Website and automated forms processes, Copyright
2007, Matthew August LeFande.
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rights reserved. No claim to original government forms
Website and automated forms processes, Copyright
2007, Matthew August LeFande.
All
rights reserved. No claim to original government forms
FHP trooper working triple-fatal crash in the Panhandle charged with DUI
Florida Highway Patrol trooper directing traffic at the scene of a two-car crash that took three lives was arrested on a drunken driving charge after other troopers smelled alcohol on his breath.
Trooper Phillip Scott Shank, 44, was placed on paid administrative leave pending an internal investigation after his arrest Wednesday, Highway Patrol Lt. Steve Preston said.
Shank registered 0.087 percent and 0.08 percent on separate blood-alcohol level tests, according to his traffic citation. The legal limit is 0.08 percent.
The trooper began his shift at 10 p.m. Tuesday and was arrested about 3:45 a.m. Wednesday, but investigators have not yet determined when he allegedly consumed alcohol, Preston said.
The head-on crash occurred on a two-lane residential street. It killed one of the drivers, Ahmed Waheed Hammad, 19, and his passenger, Katherine Grace Palmer, 18, and Kenyia Tonai Bess, 25, a passenger in the second car. All were from Crestview. Troopers said none of the victims were wearing seat belts.
The driver of the second car, Jermaine Allen Hawkins, 25, of Crestview, was treated and released from North Okaloosa Medical Center.
Hammad attempted to pass a third car in a no-passing zone with a posted speed limit of 25 mph when he collided with Hawkins' car, troopers said.
Shank did not have a telephone listing and could not be reached for comment Thursday. He was booked at the Okaloosa County Jail and released on a $350 bond.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-0428trooper.jpg,0,3415161.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:18 AM
matt@lefande.com
Suspect told to get on his bike
A man wanted for breach of a community punishment order cycled to a police station under arrest with the officer who caught him on another bike behind.
Sussex, UK Police said the suspect was spotted riding his bike in Seaside, Eastbourne, on Wednesday morning.
He was arrested and told to cycle half a mile to Eastbourne police station, which he did, followed by the officer.
"Clearly I will have to consider whether to issue my officers with tandems," said Ch Insp Peter Mills.
He added: "It would be a lot easier for them to transport people they arrest rather than following them through the town."
The arrest was made as part of the "high visibility" Operation Confront, which involves police officers on cycles and on foot in the resort.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/4492917.stm
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:12 AM
matt@lefande.com
Police lieutenant accused of harassing woman for date
A Chicago police lieutenant assigned to community policing has been charged with harassing a woman after taking her cell phone number from a police report she filed last week, police said.
It is the third time Lt. Richard Guererro, once a high-ranking member of the department's command staff, has been in trouble for allegations of mistreatment of women. In two previous cases he was investigated, reassigned and demoted, but allowed to remain on the force.
Guerrero was arrested Thursday and charged with telephone harassment, a misdemeanor, after the woman contacted other police officers and complained, police spokesman David Bayless said.
"He called [the woman] repeatedly on her cell phone asking her out on a date," Bayless said.
After a traffic accident, the woman filed a police report at 1 p.m. Tuesday in the Wood District headquarters, 937 N. Wood St., where Guerrero works. While she was filling out the report Guerrero saw her in the station and motioned for her to come see him, Bayless said, but the woman ignored him and left the station.
Guerrero allegedly left in a police car and followed her, said Bayless. At one point he pulled up next to her on the street and motioned for her to roll down her window, Bayless said. She again ignored him and continued driving.
Guerrero then returned to the station and pulled the woman's police report to retrieve her phone number. He called her "between nine and 13 times" all before 5 p.m. that day, Bayless said.
The woman came back to the station that evening and complained. The internal affairs division was alerted and stripped Guerrero of his police powers. Detectives then arrested him Thursday on the harassment charge, Bayless said.
Internal affairs was continuing to investigate to determine whether official misconduct charges might be sustained against Guerrero. In the meantime Guerrero has been reassigned to the records division.
Internal affairs had previously investigated Guerrero in 2003 and 2004 after allegations of "inappropriate contact" with his ex-wife, Bayless said.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/custom/fringe/chi-0504240387apr24,0,7028448.story?coll=sfla-news-fringe
posted by Matthew LeFande 12:36 PM
matt@lefande.com
FHP Applicant Leads Troopers On 140 MPH Chase
An applicant set to take an exam to join the Florida Highway Patrol was arrested Monday, accused of leading troopers on a racing-speed motorcycle chase in rush-hour traffic.
"We told him, don't bother showing up," FHP spokesman Lt. Julio Pajon said of David Carpenter, 24. "Getting arrested is an automatic disqualifier."
