Website and automated forms processes, Copyright
2007, Matthew August LeFande.
All
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
Suspect Uses Own Key To Escape Police Handcuffs
An Austin suspect escaped from police, but not for long.
Here's how it unfolded. An Austin police officer took Erik Murray to jail Monday for allegedly shoplifting.
Believe it or not, Murray had his own handcuff key, which he used to remove his cuffs and then get away. Handcuff keys are universal and can be easily purchased at several places.
"Houdini was able to get out of restraints pretty easy," said Captain Art Cardenas with the Travis County Sheriff's Department. "If a person practices enough, he or she may be able to get out of restraints. It's difficult, but it takes practice. Once again, if a person is intent on escaping, he or she will make attempts to do that."
If necessary, law enforcement officers can use leg irons and belly chains to restrain suspects.
As for the suspect, he was chased down and caught by the Austin police officer. He's charged with escape.
http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=4182178
posted by Matthew LeFande 9:32 AM
matt@lefande.com
Professor's e-mail bashing student
The following is the complete, unedited e-mail from adjunct English professor John Daly of Warren County Community College in Washington, N.J. to Rebecca Beach, a 19-year-old freshman at the school who announced an Iraq war hero would be speaking on campus. Daly subsequently resigned from his teaching post Nov. 22.
November 13, 2005
Dear Rebecca:
I am asking my students to boycott your event. I am also going to ask others to boycott it. Your literature and signs in the entrance lobby look like fascist propaganda and is extremely offensive. Your main poster "Communism killed 100,000,000" is not only untrue, but ignores the fact that CAPITALISM has killed many more and the evidence for that can be seen in the daily news papers. The U.S. government can fly to dominate the people of Iraq in 12 hours, yet it took them five days to assist the people devastated by huricane Katrina. Racism and profits were key to their priorities. Exxon, by the way, made $9 Billion in profits this last quarter -- their highest proft margin ever. Thanks to the students of WCCC and other poor and working class people who are recruited to fight and die for EXXON and other corporations who earning megaprofits from their imperialist plunders. If you want to count the number of deaths based on political systems, you can begin with the more than a million children who have died in Iraq from U.S.-imposed sanctions and war. Or the million African American people who died from lack of access to healthcare in the US over the last 10 years.
I will continue to expose your right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like your won't dare show their face on a college campus. Real freedom will come when soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors and fight for just causes and for people's needs -- such freedom fighters can be counted throughout American history and they certainly will be counted again.
Prof. John Daly
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47602
posted by Matthew LeFande 5:56 PM
matt@lefande.com
Police Officer Chasing Suspect Shot and Killed
A New York City police officer was shot and killed early today while pursuing a motorist who ran a red light in Brooklyn.
The owner of the car was later taken into custody.
Despite being mortally wounded, Officer Dillon Stewart, who was driving an unmarked police vehicle, continued to pursue the shooter until the car disappeared into an underground garage. The 35-year-old officer was pronounced dead about six hours later after undergoing surgery at Kings County Hospital.
Stewart - who lived in Elmont, Long Island with his wife and two children was wearing a bullet proof vest. But Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says the bullet hit in the armpit area between two protective panels and traveled to his heart.
A 27-year-old suspect was taken into custody and is being questioned.
The commissioner says the incident began at about 2:50 a-m when Stewart and his partner, Paul Lipka, who were in uniform, tried to stop a 1990 Infiniti that ran a red light in East Flatbush.
The car circled back and pulled alongside the police vehicle, and the motorist fired five shots. The suspect then drove into a basement garage on East 21st street, and Lipka and a third backup officer shot at the Infiniti as the metal rolldown gate of the garage was coming down.
The Commissioner says at this point Stewart, realized he had been shot and the officers rushed him to the hospital.
