the incident for the first time on the four-year anniversary — and said the pain of that day will never go away.
“I’m trying to get along with my life and hopefully the other side is getting on with their life,” Sgt. Andrew Dunton told The Post last week.
He vividly recalled the night of May 28, 2009. Dunton, who is white, was with fellow anti-crime-unit members when they saw 25-year-old rookie Officer Omar Edwards in plain clothes sprinting after a thief who tried to break into his car in East Harlem.
Edwards, who was black and worked a housing-project post, did not respond to the officers’ shouts of “Police! Drop it!” — and Dunton fatally shot the young cop in his heart, lung and chest.
It was only as Edwards lay dying that they realized they had felled one of their own.
Edwards was posthumously promoted to detective. The emotions are still raw for his family.
Danielle Glenn, 22, who was left to raise their children, Xavier and Keanu, said, “I have nothing to say about that.”
But Edwards’ 76-year-old father Ricardo said he forgives Dunton.
“We are all human beings,” he said. “I don’t hold him accountable for nothing whatsoever. He did what he had to do.”
But the father said he’s wounded.
“I think about Omar every second, every minute, every hour. It’s not an easy thing to live with.”
Dunton was at the 17th Precinct Community Council meeting on the East Side on Tuesday’s anniversary to deliver a slide show on the NYPD’s social-media strategy that targets gang violence.
One community member asked Dunton of his cyber undercover work, “Do you fear for your life?”
“Do I fear for my life? I always fear for my life,” he said. “Everyone should fear for their life. You don’t know what’s going to happen this year.”
That’s when he recounted the Edwards shooting.
“I hate to talk about this, but today actually marks the four-year anniversary — I was involved in a police-involved shooting which closed one door to my police career,” he said.
“But one door opened and I was allowed to do this, work on this and help affect other people.” “My door is always open,” he said. “Any kid can always come talk to me.”
The sergeant also uses his slide show to educate troubled youths.
“Their mentality is not there,” he said of the city’s estimated 330 crews and gangs — with 5,000 kids claiming membership.
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Ret. Detective Louis Scarcella
'Scarcella is a really dirty cop,' says locked-up murderer in one of newest cases being probed by the Brooklyn DA’s office
The case of Sundhe Moses, convicted for shooting a 4-year-old to death, is one of the latest in a growing review by the district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit — scrutinizing retired NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella’s credibility since 2011.
By Simone Weichselbaum — Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
Locked behind bars for the past 18 years, Sundhe Moses knows retired NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella all too well.
Scarcella, whose casework is being investigated by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, arrested Moses in the slaying of a 4-year-old girl in Brownsville when he was 19.
Moses claims the cop pulverized him until he signed a confession admitting to the heinous Brooklyn crime. His case is one of the latest in a growing review by the district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit — scrutinizing Scarcella’s credibility since 2011.
More than 50 of his murder cases are now under the legal microscope
“Scarcella is a really dirty cop,” Moses, now 37, told the Daily News during a series of phone interviews from Bare Hill Correctional Facility near the Canadian border. “He beat me until I signed that confession ... I am angry. My life is gone. This confession is why I am in prison.”
The Scarcella scandal erupted in March, when David Ranta 58, was sprung from prison after more than two decades behind bars. Ranta was convicted in 1991 of fatally shooting a Williamsburg rabbi, Chaskel Werzberger, after a botched robbery. Investigators found that detectives coached witnesses and didn’t keep notes.
Scarcella has defended the integrity of the Ranta investigation. He didn’t respond to requests seeking comment about Moses.
Ron Kuby, a defense attorney who represents several men convicted in Scarcella’s cases, said he was going to take up Moses’ battle for freedom.
“There is a pattern with the confessions. Some were simply fabricated by Scarcella. And there were confessions that were coerced using physical force,” Kuby said.
Moses was convicted in 1997 of second-degree murder in the death of Shamone Johnson and sentenced to 15 years to life. He filed appeals in state and federal court, listing a slew of problems with the police investigation and his trial. One of his complaints was that that no witnesses had identified him as the shooter while on the stand.
Still, his appeals were denied. Moses wrote the district attorney’s office last month asking it to review his case after reading about Scarcella’s troubles in the News.
Arlene Brown, 62, who raised Shamone, fought back tears when told about Moses’ bid for freedom using Scarcella’s troubling credibility as his springboard.
“He has some nerve,” Brown said. “He shot my baby.”
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34 Pct.
Surveillance camera at Isham Park in Inwood only records four hours a day
Sometimes the device — which could cost as much as $30,000 — recorded during hours when the park was closed and failing to help solve crimes that occurred during the day. A Parks Department spokesperson said it would take too much computer memory to record for 24 hours, but another was recently added to the clock.