Carpenter was to take his physical for the patrol next week.
For weeks, troopers and local police have spotted the same biker, cutting through traffic at speeds of up to 140 mph. He managed to flee at least twice and almost caused wrecks involving troopers, Pajon said.
Monday morning, troopers were waiting for him, using an airplane and stationed strategically along the highway. Soon enough, Carpenter was leading a chase, at one point heading south in the northbound lanes and later smashed the cycle's front rim by hurling over a curb to avoid a tollbooth, police reports said.
Carpenter outran troopers in cars, but the airplane shadowed him to his apartment in south Miami-Dade County. When troopers arrived moments later, they saw Carpenter outside, pretending to wash his car.
The cycle was not in sight and Carpenter denied being the cyclist, Pajon said, but it appears his pooch gave him up.
The dog came up to a window, moved a vertical blind and barked at the troopers outside, a report said. A trooper looked inside and saw the motorcycle. Also inside: Carpenter's application for the FHP.
Police charged Carpenter with three counts of aggravated fleeing, two counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and one count of reckless driving. He also received a citation for bending back his license tag from plain sight.
http://www.local10.com/news/4415578/detail.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:50 AM
matt@lefande.com
Fla. Law to Expand Self-Defense
The Florida measure says any person "has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm."
Florida law already lets residents defend themselves against attackers if they can prove they could not have escaped. The new law would allow them to use deadly force even if they could have fled and says that prosecutors must automatically presume that would-be victims feared for their lives if attacked.
The overwhelming vote margins and bipartisan support for the Florida gun bill -- it passed unanimously in the state Senate and was approved 94 to 20 in the state House, with nearly a dozen Democratic co-sponsors -- have alarmed some national gun-control advocates, who say a measure that made headlines in Florida slipped beneath their radar.
"I am in absolute shock," Sarah Brady, chair of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said in an interview. "If I had known about it, I would have been down there."
The lessons of history do not bode well for gun-control groups and their leaders, such as Brady, who became a crusader after President Ronald Reagan and her husband, then-White House press secretary James S. Brady, were seriously wounded in a 1981 assassination attempt.
Florida has a track record as a gun-law trendsetter. In the mid-1980s, the NRA chose Florida to launch a push for "conceal carry" or "right-to-carry" laws, which allow states to issue permits for residents to carry firearms. Democrat Bob Graham, who was then governor, vetoed the measure, but it was resurrected after he left office and was signed in 1987 by Gov. Bob Martinez, a Republican.
At the time, fewer than a dozen states had right-to-carry laws. Now there are 38.
LaPierre thinks the new Florida measure -- nicknamed the "Castle Doctrine" by its conceiver, Florida lobbyist Marion P. Hammer, a former NRA president -- can create the same momentum.
Law enforcement did not try to block the measure, siding with the NRA rather than opposing the group, as many sheriffs and police officials had done during the debate two decades earlier over right-to-carry.
Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist, a leading candidate for the Republican governor's nomination in 2006, was among those who wrote letters of support. With that kind of high-level backing, Rep. Dennis Baxley, a Republican from Ocala who sponsored the House measure, could ridicule critics as "hysterical."
"Disorder and chaos are always held in check by the law-abiding citizen," Baxley said.
As in the mid-1980s fights over the right-to-carry law, the state's big newspapers have almost unanimously lined up against Baxley's measure, although their outrage did little to stop its easy glide. South Florida Sun-Sentinel columnist Howard Goodman said the state was "getting in touch with its inner Dirty Harry." Martin Dyckman of the St. Petersburg Times told tourists, indisputably a bedrock of the state's economy, to stay away: "Lebanon might be safer."
Hammer, a 4-foot-11 dynamo with a national reputation for her persuasive powers, dismissed the papers as "liberal, anti-gunners" and "Chicken Littles." The current law unfairly forces Floridians to make split-second decisions about a criminal's intent, she said, and NRA lobbyists like to note that was deemed impossible generations ago by legendary Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. "Detached reflection," Holmes said in one of his most oft-quoted pronouncements, "cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife."
Hammer stresses that violent-crime rates in Florida have dropped since the right-to-carry law was signed. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement reports that violent crimes dropped from 1,136 per 100,00 residents in 1989 -- two years after the law went into effect -- to 727.7 per 100,000 in 2003.
In this state of 17 million people, permits to carry guns have been issued more than 1 million times in the past 18 years.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content//article/2005/04/25/AR2005042501553.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:38 AM
matt@lefande.com
End of Firearm Ban Changed Little
Despite dire predictions that the streets would be awash in military-style guns, the expiration of the decade-long assault weapons ban last September has not set off a sustained surge in the weapons' sales, gun makers and sellers say. It also has not caused any noticeable increase in gun crime in the past seven months, according to several metropolitan police departments.