Kelly says "despite the heroic efforts of surgeons, Officer Stewart died at 8:40 this morning." Stewart was a five-year member of the N-Y-P-D.
http://www.newswatch50.com/news/state/story.aspx?content_id=ED51AD21-7E50-46ED-B3BE-E2B79601ED55
posted by Matthew LeFande 1:56 PM
matt@lefande.com
New Orleans Police serve a little seasoning to a ragin' kung fu cajun.
Video.
http://www.m90.org/index.php?id=9297
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:46 AM
matt@lefande.com
911 Audio Hears Texas Granny Shoot Intruder
Clutching her .38-caliber revolver, Susan Gaylord Buxton swung open each closet door of her northwest Arlington Texas home early Wednesday, convinced that an intruder had broken a window and hidden inside.
Finally, as she yanked open the door to the closet near the front door, her light revealed a man's face peering from underneath a coat.
"Shh," he begged.
"Then he popped out of the door like a jack-in-the-box," Buxton recalled.
Buxton, 66, warned the man to lie on the floor or she'd shoot him.
When he didn't, she did.
Those final tense minutes played out as Buxton's granddaughter spoke to a 911 operator.
Buxton, heard cursing on the 911 tape, fired once more as the intruder tried to run, police said.
"Did she just shoot him again?" the operator asked the caller, Mandy Davis, 28. "Tell her to stop shooting. I have help on the way. She needs to stop shooting him."
Police would later identify the man as 22-year-old Christopher Lessner. Late Wednesday, he was being held under police guard at Harris Methodist Fort Worth, where he was being treated for a leg wound, said Christy Gilfour, Arlington police spokeswoman.
Once released from the hospital, Lessner will face charges of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, evading arrest, criminal mischief and criminal trespass, police said.
Buxton has a permit to carry a handgun. She will not be charged with a crime because she was defending herself, police said.
"If I didn't have a gun to protect myself, I probably wouldn't be here," Buxton said.
http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?id=27013&siteSection=1
Listen to the 911 audio
posted by Matthew LeFande 9:31 PM
matt@lefande.com
How To Lose A War
QUIT. It's that simple. There are plenty of more complex ways to lose a war, but none as reliable as just giving up.
Increasingly, quitting looks like the new American Way of War. No matter how great your team, you can't win the game if you walk off the field at half-time. That's precisely what the Democratic Party wants America to do in Iraq. Forget the fact that we've made remarkable progress under daunting conditions: The Dems are looking to throw the game just to embarrass the Bush administration.
Forget about the consequences. Disregard the immediate encouragement to the terrorists and insurgents to keep killing every American soldier they can. Ignore what would happen in Iraq and the region if we bail out. And don't mention how a U.S. surrender would turn al Qaeda into an Islamic superpower, the champ who knocked out Uncle Sam in the third round.
Forget about our dead soldiers, whose sacrifice is nothing but a political club for Democrats to wave in front of the media. After all, one way to create the kind of disaffection in the ranks that the Dems' leaders yearn to see is to tell our troops on the battlefield that they're risking their lives for nothing, we're throwing the game.
Forget that our combat veterans are re-enlisting at remarkable rates knowing they'll have to leave their families and go back to war again. Ignore the progress on the ground, the squeezing of the insurgency's last strongholds into the badlands on the Syrian border. Blow off the successive Iraqi elections and the astonishing cooperation we've seen between age-old enemies as they struggle to form a decent government.
Just set a time-table for our troops to come home and show the world that America is an unreliable ally with no stomach for a fight, no matter the stakes involved. Tell the world that deserting the South Vietnamese and fleeing from Somalia weren't anomalies that's what Americans do.
While we're at it, let's just print up recruiting posters for the terrorists, informing the youth of the Middle East that Americans are cowards who can be attacked with impunity.
Whatever you do, don't talk about any possible consequences. Focus on the moment and the next round of U.S. elections. Just make political points. After all, those dead American soldiers and Marines don't matter they didn't go to Ivy League schools. (Besides, most would've voted Republican had they lived.)