By Thomas Tracy — Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
(Edited for brevity and NYPD pertinence)
You can smile all you want in Inwood’s Isham Park, but chances are its surveillance camera isn’t taking your picture.
A camera (photo) installed to prevent robberies and drug dealing only records about four hours a day at the lush hilly greenspace on Broadway near W. 212th St. — a decision crime victims and parkgoers are blasting as a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money.
The city Parks Department says the recording times change based on feedback from the NYPD, and officials won’t say when the camera is recording. But for the last few weeks it was filming between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., when the park is closed, residents were told.
The Parks Department says the camera has a 24-hour live feed someone can watch from a computer monitor. The only other camera in the park is a flash cam that goes off if someone triggers its motion sensor.
The NYPD tracks crime in about 30 parks citywide. The 20-acre Isham Park isn’t one of them. But a police source called it “a low-crime area.”
A parks spokesman said setting the camera to record all day would take up too much computer memory.
“Were it to record for 24 hours, there would only be enough memory space to hold five days of footage,” spokesman Philip Abramson said. “But by recording the current number of hours, it can hold 14 days.”
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Hate crimes forum planned to discuss New York's 13-year-old law in wake of anti-gay attacks
Forum to be led by state's only openly gay state senator, Brad Hoylman, who wants to determine 'how effective' the law has been.
By Kenneth Lovett — Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘The New York Daily News’
ALBANY — In the wake of a recent spate of attacks on gays in Manhattan, a state senator plans to hold a public forum on the effectiveness of the state’s 13-year-old hate crimes law.
Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan), the chamber’s only openly get legislator, plans the forum for June 14 in the city.
“It's time to put the law under the microscope and see how effective it’s been,” Hoylman told the Daily News. “Certainly the rash of anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered violence in the last month is the impetus.”
Since May 5, there have been at least nine suspected hate crimes against gays in Manhattan, including a murder — up dramatically from last year.
“We need to examine whether we’re doing everything we can to prevent, report and prosecute hate crimes,” Hoylman said.
Passed in 2000, the law carries increased penalties for crimes committed against someone because of his or her race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.
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New York State
State Police Announce Upcoming Trooper Exams
By Unnamed Author(s) — Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘The North Country Gazette’ Albany, NY
ALBANY—On-line applications are now available for the upcoming statewide Trooper examination. Exams are scheduled for Oct. 5, Oct. 12, Oct. 19 and Oct. 26, and will be offered at several convenient locations around the state.
Several technology improvements have been added to the application process for 2013. Applicants can now use PayPal to pay for the application fee in addition to a Visa or MasterCard. The application has also been optimized for mobile devices such that anyone who wishes to use their phone or other portable device will find the process user friendly.
To help reduce paper and mailing costs, applicants with military service can now upload their supporting documents as PDF or scanned images directly into their application. Lastly, applicants that provide an e-mail address will receive confirmation of their application submission. Notifications will also be sent when updates, such as changing a testing location or date, are made to their application on-line.
Opportunities within the State Police include training and membership in specialized units as well as opportunities for advancement through the State Police ranks. Some of the specialized areas of expertise include positions such as: Crime Scene Evidence Technicians; Field Training Officers; K-9 Handlers; Firearms Instructors and Motor Vehicle Collision Reconstructionists. Troopers are also eligible for assignments to specialized details and units including: the Aviation unit; the SCUBA Team; the Special Operations Response Team, the Gun Investigation Unit; the Community Narcotics Enforcement Team; and the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit. Troopers may also pursue assignments as investigators in the Bureau of Criminal Investigation or in a variety of other specialized units.
“I strongly encourage young people to apply for the exam. Seek out a State Police recruiter. Talk to a trooper. Discover what a challenging and rewarding profession it is to be a New York State Trooper. Our web site has more information and I invite you to apply on-line at www.NYTROOPER.com ,” Supt. Joseph D’Amico said.
Currently, a Trooper’s starting salary is $50,374 during Academy training. Upon Academy graduation, the salary increases to $66,905, and after one year to $71,261, with additional salary steps during the first five years of service. After 5 years, a Trooper’s salary increases to $84,739, with additional longevity payments through 25 years of service.
Additional location compensation is provided for troopers assigned to NYC, Dutchess, Nassau, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Suffolk, and Westchester counties.
Those interested in becoming a Trooper can apply on-line at: www.NYTROOPER.com
On-line applications must be submitted by Midnight EST September 8, 2013. Results from the examination will establish an eligibility list that may remain in effect for a maximum of four years.
The New York State Police is an Equal Opportunity Employer that values diversity and encourages all individuals interested in public service to apply.
A detailed list of qualifications is attached:
New York State Police
QUALIFICATIONS FOR NEW YORK STATE TROOPER
Must be a citizen of the United States and be at least 20 years old by the application deadline, Sept. 8, 2013.