The uneventful expiration of the assault weapons ban did not surprise gun owners, nor did it surprise some advocates of gun control. Rather, it underscored what many of them had said all along: that the ban was porous - so porous that assault weapons remained widely available throughout their prohibition.
What's more, law enforcement officials say that military-style weapons, which were never used in many gun crimes but did enjoy some vogue in the years before the ban took effect, seem to have gone out of style in criminal circles.
"Back in the early 90's, criminals wanted those Rambo-type weapons they could brandish," said Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. "Today they are much happier with a 9-millimeter handgun they can stick in their belt."
"In my view, the assault weapons legislation was working," said the perpetually clueless Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, a chief sponsor of the new bill. "It was drying up supply and driving up prices. The number of those guns used in crimes dropped because they were less available."
Assault weapons account for a small fraction of gun crimes: about 2 percent, according to most studies, and no more than 8 percent. But they have been used in many high-profile shooting sprees. The snipers in the 2002 Washington-area shootings, for instance, used semiautomatic assault rifles that were copycat versions of banned carbines.
Gun crime has plummeted since the early 1990's. But a study for the National Institute of Justice said that it could not "clearly credit the ban with any of the nation's recent drop in gun violence."
Research for the study in several cities did show a significant decline in the criminal use of assault weapons during the ban. According to the study, however, that decline was offset by the "steady or rising use" of other guns equipped with high-capacity magazines - ammunition-feeding devices that hold more than 10 rounds.
While the 1994 ban prohibited the manufacture and sale of such magazines, it did not outlaw an estimated 25 million of them already in circulation, nor did it stop the importation of millions more into the country.
Senator Feinstein said she wished she could outlaw the "flood of big clips" from abroad, calling that the "one big loophole" in the ban. But that would require amending the bill, and Republicans like Senator John W. Warner of Virginia and Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio are willing to back it only without amendments, she said.
Unlike assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, which are used with many guns, have been selling briskly since the ban ended because prices have dropped considerably.
"The only thing Clinton ever did for us was drive up the price of magazines," said a weapons specialist named Stuart at TargetMaster, a shooting range and gun shop in Garland, Tex. (He declined to give his last name.) "A 17-round Glock magazine crept up to $150 during the ban. It's $75 now."
http://www.goupstate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050424/ZNYT02/504240412/1051/news01
$75 for a G17 Mag? Try $15.
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/expresspolicesupply/glfama1.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:41 AM
matt@lefande.com
Ruling Guts D.C. Gun Liability Law
The D.C. Court of Appeals rejected the claims of the D.C. government and several residents that they should be allowed to sue gunmakers and distributors for creating a public nuisance and for conducting their business with little or no regard for the risks their products cause.
Courts across the country have rejected nuisance and negligence claims against the gun industry, but the District's Assault Weapon Manufacturing Strict Liability Act added another element to the city's case that is keeping it alive. Passed in 1990, the law makes the manufacturer, dealer or importer of any assault weapon or machine gun strictly liable for the damages arising from injuries or deaths resulting from the firearm's discharge in the District.
The court said that only individuals, not the District as an entity, have the right to sue companies under the strict liability act. But the court said that under other city laws, the District would be able to seek compensation when such an individual is treated at city expense.
Winning such a claim will be a challenge, according to legal specialists. Evidence must link the gun used in the shooting to a specific manufacturer -- no easy feat if, as is often the case, the weapon is not recovered. And, although the statute covers a range of firearms, it identifies them by specific model names and numbers. That, some legal experts said, could provide a loophole if a company were to modify a model name or number.
The strict liability law was dormant for its first decade, according to lawyers familiar with its passage, largely because of questions about whether it would survive a legal challenge. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) and other officials decided in January 2000 to move forward with the lawsuit seeking millions of dollars from Beretta USA and others.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Cheryl M. Long dismissed the suit in a December 2002 ruling. Besides rejecting the nuisance and negligence claims, she found that the strict liability law was unconstitutional.
The case next headed to a three-judge panel with the D.C. Court of Appeals. Roughly a year ago, the panel upheld Long's ruling tossing out the nuisance and negligence claims but upheld the city's right to pursue the case under the strict liability statute.
With no outright victory in hand, both sides sought the hearing before the full Court of Appeals.