America's security? Hah! As long as the upcoming elections show Democratic gains, let the terrorist threat explode. So what if hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners might die in a regional war? So what if violent fundamentalism gets a shot of steroids? So what if we make Abu Musab al-Zarqawi the most successful Arab of the past 500 years?
For God's sake, don't talk about democracy in the Middle East. After all, democracy wasn't much fun for the Dems in 2000 or 2004. Why support it overseas, when it's been so disappointing at home?
Human rights? Oh, dear. Human rights are for rich white people who live in Malibu. Unless you can use the issue to whack Republicans. Otherwise, brown, black or yellow people can die by the millions. Dean, Reid & Pelosi, LLC, won't say, "Boo!"
You've got to understand, my fellow citizens: None of this matters. And you don't matter, either. All that matters is scoring political points. Let the world burn. Let the massacres run on. Let the terrorists acquire WMD. Just give the Bush administration a big black eye and we'll call that a win.
The irresponsibility of the Democrats on Capitol Hill is breathtaking. (How can an honorable man such as Joe Lieberman stay in that party?) Not one of the critics of our efforts in Iraq not one has described his or her vision for Iraq and the Middle East in the wake of a troop withdrawal. Not one has offered any analysis of what the terrorists would gain and what they might do. Not one has shown respect for our war dead by arguing that we must put aside our partisan differences and win.
Surrender is never a winning strategy.
What do the Democrats fear? An American success in Iraq. They need us to fail, and they're going to make us fail, no matter the cost. They need to declare defeat before the 2006 mid-term elections and ensure a real debacle before 2008 a bloody mess they'll blame on Bush, even though they made it themselves.
We won't even talk about the effect quitting while we're winning in Iraq might have on the go-to-war calculations of other powers that might want to challenge us in the future. Let's just be good Democrats and prove that Osama bin Laden was right all along: Americans have no stomach for a fight.
As for the 2,000-plus dead American troops about whom the lefties are so awfully concerned? As soon as we abandon Iraq, they'll forget about our casualties quicker than an amnesiac forgets how much small-change he had in his pocket.
If we run away from our enemies overseas, our enemies will make their way to us. Quit Iraq, and far more than 2,000 Americans are going to die.
And they won't all be conservatives.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/57943.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 1:01 PM
matt@lefande.com
At Metro, Some Crimes Don't Count
Metro transit officials undercount serious crime at the region's 86 rail stations, leaving dozens of assaults, robberies and other major incidents off the official tally they report to the system's board of directors and the public.
That practice stems from a long-standing policy not to count crimes handled by law enforcement officers other than Metro's Transit Police, even if the crimes occur in a station or on a subway platform.
For the 18 months ending in June, for example, Transit Police recorded 73 aggravated assaults at rail stations, but they did not include the 21 aggravated assaults reported by other police departments, which brings the total up by nearly 30 percent, according to a review of records by The Washington Post.
Nearly 60 percent of the serious crimes at Montgomery County stations did not show up in Metro figures because they were investigated by local police. Montgomery reported 36 incidents, and Transit Police reported 27.
"We don't really have a clue what's going on," said Charles Deegan, who represents Maryland on Metro's board of directors. "Shouldn't I know what crime is on the Metro? I would insist they add everything together to give us an accurate accounting of crime on the system. "
Metro officials say the policy was designed to avoid double counting. Transit Police Chief Polly L. Hanson defended the policy and said crime on the rail system is low. But the day after an interview with The Post, she asked her police counterparts in the region to forward to her reports on crimes they handled on Metro property. She vowed to start making those numbers public.
Board Chairman T. Dana Kauffman said he wants Hanson to change her reports to the board. All Metro-related crime "needs to be captured," regardless of who handles it, he said. "We're not going to do a Kabuki dance over 'this is us and this is them,' " he said.
The current bookkeeping method raises questions about claims by Metro officials that crime has fallen.