Must not have reached their 30th birthday by the date of the application deadline. Except the maximum age may be extended one year for each year of full-time active Federal military duty – up to a maximum of 6 years.
AT TIME OF APPOINTMENT:
Must be at least 21 years old to be appointed.
Must be appointed prior to 36th birthday, except the maximum age may be extended one year for each year of full-time active Federal military duty – up to a maximum of 6 years.
Must be a New York State resident and have a valid New York State driver’s license at time of appointment.
Must be able to pass a Physical Ability Test (PAT): sit-ups, push-ups and a one-and-one-half mile run.
Must be able to work rotating shifts any day of the week, including holidays.
Vision Requirements: uncorrected – no worse than 20/100 in each eye able to be corrected to 20/20 in each eye. Correction may be achieved using glasses, contact lenses, or surgery. Color blindness is disqualifying.
Must comply with New York State policy which requires all members to present a neat and professional appearance at all times. Tattoos, brands, body piercings and other body art shall not be visible while a member is in uniform or other business attire. The uniform includes the short sleeve shirt open at the front of the neck. In addition to visibility, some tattoos or brands may have symbolic meanings that are inconsistent with the values of the New York State Police.
Must possess a :
Graduate certificate from senior high school, or,
New York State High School Equivalency Diploma, or
Military GED certificate, or
High School Equivalency diploma from another state converted to a NYS High School Equivalency Diploma,
AND
Must have completed 60 college credit hours at an accredited college or university at time of appointment.
Exceptions: 30 college credits may be waived, if the candidate has either:
Received an Honorable Discharge from the United States military after two years of active military service;
-or-
Successfully completed a Certified Police Officer Training Course approved by, or equivalent to a course approved by, the New York State Municipal Police Training council. A certified Peace Officer Training course does not qualify.
Must be of good moral character. A felony conviction or a dishonorable discharge, from any military service, is an automatic disqualifier.
Must successfully complete a medical examination, vision test, hearing test, background investigation including polygraph examination, and psychological evaluation to be appointed.
CURRENT SALARY INFORMATION:
$50,374 Starting salary;
$66,905 upon graduation from the NYSP Academy;
$71,261 after 1 year;
$84,739 after 5 years.
(Salaries do not include additional location compensation for NYC; Dutchess, Nassau, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Suffolk, and Westchester counties.)
Apply on-line or get additional information on becoming a New York State Trooper at: www.NYTROOPER.com or by calling 1-866-NYSP-EXAM 6-3-13
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New Jersey
Irvington cops at center of gangster rap controversy face internal charges, could be fired
By James Queally — Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘The Newark Star-Ledger’ / Newark, NJ
IRVINGTON — Four Irvington police officers who starred in a controversial music video that featured the town’s police union president spouting what some have called racially insensitive and homophobic remarks are facing internal affairs charges and could be fired, officials said.
Officer Maurice Gattison — who went by the handle "Gat The Great" and called himself a "felon for life" while rapping in two separate videos — and three other officers were charged with conduct unbecoming a police officer, an infraction that could cost them their jobs, Irvington Police Director Joseph Santiago said.
A disciplinary proceeding is expected to be held later this month.
Gattison, 44, has downplayed the controversy, saying his use of the word "faggot" was not meant to be derogatory.
"When I say the words … I never say it like intending to slander anybody. I’ve never used that term like that in my whole life," he said. "They don’t have nothing. My career is impeccable. I do my job."
The videos, which went viral in March after they were obtained by The Star-Ledger and posted on NJ.com, the newspaper’s on-line home, drew the ire of Irvington’s mayor and city leaders. The day after the videos were released, Councilman David Lyons called for all four officers to be fired.
"If that’s the way it goes, then I have no problem with it," Lyons said recently. "If they lose their jobs, that’s life. I think police officers need to take responsibility for their actions and they should have thought about the consequences before they took those actions."
Gattison, an 18-year-veteran of the Irvington force, scoffed at the criticism.
"Anyone who thinks I should be fired is an idiot," he said.
In the video for the song "Temper Like An Alcoholic," Gattison used the word "faggot" several times and made promises of violence against his rivals.
Another officer, identified by several law enforcement sources as Internal Affairs Detective Michael Gardner, can be seen wearing his police badge while swinging what appears to be a medieval mace.
The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel matters.
In another video titled "2 Minutes of Gat," Gattison can be seen wearing a gaudy fur coat and refers to himself as a "felon for life" while warning someone might "have to meet (his) Smith & Wesson," before pretending to point a gun at the camera.
Gattison took particular issue with the characterization of the "felon for life" lyric, claiming he rescinds the boast by sarcastically saying the word "right" in the next line.