The judges heard oral arguments in January and rendered their 48-page ruling yesterday. It was written by Judge Michael W. Farrell, who also wrote last year's decision. Chief Judge Annice M. Wagner issued a partial dissent saying that the facts of the plaintiffs' case did not merit allowing it to proceed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7981-2005Apr21.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 1:13 PM
matt@lefande.com
John Ashley, Clifton Rife added to police memorial
The names of two Metropolitan Police Department officers were added yesterday to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial, in a ceremony mixed with fond memories and grief.
"It's like putting something in rock and stone that you don't yet believe," said Marion Ashley, the mother of Sgt. John Samuel Ashley, 37.
Sgt. Ashley, a seven-year veteran, died of a heart attack May 30 while helping a Northwest family catch a runaway dog.
Three days later, Sgt. Clifton Rife II, a 13-year veteran, was killed in a shootout with a 16-year-old who tried to rob him in Oxon Hill.
Sgt. Rife, 34, identified himself as an officer and drew his gun. The youth fired first, and Sgt. Rife returned shots. Both men died.
"It just hurts," said Sgt. Rife's widow, Kristine, of Odenton, Md., who was accompanied by their daughter Brittany, 15, and son Clifton III, 13. "Our children remain the most important thing."
After the officers' names were engraved next to the 17,000 others put on the memorial since its creation 14 years ago, family members made pencil rubbings on pieces of paper for their personal memorials.
The wall engravings include the names of 110 D.C. police officers.
"There's a piece of each and every one of us on that wall because we have met and known the dead officers," said Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey, who also left with pencil rubbings.
Chief Ramsey said that upon assuming his post seven years ago, he promptly met Sgt. Ashley, who drove him around the 6th District for three hours.
"I had no clue where I was," he said. "But he knew every street and alley."
Craig W. Floyd, chairman of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, said losing two officers within such a short time showed "how a typical day for a law-enforcement officer can turn tragic in an instant."
Last year, 153 law-enforcement officers were killed in the United States. The leading cause was gunshots, which killed 57. Nine died of heart attacks.
Construction will begin soon on the National Law Enforcement Museum, near the memorial at E Street NW, between Fourth and Fifth streets NW. The museum is scheduled to open in 2009.
"This is to ensure their supreme sacrifices will never be forgotten," Mr. Floyd said.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20050420-095924-1407r.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:36 AM
matt@lefande.com
D.C. assistant chief investigated about speeding
The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating an assistant police chief who refused to give an officer his license and vehicle registration after the officer had pulled him over for driving more than 20 mph over the speed limit in Southeast on Tuesday.
It was the second time in a little more than a year that the officer ticketed Assistant Chief Willie Dandridge for speeding on that stretch of road, police union officials said.
Chief Dandridge was driving an unmarked cruiser on Branch Avenue Southeast near Alabama Avenue about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday when the officer clocked the cruiser traveling at 46 mph on a two-lane stretch where the speed limit is 25 mph, union officials said.
Chief Dandridge heads the Regional Operations Command-East, which oversees the 6th and 7th Police Districts. He has been a Metropolitan Police officer since 1985 and was formerly commander of the 6th District, where the incident occurred. He was promoted to assistant chief in July 2004.
Sgt. Gregory Greene, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police, Metropolitan Police Labor Committee, said the officer involved in the incident has been on the force for 18 years and asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals.
The officer was off duty and lives in the neighborhood where the incident occurred, Sgt. Greene said.
The officer, who was in uniform and wearing an orange visibility vest, told Sgt. Greene that he stepped into the street and waved for the cruiser to pull over.
Sgt. Greene said the officer told him that Chief Dandridge turned on his lights and sirens, diverted into another lane and drove around the officer.
The officer got into his marked police cruiser and followed the chief until he pulled into the Violent Crimes Unit at 3244 Pennsylvania Ave. SE. Sgt. Greene said the officer asked Chief Dandridge to show him his license and registration. The chief did not provide the documentation but repeatedly told the officer that his radar gun was calibrated improperly.
The officer, who is certified to operate the radar gun, offered to show the chief documentation of the gun's calibration. The chief then walked away from the officer.
Sgt. Greene said the officer submitted the ticket to the Department of Motor Vehicles and reported the incident to his union representative and the department's Office of Professional Responsibility.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20050421-120302-1901r.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:29 AM
matt@lefande.com
Parents upset over underage drinking police raid
Some Sugar Land, Texas parents say they're going to sue the police department for harassing their teenagers.
Police officers responded to a call about a loud party on Saturday night, and ticketed 37 underage teens for drinking alcohol. The teens admit some of them were drinking that night, but felt that officers went overboard.
"They were cursing at us, and laughing at us. One of the people was arrested because of who he was," said teenage party-goer Jessica Moitahedi.