In a July news release, Hanson boasted of a 24 percent reduction in aggravated assaults and a 19 percent drop in larcenies between June 2004 and June 2005. According to the department's 2004 annual report, a larger category of crime on the rail and bus system dropped by 2 percent compared with the previous year -- 1,234 crimes compared with 1,259.
During the 18-month period reviewed by The Post, Metro counted 463 serious crimes at its rail stations, but 98 other, similar incidents remained off its books, according to local police department records. That raises by more than 20 percent the total number of serious crimes -- rapes, aggravated assaults, armed holdups, pickpockets and purse snatches.
Thousands of lesser crimes, including vandalism and urinating in public, also occurred on the rail system during that period.
Many of the most serious incidents, however, were not counted in Metro statistics.
At the Rockville station, for example, county police handled eight robberies and two aggravated assaults, and Transit Police reported just one aggravated assault.
At the Columbia Heights Station in Northwest Washington, D.C. police reported 14 robberies and one aggravated assault. Metro reported seven serious crimes.
Metro transit officers are frequently assisted by police in the District and surrounding counties, often deciding at a crime scene which agency will take the lead role. When another department takes the lead, Metro does not record the crime in its statistics.
That's what happened after a shooting Jan. 15 adjacent to the Shady Grove Station. A 19-year-old man had just stepped off a bus when a car stopped behind him. A man jumped from the car, yelled in Spanish, fired several shots and drove off.
Metro Transit Police and Montgomery officers raced to the scene, where they found the victim bleeding from his upper body. He was taken to the hospital and survived.
A Metro transit officer was first on the scene, but county police assumed control of the investigation. The transit officer wrote a report for Metro, and Montgomery police also provided information to the rail agency. But the shooting was recorded only in county statistics.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/19/AR2005111901310.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:45 AM
matt@lefande.com
Policeman drives away with weapon on the roof of his car
A Quincy, Mass. police officer lost his department-issued gun apparently after driving away without realizing he had placed the weapon on the roof of his car, officials said.
The officer, Declan Breslin, was reprimanded and placed on desk duty for several days as punishment for losing his weapon, which was picked up by other Quincy police officers who were investigating a car crash last month in the same area the gun was dropped, Police Chief Robert Crowley said.
The incident marks the second time in a month that a local public safety official has lost his handgun, but with drastically different results. Last week, a part-time Plymouth County sheriff’s deputy was fired for a similar mishap after leaving his gun in the restroom of a Pembroke Dunkin’ Donuts.
The deputy, Robert Greek, returned to the doughnut shop less than 45 minutes later, but the weapon was gone. When the gun was recovered, Scituate police revoked Greek’s license to carry a firearm, which prompted the sheriff’s department to fire him.
Not keeping a gun secure is a state crime and is grounds for local police to revoke a gun license.
After speaking to Breslin’s supervisors, Crowley decided to issue him a formal reprimand and place him on restricted duty for a short time.
‘‘We took into account his performance on the job, which has been superb,’’ Crowley said.
Crowley has been sharply criticized by gun owners for a tough policy on issuing gun permits to residents, and one advocate suggested that the punishment given to the Quincy officer shows a ‘‘great double-standard.’’ James Wallace, the executive director of the Gun Owners’ Action League, said the punishment given to Breslin isn’t the problem, saying he’d hate to see a police officer’s career harmed for what was clearly an accident.
‘‘But I’m certain in my heart that if this was one our members, not only would they have lost their license, but they would have been brought up on criminal charges by the chief,’’ Wallace said.
The gun was found less than 30 minutes after it fell from Breslin’s car near the intersection of Franklin and Water streets in Quincy Center, Crowley said.
At first, investigators thought a drunken-driving suspect who fled the scene of the crash may have thrown the gun out the window of the van he was driving. The handgun was found by the alleged victim of the crash, who saw the weapon in the street and kicked it to the side of the curb.