Lyons believes some of Gattison’s lyrics could compromise his duties as a police officer.
"If that was some white police officers rapping about the N-word we wouldn’t be having this discussion," he said. "And if you’ve got police officers who do that kind of rapping and then they come up on some gay people, what do you think a gay person is going to think?"
Santiago has said most Irvington officers were aware of the videos months before The Star-Ledger reported about them. Lyons called for an independent hearing officer to review the case and openly questioned Santiago’s ability to be impartial, claiming the director and Gattison have a friendly relationship.
Gattison has said Deputy Chief Dwayne Mitchell — who is running the agency while Police Chief Michael Chase serves an indefinite suspension in the wake of serious misconduct allegations — viewed the videos last year and allowed Gattison to perform at the department’s Christmas party.
It was Mitchell who brought the internal affairs charges against Gattison and the other officers, according to Santiago, who declined to comment on Mitchell’s involvement in the investigation.
Mitchell was unavailable for comment. Gattison laughed when questioned about Mitchell’s role in the case.
"It’s the nature of the beast," he said.
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U.S.A.
Supreme Court Upholds Warrantless Collection Of DNA
By Mark Memmott — Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘NPR News’ / Washington, DC
By a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a Maryland law that allows police to collect DNA, without first getting a warrant, from persons who are arrested.
"When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment," writes Justice Anthony Kennedy in an opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and associate justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito.
The dissenting opinion brought together an unsual quartet: Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia and liberals Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagen. Scalia, writing for those justices, says that:
"The Court's assertion that DNA is being taken, not to solve crimes, but to identify those in the State's custody, taxes the credulity of the credulous. And the Court's comparison of Maryland's DNA searches to other techniques, such as fingerprinting, can seem apt only to those who know no more than today's opinion has chosen to tell them about how those DNA searches actually work."
To Scalia and the other dissenters, the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against "searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incriminating evidence ... is categorical and without exception."
NPR's Nina Totenberg wrote about the case in February. As she reported:
"Twenty-eight states and the federal government have enacted laws that provide for automatic DNA collection from people at the time of their arrest. ...
"The case before the court stems from the Maryland arrest of Alonzo King in 2009 on assault charges. Police, following state law, swabbed King's cheek to get a DNA sample, and then submitted the sample to the federal DNA database to see if there were any matches.
"The database eventually came up with a hit, matching King's DNA to DNA found from a rape kit six years earlier. A masked man had broken into the home of a 53-year-old woman and raped her while holding a gun to her head. King was subsequently tried for the rape and sentenced to life in prison.
"But the conviction was thrown out by the Maryland Court of Appeals. The state court noted that King was presumed innocent at the time of the initial arrest and that his DNA was not taken to prove that charge. Therefore, the state court concluded, the DNA collection was nothing more than a state fishing expedition for anything prosecutors could catch."
With Monday's ruling, the court has now overturned the Maryland Court of Appeals' decision. Kennedy's opinion for the majority concludes with this:
"In light of the context of a valid arrest supported by probable cause respondent's expectations of privacy were not offended by the minor intrusion of a brief swab of his cheeks. By contrast, that same context of arrest gives rise to significant state interests in identifying respondent not only so that the proper name can be attached to his charges but also so that the criminal justice system can make informed decisions concerning pretrial custody. Upon these considerations the Court concludes that DNA identification of arrestees is a reasonable search that can be considered part of a routine booking procedure. When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and they bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
"The judgment of the Court of Appeals of Maryland is reversed."
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Police Can Take DNA Without Probable Cause, Supreme Court Says
By Jess Bravin — Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘The Wall Street Journal’ / New York, NY
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court held Monday that police can take DNA samples from criminal suspects without probable cause, with a closely divided court finding the technique was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Here’s the opinion.
The case came from Maryland, where the state’s highest court struck down a state law authorizing the DNA sampling.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the five-justice majority. He said an arrest “gives rise to significant state interests” in identifying the suspect “not only so that the proper name can be attached to his charges but also so that the criminal justice system can make informed decisions concerning pretrial custody.”
He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the dissenters, including Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. He said the majority opinion “taxes the credulity of the credulous” and undermined a principle “at the very heart of the Fourth Amendment.”
Read the full story here, more on the issue here, and a profile of the Maryland state judge whose ruling was under review at the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Court: Police can take DNA swabs from arrestees
By JESSE J. HOLLAND (The Associated Press) — Monday, June 3rd, 2013; 11:12 a.m. EDT
WASHINGTON — A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday said police can routinely take DNA from people they arrest, equating a DNA cheek swab to other common jailhouse procedures like fingerprinting.
“Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court’s five-justice majority.
But the four dissenting justices said that the court was allowing a major change in police powers.