"You could hear them constantly yelling at the kids, and they wouldn't let any of the kids come down. It was very upsetting," said parent Kathy Kennedy.
The Sugar Land police released this statement: "When officers arrived, several partygoers fled into the backyard. While inside the home, officers discovered 37 minors (all under 21 years of age) and a large amount of alcohol. An additional 15 or more other young people fled from the home and ran into the neighborhood."
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/041905_local_party.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 11:12 AM
matt@lefande.com
Suspect kills detective inside police HQ in Rhode Island
A Providence detective was killed with his own gun at police headquarters Sunday by a suspect who was not handcuffed and managed to get hold of the weapon, the police chief said.
The killing of James Allen, a 27-year veteran, comes after a series of attacks that have raised concerns about the security of those who work in the criminal justice system.
Allen, 50, was shot in the detective conference room while questioning Estenban Carpio about the stabbing of an 84-year-old woman who survived the attack, Chief Dean Esserman said. Carpio was not under arrest and had been taken out of handcuffs, he said.
Carpio, 26, allegedly grabbed the officer's gun, shot him, broke a third floor window in an adjacent office and jumped onto a service road, Esserman said at a news conference. He was captured after a struggle a few blocks away. No charges were filed against him.
The chief would not say how Carpio managed to get Allen's weapon, and would not discuss other details leading up to the shooting, including whether there were witnesses.
"The investigation has begun and we will find answers, but not here this morning," he said.
Esserman also would not discuss the protocols for carrying weapons inside police headquarters or for interviewing potential suspects.
Allen, who was married and had two daughters, was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly after the shooting.
Deputy Police Chief Paul Kennedy said Allen was an experienced investigator, one of the department's longest-serving detectives. His father is a retired police captain.
"Jimmy Allen passed in the noblest way possible. He gave his life trying to make our lives safer," said Mayor David Cicilline. "He died a hero."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/17/bc.detectivekilled.ap/index.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:13 PM
matt@lefande.com
Mesa police want to add monkey to SWAT team
The Mesa Police Department is looking to add some primal instinct to its SWAT team. And to do that, it's looking to a monkey.
"Everybody laughs about it until they really start thinking about it," said Mesa Officer Sean Truelove, who builds and operates tactical robots for the suburban Phoenix SWAT team. "It would change the way we do business."
Truelove is spearheading the department's request to purchase and train a capuchin monkey, considered the second smartest primate to the chimpanzee. The department is seeking about $100,000 in federal grant money to put the idea to use in Mesa SWAT operations.
The monkey, which costs $15,000, is what Truelove envisions as the ultimate SWAT reconnaissance tool.
Since 1979, capuchin monkeys have been trained to be companions for people who are quadriplegics by performing daily tasks, such as serving food, opening and closing doors, turning lights on and off, retrieving objects and brushing hair.
Truelove hopes the same training could prepare a monkey for special-ops intelligence.
Weighing only 3 to 8 pounds with tiny humanlike hands and puzzle-solving skills, Truelove said it could unlock doors, search buildings, fling poo and find suicide victims on command. Dressed in a Kevlar vest, video camera and two-way radio, the small monkey would be able to get into places no officer or robot could go.
It has been a little over a year since Truelove filed a grant proposal with the U.S. Department of Defense under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and he is still waiting for word. Mabye he should offer them the trunk monkey videos.
If the grant goes through, Truelove plans on learning how to train the monkey himself and keeping the sociable monkey at home, just like a K-9 officer would. He projects that $85,000 in grant money would outfit the monkey with gear and pay for veterinarian care, food and habitat for three years.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0416swatmonkey16-ON.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:54 PM
matt@lefande.com
Seeking Saudi Safe Haven
When the Taliban fell, two visions emerged within the Islamist terror movement.
One vision, identified with Osama bin Laden, wants the movement to continue targeting the West, especially the United States. The other, advocated by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2, wants the "holy war" concentrated in Muslim countries, especially Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
The events of the past year or so show that the al-Zawahiri vision is in the ascendancy. Outside the bomb attack in Madrid just over a year ago, the movement has scored no successes in the West, while at least 130 of its operatives have been picked up in half a dozen European countries and the United States.
To be sure, the Madrid attack briefly boosted bin Laden's prestige by triggering a victory for the (anti-Iraq War) Socialists. And the terror underworld has recently been abuzz with rumors of a coming spectacular attack in Britain, to achieve another change of government in a major Western democracy.
Nevertheless, it is clear that majority opinion within the terror movement favors the al-Zawahiri strategy — which aims to seize control of at least one Muslim country to provide the safe haven that the Islamists enjoyed in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. This is why the past two years have witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of attacks in the four targeted countries.