A check of the gun’s serial number showed that it was not reported lost and stolen, and it was quickly traced to Breslin, who was appointed a police officer in 2003. Crowley said Breslin was in the area caring for an ill family member while off-duty and packing his belongings into his car when he left the gun on his car’s roof.
http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2005/11/19/news/news04.txt
posted by Matthew LeFande 9:39 AM
matt@lefande.com
AAA names D.C. as top town for traffic tickets
The country's largest automobile-owner group warned its 46 million members yesterday that the District and its web of traffic-enforcement cameras is no place for speeders and red-light runners.
This is the first time in AAA's 105-year history that an entire city has been designated as a "strict enforcement area," said John B. Townsend II, spokesman for the group's mid-Atlantic region, which serves nearly 4 million members in the District, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
"There are six locations in the nation that are designated as a strict enforcement area, but the District, which covers 69 square miles, is by far the largest jurisdiction ever to be so named," Mr. Townsend said.
The designation follows a record-breaking month for the District and its 10 stationary and 12 portable speed cameras. Officials collected $2.9 million in October from tickets generated, then mailed to motorists. It was the biggest revenue month in the speed-camera program's 4-year-old history.
Though AAA has long been critical of the District's traffic-enforcement cameras, which have generated more than $122 million in fines since 1999, it stopped short of designating the city as a "traffic trap."
Mr. Townsend said the District should not take the strict-enforcement designation as a "slap in the face."
"We're making it a more wholesome place for tourists by telling them to slow down," he said. "The District does a excellent job in enforcing these laws."
In fact, D.C. officials have embraced the designation as a validation against critics who say the cameras are more about money than safety.
"I'm not concerned at all," said Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey. "People should abide by our traffic laws. [The District] had largest drop in traffic fatalities in the nation last year, which is very positive and is due to enhanced traffic enforcement, including automated enforcement. We welcome visitors, workers and others, but we also want our streets to remain safe for everyone to enjoy."
The U.S. Transportation Department recently announced the District's 36-percent reduction in traffic deaths from 2003 to 2004 was the best in the county.
The 45 fatalities last year was the fewest in the past 18 years, police said.
"We wear AAA's designation as a badge of honor," said Mayor Anthony A. Williams. "We know that strict enforcement -- when combined with education and engineering -- makes our roadways safer and saves lives. For families crossing streets with children in strollers or for seniors who cross streets as they do errands, slowing traffic is a very good thing."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20051118-110229-2958r.htm
posted by Matthew LeFande 9:18 AM
matt@lefande.com
Judge Who Held Court At Strip Club Removed From Bench
A California judge has been removed from the bench for what a state agency calls "a shocking abuse of power."
Superior Court Judge Kevin Ross was cited for a wrongful conviction and two-day jail stay for a woman challenging a traffic infraction. According to the state Commission on Judicial Performance, Ross never read the new charge to the woman, never informed her of her right to an attorney or right to challenge the case.
He was also cited for filming a pilot television series, called "Mobile Court," in which a real small-claims case was heard in a Los Angeles strip club, with Ross presiding.
Ross, who first won election to the bench in 1999, said in a statement he was unsure whether he would appeal the commission's decision to the state Supreme Court.
http://www.local10.com/news/5345286/detail.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:50 AM
matt@lefande.com
Counterfeiters send jammed printer for repair
Arizona authorities this week charged suspected members of a criminal ring thought responsible for 10 per cent of all fake money in the state after some members sent a printer, jammed with counterfeit bills, out for repair.
A three-month investigation by the U.S. Secret Service and the local sheriff's office nabbed 10 suspects for crimes including forgery, weapons violations and drug charges, according to the Southwest Valley Republic. The ring of counterfeiters allegedly included two Wal-Mart cashiers who accepted the fake bills as payment for big-ticket items in order to put the faux money into circulation. The suspects would then go to a different Wal-Mart and return the items for cash, according to the news report.
The counterfeiters manufactured more than $160,000, according to officials, most of which ended up in circulation.