“Make no mistake about it: because of today’s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason,” conservative Justice Antonin Scalia said in a sharp dissent which he read aloud in the courtroom.
At least 28 states and the federal government now take DNA swabs after arrests. But a Maryland court was one of the first to say that it was illegal for that state to take Alonzo King’s DNA without approval from a judge, saying King had “a sufficiently weighty and reasonable expectation of privacy against warrantless, suspicionless searches.”
But the high court’s decision reverses that ruling and reinstates King’s rape conviction, which came after police took his DNA during an unrelated arrest. Kennedy wrote the decision, and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer. Scalia was joined in his dissent by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Getting DNA swabs from criminals is common. All 50 states and the federal government take cheek swabs from convicted criminals to check against federal and state databanks, with the court’s blessing. The fight at the Supreme Court was over whether that DNA collection could come before conviction and without a judge issuing a warrant.
According to court documents, the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System or CODIS — a coordinated system of federal, state and local databases of DNA profiles — already contains more than 10 million criminal profiles and 1.1 million profiles of those arrested.
In the case before the court, a 53-year-old woman was raped and robbed but no one was arrested. Almost six years later, Alonzo King was arrested and charged with felony second-degree assault. Taking advantage of the Maryland law that allowed warrantless DNA tests following some felony arrests, police took a cheek swab of King’s DNA, which matched a sample from the 2003 Salisbury rape. King was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison.
King eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of misdemeanor assault from his arrest, a crime for which Maryland cannot take warrantless DNA samples. The state courts said it violated King’s rights for the state to take his DNA based on an arrest alone. The state Court of Appeals said King had “a sufficiently weighty and reasonable expectation of privacy against warrantless, suspicionless searches.” But the high court’s decision reinstates King’s conviction.
Maryland stopped collecting DNA after that decision, but Roberts allowed police to keep collecting DNA samples pending the high court’s review.
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FBI Compilation of Crime Stats (Released Monday, June 3rd, 2013)
Preliminary 2012 Crime Statistics
Violent Crime Up, Property Crime Down
The new preliminary Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) statistics for 2012 indicate that when compared to data for 2011, the number of violent crimes reported by law enforcement agencies around the country increased 1.2 percent during 2012, while the number of property crimes decreased 0.8 percent.
The final UCR statistics—submitted by approximately 18,000 local, state, campus, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies from around the nation—will be released later this year in the Crime in the United States 2012 report.
Among the highlights of the preliminary report:
■Overall, when compared to 2011 figures, the West experienced the largest increase in reported violent crime (up 3.3 percent), and the Northeast experienced the only decrease (down 0.6 percent).
■The Northeast was the only part of the country where the four violent crime categories saw decreases across the board—murder (down 4.4 percent), forcible rapes (down 0.2 percent), robberies (down 1.4 percent), and aggravated assaults (down 0.1 percent).
■The largest rise in reported violent crime (up 3.7 percent) was in cities with populations of 500,000-999,999.
■The West experienced the only increase in reported property crime (up 5.2 percent), while the number of property crimes dropped 1.6 percent in the Northeast, 2.1 percent in the Midwest, and 3.5 percent in the South.
■The number of reported motor vehicle thefts grew by 10.6 percent in the West while showing declines in the Northeast (down 7.9 percent), the Midwest (down 3.1 percent), and the South (down 2.9 percent).
■The number of arson incidents—tallied separately from other property crimes because of various levels of participation by reporting agencies—fell 1.2 percent.
The UCR Program is a nationwide cooperative statistical effort of law enforcement agencies voluntarily reporting data on crimes brought to their attention.
The idea for the program began in the 1920s, when the International Association of Chiefs of Police—recognizing a need for national crime statistics—formed the Committee on Uniform Crime Records to develop a system. After studying state criminal codes and evaluating the recordkeeping practices in use, the committee completed a plan for crime reporting that became the foundation of the UCR Program in 1929. In January 1930, 400 cities in 43 states began participating in the program. That same year, Congress authorized the attorney general to gather crime data; the FBI was designated to serve as the national clearinghouse for the collected information.
The UCR Program’s primary objective is to generate reliable statistics for use in law enforcement administration, operation, and management. Over the years, however, these statistics have become one of the country’s leading social indicators and are used by criminologists, sociologists, legislators, municipal planners, the media, and other students of criminal justice for research and planning purposes.
A word of warning, though—don’t draw conclusions from the data by making direct comparisons between cities or individual agencies. Valid assessments are only possible with careful study and analysis of the unique conditions that affect each law enforcement jurisdiction.
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Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore police review board called irrelevant, ineffective
Board formed in 2000 to much fanfare has many vacant seats
By Justin Fenton — Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘The Baltimore Sun’ / Baltimore, MD
(Edited for brevity and generic law enforcement pertinence)
In a mostly empty ninth-floor conference room on a recent Thursday evening, the civilian panel charged with investigating police misconduct in Baltimore met for its monthly meeting.