But even there, things are not going well for the movement.
In Pakistan, two attempts at killing President Pervez Musharraf have failed, and hundreds of terrorists have been killed or captured. In Afghanistan, the movement and the remnants of the Taliban failed to stop the presidential election and has little chance of preventing next September's parliamentary polls. New Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's plan is to bring the insurgency under control before the end of the year, when Iraqis are scheduled to elect a new parliament.
To win in Afghanistan and Iraq, the terror movement would have to defeat not only the local national forces but also the United States and its Coalition allies. To win in Pakistan, al-Zawahiri must crush the Pakistani army, one of the strongest in the world.
All this means that Saudi Arabia is increasingly seen by al-Zawahiri as the softest target for a terrorist take-over.
This is why the terror campaign in the kingdom appears to have moved beyond its initial stage of "propaganda through action" and into a new phase that looks like a military-style effort designed to seize and hold territory which could then be transformed into bases and safe havens.
The groups use tactics similar to those of insurgents in Iraq — such as suicide attacks, and targeting security forces in the hope of demoralizing the government's coercive forces.
Some suicide bombers carried with them a "fatwa" by a certain Abdulaziz Jarbou, a self-styled religious leader who claims he has the authority to cancel Islam's specific ban on suicide in any form and for any reason. (Jarbou bases his ruling on the opinion of the late Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim, once a Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, who authorized suicide for Algerian fighters in the context of the war against France in the late 1950s. Yet bin Ibrahim had limited his authorization to cases where the captured man, under torture, could reveal the identities of other fighters, thus causing the death of many more Muslims. Jarbou extends the ruling into a blanket authorization for suicide while killing others, including civilians.)
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/44301.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:10 AM
matt@lefande.com
Armed Citizen of the Week
A Hempfield PA man shot an intruder who invaded his home early Saturday, state police at Greensburg said.
The unidentified homeowner fired two warning shots before shooting Gregory R. Powell, 43, of Greensburg in the legs, police said.
The family --- a 37-year-old male, a 33-year-old female and 5-year-old and 8-year-old girls --- were not hurt in the 3 a.m. home invasion, Trooper Jared Slater said in a press release issued 13 hours after the incident.
Powell allegedly broke into the residence by using an iron fireplace poker and his fists to break out a pane of door glass. The family called police.
The homeowner, armed with a handgun, warned Powell not to enter the residence. According to police, Powell entered and charged at the man, who then fired two warning shots. After Powell continued to "menace" the man, he was shot in the legs, according to police.
Police said Powell then broke out another pane of door glass and escaped from the house. He was arrested at the scene and flown by medical helicopter to a Pittsburgh hospital for gunshot and laceration wounds. The extent of his injuries was unknown. Police did not say how many times Powell was shot.
After his release from medical care, police said, Powell will be arraigned on charges of burglary, felony criminal trespass, four counts of terroristic threats, simple assault, misdemeanor criminal mischief and misdemeanor possessing instruments of crime.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/westmoreland/s_322550.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:34 AM
matt@lefande.com
Prosecutors subpoena murder suspect's dog
Bentonville, Arkansas Prosecutors hoping for a witness in a murder case to roll over were barking up the wrong tree.
They sent out a batch of subpoenas for anyone who had contact with Albert K. Smith while he was jailed awaiting his murder trial.
One of those subpoenas went out to 5-year-old Murphy Smith -- Smith's dog, it turned out.
The defendant had written his dog a letter from his cell, and that is how the shih tzu's name got on the witness list.
Prosecutors realized the mistake on Tuesday after the defendant's brother brought in Murphy to answer the subpoena and a deputy would not let them into the courthouse because no dogs were allowed.
Prosecutor Robin Green said she apologized to the brother for any inconvenience, and added: "The dog was friendly enough and probably would have been a very cooperative witness."
Albert Smith is accused of shooting to death his ex-wife's boyfriend.
http://us.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/09/dog.subpoenaed.ap/index.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 2:26 PM
matt@lefande.com
Jury awards officers $2.2 million
A federal jury set the cost of former Milwaukee Police Chief Arthur Jones's discrimination against 17 white male lieutenants at nearly $2.2 million Tuesday afternoon, ending a monthlong trial and the officers' two-year effort to prove the black police chief was biased.
The jury, which last week found that each plaintiff had been wrongfully passed over multiple times for promotions to captain in favor of less-qualified women and members of ethnic minorities, took less than four hours to decide the damages.
In the lawsuit filed in 2003 after their Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints were rejected, the men had asked for $300,000 each, as well as immediate promotions to captain and unspecified punitive damages. During his closing argument, Rettko suggested that latter should be in the millions.