Many software companies and printer makers add software to their products to make copying or printing currency nearly impossible. Adobe Systems has quietly added technology to its graphics software to prevent consumers from copying and manipulating images of the world's currency. Hewlett-Packard also ships anti-counterfeiting measures in its printers, according to privacy expert Richard Smith.
http://www.theregister.com/2005/11/17/jammed_printer/
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:47 AM
matt@lefande.com
Houston police arrest ex-New Orleans cop
A man who resigned from the New Orleans Police Department after leaving during Hurricane Katrina was arrested in Houston for driving a stolen truck.
Willie Earl Bickham, 39, may face charges of impersonating an officer and weapons charges too, The Houston Chronicle reports.
When he was pulled over for speeding Saturday morning, police said he claimed he was still an active-duty officer.
Bickham allegedly admitted he wasn't the owner of the truck, one of many from a dealership in New Orleans that were reported stolen.
New Orleans police said Bickham resigned in September. He would have been fired for abandoning his duties if he hadn't.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051113-065500-9287r
posted by Matthew LeFande 10:51 PM
matt@lefande.com
Science Takes on the Mother of Satan
Ehud Keinan, a chemistry professor at Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, faced airport security at its most vigilant when he flew into Baltimore/ Washington International just three weeks after the 9/11 tragedy. Personnel rummaged through Keinan’s luggage; had him turn on his laptop to make sure it was really a computer, and even confiscated his nail clippers. Yet a vial holding two grams of triacetone triperoxide (TATP), an improvised plastic explosive, went completely undetected.
First employed by Palestinian bomb makers, the highly unstable TATP — also known as the “Mother of Satan” — is difficult to detect by dogs and conventional hi-tech methods, such as nuclear quadrupole resonance. If the mild-mannered scientist had been a terrorist, and if he had whipped up a larger batch of TATP, he could have downed his connecting flight to Los Angeles, killing hundreds of passengers. Fortunately, Keinan has devoted many years of research to combating such threats.
At the McDonald’s in the terminal, the professor poured the white explosive powder on a table, and, as oblivious patrons lunched on Happy Meals, he demonstrated for an American government official a working prototype of his pen-shaped Peroxide Explosive Tester (PET). Three and a half years later, PET is ready for use by police and security agents; all Keinan needs now is a company to manufacture the device.
First discovered in 1980 in Hebron, TATP is made by mixing hydrogen peroxide, which can be bought in disinfectant form at the neighborhood pharmacy, and acetone, commonly found in paint thinners. The compound is helped along by an acid catalyst. “The liquid from your car battery or even lemon juice will do the trick,” notes Keinan. The easy recipe is not lost on the bomb makers: In just one raid in 1998, Palestinian Authority security personnel uncovered 800 kilograms of TATP in a Nablus garage.
However, Tal Hanan, security expert and C.E.O. of Demoman International Ltd., notes that TATP is hardly military grade. An unlucky tap or nearby cigarette can set it off, leading to fatal “work accidents” among terrorists and explosive ordinance disposal officers alike. Outside of Israel and the territories, the peroxide-based explosive is used — if at all — only as a detonator, and not the main charge, like in the hollowed out heel of “shoe bomber” Richard Reid.
Indeed, Ivan Oelrich, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Strategic Security Project, wonders if pure TATP’s relative rarity is the only reason why security missed Keinan’s vial at the airport. If operating personnel are trained to look for it, existing portable technologies — such as ion mobility spectrometry, which identifies an explosive by its molecular mass, and nuclear quadrupole resonance, which looks for signature radio frequencies — should theoretically be able to pick up TATP, contend advocates.
“There are commercial detectors out there, but they have to pick up eight, very different types of explosives,” says Yehuda Zeiri, a chemist at Beersheba’s Ben-Gurion University who has worked with Keinan. “The question is one of sensitivity. How good are these devices at picking up TATP?” (As for dogs, they can be trained to pick up the scent of acetone in TATP, but in an urban environment, the animals can be distracted by household items that contain the chemical, says Hanan.)
in 2001, he created the first prototype of his Peroxide Explosive Tester, and just last month, he got an American patent on the third prototype. The device looks like an oversized pen with three levers at one end and a removable rubber cap at the other. The cap has a sticky surface designed to collect material; the levers release three solutions that wash over the cap when it is re-attached to the PET.