There are supposed to be nine members, but four chairs were empty — those positions have been vacant for years. Of the five positions that are filled, four of the members said they want out, having long overstayed the limits of their terms.
When the board was created more than a decade ago, boosters promised it would prove a crucial check on brutality and abusive language by police officers. Opponents called it an intrusion into departmental discipline. It proved to be neither, and members say the panel has become irrelevant, ineffective and disengaged from the public it's supposed to represent.
As the recent meeting drew to a close — less than 15 minutes after it started — member William Brent, 88, questioned the panel's existence. Brent, who has served 14 years on the panel, eight years beyond his term limit, thinks the work is important, but goes unacknowledged.
"I don't think any of those people know what we're doing, or who we are," Brent said. Other members nodded in agreement.
Baltimore's board sometimes gets cases from police after they've already been closed, and its recommendations are very rarely followed. Its investigations and the complaints it reviews are not public, and only cryptically described at meetings. Police and union officials are supposed to hold three additional nonvoting positions on the board, but haven't been coming.
"I think they're a paper tiger," City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young said of the board.
Informed of the board's vacancies and complaints from its members, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake told The Baltimore Sun that her staff would move to fill the vacancies. "It's critically important that we get this fixed," she said.
Civilian review boards began to emerge in cities in the early 1990s, in the wake of the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles. The issue had been debated for several years before a string of police-involved shootings and a 1999 incident in which a state senator was handcuffed pushed it toward approval in the Maryland General Assembly.
It was a hard-won legislative battle, followed by months of political maneuvering over who would sit on the panel. But the fervor faded quickly, and the Baltimore board never developed the assertive role that civilian groups took on elsewhere.
In Washington, the police complaints board makes policy recommendations and has more than 20 staffers investigating misconduct. Chicago's independent police review authority analyzes police-involved shootings and posts investigative reports online.
Baltimore's new Deputy Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez, who oversees a reconstituted professional standards and accountability bureau, joined the Police Department after 27 years in Los Angeles, considered to have some of the strongest police oversight in the country. He said he is reviewing Baltimore's board with a goal of making it more relevant.
"I believe that in today's law enforcement, there is a very critical need in what we do to have civilian oversight," Rodriguez said. "I do not think the system [in Baltimore] is broken, but I think there's room for improvements."
But Sheldon Greenberg, director of the School of Public Safety Leadership at the Johns Hopkins University, is skeptical about the implementation and significance of civilian review. He said many cities jumped on the trend "without a real connection to a need or purpose locally."
"If you just do it because it's on the books, or because other cities are doing it, then you're just going through the process," Greenberg said. "Process without purpose is meaningless."
In Baltimore, the board has two investigators and subpoena power. Complaints have declined from 137 in 2010, to 97 in 2011, to 87 in 2012. The board's reports for the past three years show that the members voted to reverse the findings of internal affairs in 49 out of 812 — or 6 percent — of allegations reviewed by the board.
Some who have dealt with the panel say the process was confusing and got them nowhere.
Still, in 2009, there was still an impression that the board had power. Then-City Council President Rawlings-Blake recommended that important policy decisions, such as the Police Department's move at the time to stop releasing the names of officers who shoot citizens, be filtered through the civilian review board.
But under Mayor Rawlings-Blake, the board has languished with vacancies. Seats on the panel representing Southeast, Central, and Northern districts have been vacant for at least three years. The seat representing Northwest Baltimore is also vacant.
Rawlings-Blake said she made three appointments in 2011 — the first since the mayoral administration of Martin O'Malley — and City Council records show that they were confirmed. But they never were sworn-in. One of those appointees is expected to be re-nominated to the council at Monday's meeting.
Cherry Hill resident Cleoda Walker, the current chairwoman, says that while the board has enjoyed a good relationship with police commissioners, the department hasn't followed board recommendations when police and the board differ.
"I think two times at the most," said Walker, who has served on the board since 1999.
Walker said the board's subpoena power is used most often to obtain medical records to corroborate a citizen's claim of injuries. They also can hold "inquiry panels" and interview witnesses, though that has only happened two or three times, she said.
She believes in the work, even if it sometimes feels the board is ignored. The board makes sure that people who make complaints receive a letter letting them know how the board ruled on their cases. "At least it's something," she said.
Philip K. Eure, the executive director of Washington's Office of Police Complaints and a past president of a national organization of police civilian oversight groups, said it is key to bolster the resident members with professional staff and give them power.