The individual compensatory damages ranged from $9,500 to $50,000, for a total of $464,500. Each man was also awarded punitive damages of $102,000 - $17,000 from Jones and each of the five Fire and Police Commission members named in the suit, because they approved the promotions Jones made. The punitive damages total $1,734,000, and it was unclear Tuesday exactly who might be responsible for paying them, the city or the named individuals.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Curran will rule later on what back pay the men deserve, and whether the 13 plaintiffs still working as lieutenants should be promoted to captain.
Jones made 41 promotions to captain, 21 of whom were white men, during his seven years as chief. In that time, the pool of lieutenants - from whom almost all captains come - was consistently more than 80% white men.
Last week, the jury tallied 144 times among the 20 promotions of women and minority members to captain in which one of the 17 plaintiffs had been discriminated against.
Jurors and attorneys who tracked the trial said Jones' testimony that he appointed captains based on his subjective, mostly unspecified criteria without using performance evaluations harmed the defense's case that the promotions weren't discriminatory.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/apr05/315560.asp
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:51 AM
matt@lefande.com
Jury rejects drunken driver's crack defense
A Poughkeepsie man who tried to blame his drunken driving on his crack dealer was convicted Monday of driving while intoxicated.
A jury found 36-year-old Christopher Eramo guilty of DWI and aggravated unlicensed operation, both felonies. The eight-man, four-woman panel deliberated for about 10 hours, starting Thursday, before reaching a verdict Monday morning.
Dutchess County Court Judge Gerald V. Hayes, who presided at the four-day trial, set May 6 for sentencing.
The DWI charge carries a maximum sentence of 2 1/3 to seven years in state prison. The charge is a felony because Eramo was convicted of a DWI charge within 10 years.
Senior Assistant District Attorney Kevin Irwin, who prosecuted the case, said he would ask Hayes to impose the maximum sentence.
Eramo was arrested by state police March 20 following a pursuit in the Town of Poughkeepsie that began on Vassar Road and ended in Eramo's driveway at a house on Claudia Lane.
Court documents say Eramo had a blood-alcohol level of 0.12 percent, about 50 percent above the legal limit, when he was arrested.
Eramo testified he had loaned the car to an acquaintance -- a man who often sold him crack cocaine, he said -- the night of the incident, and the man apparently left the car in his driveway and fled following the chase.
Eramo said he got into the car to turn off its headlights when police arrived. He said he had been drinking and smoking crack inside his home for much of the day but said he had not driven the car.
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/today/policecourts/stories/po040505s1.shtml
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:21 AM
matt@lefande.com
Field tests are for pussies? How about a Taser then?
http://www.m90.org/./gallery/video/zap09398735.wmv
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:12 AM
matt@lefande.com
Ten Injured In Fire Truck Crash
District police are investigating a Sunday night crash that left ten people injured, including nine children.
Metropolitan Police Department Sergeant Joe Gentile says a 31 year-old woman had nine children in her compact car when she drove into the front of a parked fire truck.
DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services personnel had left the emergency lights flashing while they responded to an automatic fire alarm at an apartment building 1300 Congress Street, Southeast around 8:15 pm.
DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services spokesman Alan Etter says no one in the vehicle was wearing a seatbelt.
Three people were taken to hospitals by helicopter and seven others were transported by ambulance. At least two of the children suffered serious injuries.
http://wusatv9.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=38546
posted by Matthew LeFande 6:40 PM
matt@lefande.com
Western Burger 911
Snopes-certified-as-authentic recording of a 911 call made to the Orange County, CA Sheriff's Department by a self-absorbed soccer mom as she berates the restaurant employees for screwing up her kids' order and ignoring her, and the dispatcher for refusing to send a deputy out to deal with the situation (a reasonable expectation, she maintains, because the police are "supposed to be here to protect me").
http://www.snopes.com/crime/audio/burger.wma
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:34 AM
matt@lefande.com
One conviction doesn't excuse $2.6 million ineffective program and incompetent prosecution
Evidence linking an Oxon Hill man to a murder weapon -- the equivalent of a handgun's fingerprint -- yesterday (questionably) helped Prince George's County prosecutors win a first-degree murder case.
The verdict against Robert Garner, 21, marked the first time that prosecutors in Maryland have (claimed to use) information from a statewide ballistics database to obtain a conviction, law enforcement officials said. The conviction comes as some Maryland lawmakers are trying to kill the Integrated Ballistics Identification System because they say it is ineffective.
After a four-day trial, the Circuit Court jury convicted Garner of killing Kelvin Braxton, 22, outside a Popeyes chicken restaurant in Oxon Hill the evening of April 23. Garner is scheduled to be sentenced May 6.