“The first solution is an acid that breaks down TATP into acetone and hydrogen peroxide,” explains Keinan. “The second contains a pigment that turns green when oxidized, and the third solution contains an enzyme that, when exposed to hydrogen peroxide, catalyzes oxidation in the pigment.”
The idea came from chemical immunology, says Keinan. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) uses hydrogen peroxide and pigment reactions to detect antibodies that are chemically bound to a specific enzyme.
PET is meant to be a cheap, disposable device. Keinan predicts that it will only cost $10 to $15, and once on the market, it will soon find its way into the pouch of every police officer or agent who deals with explosives: “We’re taking about hundreds of thousands of kits in the U.S. alone.”
http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2033.cfm
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:55 PM
matt@lefande.com
The Military Applications of Silly String
http://cockeyed.com/citizen/silly/silly.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 3:17 PM
matt@lefande.com
Voters say no to firearms in San Francisco
True to their left-leaning reputation, San Francisco voters decided by a wide margin to ban the possession of handguns within city limits.
Proposition H makes it illegal for residents to keep handguns in their homes or businesses and prohibits the manufacture and sale of all firearms and ammunition in San Francisco. The City’s new ordinance will be the strictest in the nation, since it requires existing guns to be turned in to law enforcement officials by April 1. Law enforcement personnel and others who require weapons for work are exempt from the measure.
Supervisor Chris Daly, the author of the ballot measure, said the law was needed to reduce the number of guns in a city plagued by gun violence, with 88 homicides so far this year, about 60 percent of them by handguns, according to officials. Fewer guns in The City, according to Daly, means fewer guns for criminals to get their hands on.
“This is sensible gun control,” Daly said. “Prop. H isn’t going to solve violence in San Francisco, but it’s one part that we can do to get a handle on this epidemic of violence, most of it handgun-related.”
A coalition of organizations opposed to Prop. H, led by the National Rifle Association, have vowed they’ll be in court today to begin their legal challenge to San Francisco’s new law, arguing that cities do not have the authority to regulate firearms under California law.
“If you ban firearms, the criminals will have them and the law-abiding citizens won’t,” said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. “San Francisco will be a magnet for crimes.”
Gottlieb said he was involved in the legal effort that took down a 1982 measure banning guns in San Francisco, which was signed into law by then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein.
Daly said the new proposition was carefully crafted to avoid the same legal traps that allowed the courts to reject The City’s first gun measure.
Only two other major U.S. cities — Washington in 1976 and Chicago in 1982 — have implemented similar handgun bans. Unlike San Francisco’s ordinance, however, both cities permitted residents to keep guns owned when the ordinance went into effect.
http://www.sfexaminer.com/articles/2005/11/09/news/20051109_ne02_firearms.txt"
posted by Matthew LeFande 10:44 AM
matt@lefande.com
Officers Accused Of Taking Classes While On Duty
Two veteran Columbus, Ohio police officers were stripped of their badges and guns for allegedly taking college classes while they were being paid to solve murders.
When Zane Wilson was murdered last year inside his Clintonville gun store, Columbus homicide Detective Brian Carney and Detective Chris Rond were the primary investigators.
Two of the suspects were convicted, but a jury was hung when it came to deciding the fate of the third suspect, Jason Hayes.
Now, one week before Hayes' trial begins, the two lead detectives are under investigation and on desk duty. A formal complaint was filed with Columbus police alleging the detectives were taking college courses at Capital University while on duty.
Judge Tommy Thompson was trying to decide Tuesday if the jury at Hayes' trial should hear the allegations. The judge decided no, because he said the allegations have no relevance to the Wilson murder.