His office has 22 staffers who report to a five-member board appointed by the mayor. It recently issued an 84-page annual report that criticized Police Chief Cathy Lanier for not following three of its recommendations since 2010. Citizens can file complaints with his office, with internal affairs, or with both, and he believes more complaints are filed with his office than with police.
Of Baltimore, he said: "There seems to be kind of a culture of both a lack of transparency and lack of seriousness and purpose insofar as independent police review goes."
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Detroit, Michigan
Trial begins in girl's death during Detroit police raid
Jury will decide whether Detroit officer that fired fatal shot was negligent.
By Elisha Anderson — Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘The Detroit Free Press’ / Detroit, MI
DETROIT -- Three years after 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones was killed in a police raid, a jury will decide whether her death was a tragic accident or criminal negligence on the part of the Detroit police officer who is accused of firing the fatal shot.
The jury — composed of nine men and four women — was seated Thursday in Wayne County Circuit Court and is expected to hear opening statements Monday morning in the trial of Joseph Weekley. The veteran police officer is charged with felony involuntary manslaughter and careless discharge of a firearm causing death.
The shooting occurred in May 2010 as police raided a home on Lillibridge, on the city's east side. They were accompanied by a reality TV crew and looking for a homicide suspect.
Prosecutors have said that Weekley entered the home before a flash-bang grenade thrown by another officer exploded. Weekley's gun went off, and the bullet struck Aiyana, prosecutors said.
A demonstration of the flash-bang grenade, a device used to create a distraction, is expected to be shown to jurors away from the courthouse during the trial.
Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Robert Moran said during jury selection last week that Weekley is accused of being negligent or grossly negligent, and that the trial is not about him intending to kill the girl.
Weekley's attorney, Steve Fishman, told jurors that accidents can happen, even if a person isn't negligent. He also talked about ranks within the police department and said an officer probably isn't the one making decisions about how a search warrant is executed.
Roland Lawrence, founder of the Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee, said waiting until dark to do a raid with a TV crew filming didn't need to happen.
"It's the type of tragedy that never was supposed to happen," he said. "This really could have been prevented."
Weekley was part of a team and received orders from people above him, and others should be held accountable for what happened that night, Lawrence said.
Aiyana's family is hoping for fairness and justice, said Ron Scott, spokesman for the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality. He said he expects several of Aiyana's family members to be in court Monday.
"They have not been coping too well," Scott said. "They've had physical problems, emotional problems. It's just really been devastating."
They feel for all the lives that have been lost, including that of 17-year-old Je'Rean Blake, he said.
Aiyana's father, Charles Jones, is accused of providing the gun that was used to kill Je'Rean and faces first-degree murder charges in the teen's death along with Chauncey Owens.
Owens, who is accused of killing Je'Rean over a dirty look, was the target of the raid and was captured in the upper flat of the duplex.
Weekley, who was a member of the Special Response Team during the raid, was indicted by a one-person grand jury in 2011. He had served on the SRT for about six years and was a 14-year veteran at the time of the shooting, police said previously.
A TV crew for "The First 48," a crime documentary show on the A&E cable network, was following police at the time, and Allison Howard, the principal photographer for the program, also was indicted. She is scheduled to go on trial in June, accused of perjury during an investigative subpoena and obstruction of justice.
The trial, which is expected to take a few weeks, is being overseen by Wayne County Circuit Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway. She banned journalists from jury selection Wednesday over the objection of the Free Press, saying there wasn't enough space. The judge allowed news media in Thursday once the jury pool had dwindled.
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Homeland Security
Passports often hold clues to terrorism
Document fraud is often used to conceal crime, officials say.
By Tresa Baldas [Detroit Free Press] — Monday, June 3rd, 2013 ‘USA Today’
DETROIT -- When a Saudi Arabian airline passenger arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport weeks ago, red flags went up, landing him in jail.
He had a pressure cooker in his luggage — a similar device was used in the Boston Marathon bombings.
He gave conflicting stories about the cooker.
And perhaps the biggest flag of them all: His passport had a page missing.
"You have got to say, 'These are not ordinary times,' " said criminal defense lawyer James Howarth, who has represented dozens of travelers detained at the border, including the Saudi passenger, whom he believes did nothing wrong.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, passports have been scrutinized like never before as federal agents try to keep terrorists and criminals from entering the U.S. Over the last decade, the number of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents has doubled, from about 10,000 in 2004 to a record 21,000-plus agents today.
There's plenty keeping them busy.
In 2012, a record 98 million international travelers entered the U.S., a 12% increase over 2009, and the number is projected to increase up to 5% each year for the next five years. On a typical day, according to the border protection agency, agents inspect nearly 1 million travelers, including Americans. In 2012, the agency saw more than 350 million travelers total.
Passport fraud, law enforcement officials said, often is used to conceal criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, human trafficking and terrorism. The passport, they said, can provide clues to such activities, especially when it has been altered, appears phony or has a page missing.