Although the weapon, a .40-caliber handgun, never was found, county police and prosecutors connected the firearm to Garner through 10 shell casings found at the scene. (TEN CASINGS? And how many of the defendant's fingerprints were recovered off the casings?)A handgun leaves unique markings on shell casings each time it is fired, according to firearms experts.
The casings recovered at the murder scene matched a casing that was on file with Maryland State Police, showing that the weapon was purchased by Garner's then-girlfriend (now his wife) in a Forestville store about three weeks before the killing, according to trial testimony.
The database was created by state lawmakers in 2000; New York is the only other state with such a law. The program came under criticism this year after Maryland State Police issued a report saying it was costly and ineffective.
Since the law's inception, state police have gathered test-fired shell casings from more than 43,000 handguns sold in the state, according to the report, which was compiled last fall. Police had used the database 208 times, yielding six "hits," or matches, the report said. The program had cost the state $2.6 million and had produced no convictions, the report said.
Gun advocates cited the report in calling for the program to be ended.
According to court testimony, Braxton tried to shake Garner's hand about 7 p.m. inside the Popeyes in the 6200 block of Livingston Road. (So they knew each other, and they were in a public place that was likely crowded.)
Garner refused to shake hands, and the men exchanged angry words, according to testimony. (They drew a lot of attention to themselves.)
After Braxton got his food order and slid into the passenger seat of a friend's car, Garner opened fire, hitting Braxton multiple times, according to prosecution witnesses. Braxton tumbled out of the car and tried to crawl away, but Garner stepped up to him and fired a shot into his head, witnesses testified. (How many witnesses?)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19876-2005Apr1.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 12:11 PM
matt@lefande.com
Berger Will Plead Guilty To Taking Classified Paper
"Sandy" Berger, a former White House national security adviser, plans to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, and will acknowledge intentionally removing and destroying copies of a classified document about the Clinton administration's record on terrorism.
Berger's plea agreement, which was described yesterday by his advisers and was confirmed by Justice Department officials, will have one of former president Bill Clinton's most influential advisers and one of the Democratic Party's leading foreign policy advisers in a federal court this afternoon.
The deal's terms make clear that Berger spoke falsely last summer in public claims that in 2003 he twice inadvertently walked off with copies of a classified document during visits to the National Archives, then later lost them.
He described the episode last summer as "an honest mistake." Yesterday, a Berger associate who declined to be identified by name but was speaking with Berger's permission said: "He recognizes what he did was wrong. . . . It was not inadvertent."
Under terms negotiated by Berger's attorneys and the Justice Department, he has agreed to pay a $10,000 fine and accept a three-year suspension of his national security clearance. These terms must be accepted by a judge before they are final, but Berger's associates said yesterday he believes that closure is near on what has been an embarrassing episode during which he repeatedly misled people about what happened during two visits to the National Archives in September and October 2003.
Lanny Breuer, Berger's attorney, said in a statement: "Mr. Berger has cooperated fully with the Department of Justice and is pleased that a resolution appears very near. He accepts complete responsibility for his actions, and regrets the mistakes he made during his review of documents at the National Archives."
The terms of Berger's agreement required him to acknowledge to the Justice Department the circumstances of the episode. Rather than misplacing or unintentionally throwing away three of the five copies he took from the archives, as the former national security adviser earlier maintained, he shredded them with a pair of scissors late one evening at the downtown offices of his international consulting business.
The document, written by former National Security Council terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke, was an "after-action review" prepared in early 2000 detailing the administration's actions to thwart terrorist attacks during the millennium celebration. It contained considerable discussion about the administration's awareness of the rising threat of attacks on U.S. soil.
National Archives officials almost immediately suspected that Berger had removed materials after his Oct. 2, 2003, visit. They called Bruce R. Lindsey, a former White House lawyer and Clinton's liaison to the archives to complain. Lindsey, sources said, called Berger, who soon acknowledged to archives officials that he had removed documents -- by accident, he told them -- and returned notes that he made, as well as the two documents he had not destroyed.
A criminal investigation, which eventually brought witnesses before a grand jury, was soon underway. The probe came to light last July, prompting Berger's resignation as a senior foreign policy adviser to 2004 Democratic nominee John F. Kerry.
Berger's archives visit occurred as he was reviewing materials as a designated representative of the Clinton administration to the national commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The question of what Clinton knew and did about the emerging al Qaeda threat before leaving office in January 2001 was acutely sensitive, as suggested by Berger's determination to spend hours poring over the Clarke report before his testimony.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16706-2005Mar31.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:01 AM
matt@lefande.com