Even the slightest tweak could get flagged.
Howarth said his client's case offers a lesson to travelers: "Closely check and make sure that your documents are in order and that you haven't got something that somebody would think is funny."
Underwear bomber
Increased U.S. scrutiny of travel documents was triggered by the 2009 Christmas Day terrorist attack by Nigerian passenger Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane with a bomb strapped to his underwear. His plan failed and he was sentenced to life in prison on terrorism charges.
Abdulmutallab had a visa and should have been screened before boarding the plane after a warning from his father that he had become radicalized. But U.S. officials didn't know he posed a threat until the plane was in the air.
Since 2001, the State Department has revoked about 60,000 visas for a variety of reasons, including nearly 5,000 for suspected links to terrorism; 1,451 of those occurring since the attempted Christmas Day attack over Detroit.
For U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, who started her job as Detroit's top federal prosecutor in the days before the Christmas Day terrorist attack, border officials can't be overly cautious when it comes to scrutinizing travel documents.
"A passport is both an identity document and a road map showing where a person has traveled. A passport that has been intentionally altered may indicate that an individual is attempting to hide travel to a particular country and perhaps his activities there," said McQuade. "If travel locations are concealed, lines of inquiry that would otherwise be pursued by border officials are effectively cut off."
In the last year, McQuade's office has handled more than 20 passport and document fraud cases — that's more than one a month — in U.S. District Court in Detroit. The defendants have come from all over: Brazil, Mexico, Senegal, Albania, Honduras, France, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and Africa.
Some of the cases involved foreigners who were trying to flee to the U.S. for a better life or those who had previously been deported and tried to sneak back in again.
One case involved an African man who was convicted of passing off four African children as his own by using fake passports then abusing them for years in his Ypsilanti, Mich., home.
Another case involved an Albanian man who was linked to a Michigan driver's license that was found on a suicide bomber who attacked a bus of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria in July 2012.
The most recent is Saudi Arabian traveler, Hussain Al Kwawahir, who remains jailed since his May 11 arrest.
"The combination of facts, including an altered passport and false statements, raised concerns," McQuade said. "Although we never want to jump to conclusions, we have a duty to conduct an appropriate investigation to protect the public."
Trying to sort it out
Howarth, Al Kwawahir's defense attorney, said he believes the government had no choice but to arrest his client given the information agents had when he entered the U.S.
But he insists his client will be released when all the facts are sorted out.
"It's unfortunate that they couldn't clear it up more quickly," Howarth said, noting federal authorities have been cooperative. "The plan has not been, 'Let's go to war.' It's 'Let's see if we can straighten it out.' "
According to court documents, during a baggage exam, officers found a pressure cooker in Al Kwawahir's luggage. Initially, Al Kwawahir told officers that he brought the cooker for his nephew because such devices are not sold in America. He then changed his story and said his nephew had purchased a pressure cooker in America before, but that it was cheap and broke after the first use, so he brought him one from Saudi Arabia.
The officers then read him his Miranda rights.
According to Howarth, his client — a 33-year-old father of three children — did nothing wrong, but was scared and didn't know how to communicate because he doesn't speak English. His story, he said, was true: He bought his nephew a pressure cooker to prepare Middle Eastern meals. Moreover, Howarth said, his client didn't know that a pressure cooker was used in the Boston Marathon bombings.
"He had heard that a bomb went off in the U.S., but had no idea that it went off in a pressure cooker," Howarth said. "When you get caught in a whirlpool of an interrogation ... you may state things with greater strength than you mean. He is scared. He wants to go home."
According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, getting hassled at the border is one of the biggest complaints the council receives every year from travelers. Complaints are especially high when a terrorist attack occurs, such as the Boston Marathon bombing, triggering more scrutiny.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that sometimes, there's "an overreaction to a tragedy" and "ordinary people just get swept up in it without really knowing why."
But he understands the scrutiny of passports. And he cautions all travelers to be truthful with federal agents.
"People don't realize the repercussions. ... You cannot lie to any law enforcement officer," Hooper said, adding: "Everybody who enters the country should be fully identified. And it should be verified and that they're not up to anything."
How is passport fraud committed?
∙ Assuming the identity of a deceased person to apply for passports
∙ Using phony support documents, such as fake birth certificates
∙ Using stolen and altered passports
∙ Circumventing the two-parent signature rule for children
Offenders commit passport crime to:
∙ Conceal their identity, such as fugitives and terrorists
∙ Illegally enter the U.S. or avoid deportation
∙ Commit financial crimes and bank fraud
∙ Facilitate other criminal activity such as drug trafficking or alien smuggling
Source: U.S. Department of State
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Mike Bosak
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