But at the trial next week, if the detectives testify, defense lawyers can reveal that the men were stripped of their guns and badges. They just can't reveal why.
The detectives' attorneys, Columbus police and the officers' union declined to comment.
http://www.nbc4i.com/news/5281785/detail.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 9:47 PM
matt@lefande.com
Trooper sues, says he's victim of ticket quota
A Pennsylvania state trooper has filed a federal lawsuit against his agency and several superior officers, claiming he was mistreated after he failed to participate in what he called an illegal quota system for traffic citations.
Trooper Reginald Wells, who still works out of Troop T in Gibsonia, is seeking both compensatory and punitive damages, claiming he was given bad performance reviews and denied overtime pay "due solely to his unwillingness to either meet or exceed his station's average for the issuance of traffic citations."
Since 1981, it has been illegal in Pennsylvania for the state police to enforce any kind of quota for traffic tickets.
In the lawsuit, Mr. Wells names current state police commissioner Col. Jeffrey B. Miller; former commissioner Paul J. Evanko and his troop commander, Capt. David K. Points. Trooper Wells has also sued the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, claiming the group failed to represent him adequately.
He was investigated and ultimately disciplined for sending a fax to various media outlets and state police supervisors in April 2002. In it, Trooper Wells claimed the quota system was "having an adverse effect on trooper morale; was resulting in an improper allocation of resources; resulted in an inappropriate focus on enforcement based on numbers rather than the nature of the driving behavior involved and was adversely affecting the driving public."
Mr. Wells served a five-day suspension without pay this past May for sending the fax.
He makes six claims in his lawsuit, including defamation; violation of his First Amendment right to free speech; and that his department retaliated against him in violation of the whistleblower law.
In May 2002, in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, Capt. Points denied having any kind of quota system in place.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05312/602516.stm
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:49 PM
matt@lefande.com
Big Rigs Trap Pursuit Vehicle
A motorist who led CHP officers on a chase north of Castaic today was arrested after he tried to drive between two big rigs, one of which suddenly veered left and trapped the car between the trucks.
The chase, which lasted more than an hour, ended shortly before 6:30 a.m. on the northbound Golden State (5) Freeway north of Quail Lake, said California Highway Patrol Officer John Seumanutafa.
Steven Burns, 24, was booked for DUI, evading arrest, and auto theft, said CHP Officer Wendy Hahn of the Newhall office. No injuries were reported.
Burns, on parole for vehicle theft, was driving a 1993 Saturn that was reported stolen in Lancaster, Hahn said.
CHP officers had tried to stop the car about 5:20 a.m. for an unsafe lane change on a surface street near the freeway, Seumanutafa said. The motorist kept going, however, eventually entering the northbound freeway.
The chase, broadcast live on various television stations, appeared similar to numerous other Southland pursuits until the end, when the motorist tried to snake his way around and between several slow-moving tractor-trailers.
Hahn said that section of the freeway -- near the border between Los Angeles and Kern counties -- is a construction zone, and two of the northbound lanes were blocked for the project, making the area a bottleneck.
As the small sedan went slowly past a truck that had stopped on the left shoulder, another big rig in an adjacent lane suddenly turned left, and the car stopped, wedged between the trucks.
CHP officers then arrested Burns. It was not immediately reported if the trucker's action was deliberate.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=local&id=3615340
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:39 PM
matt@lefande.com
Taser To Offer Stun Gun Cameras
Public outrage was immediate after police in Miami used a Taser to shock a 6-year-old last year in an elementary school office.
Police said the Taser was used because the boy, a special needs student, had cut himself twice with a shard of glass and threatened to slash himself again or any approaching officer.
"When you first hear the story, you think, 'Oh my gosh, cops Tased a 6-year-old,"' said Miami-Dade police spokeswoman Nelda Fonticella. "But you've got to take a look at the entire situation to realize why it was done."
Now, to help better examine how Tasers are used, manufacturer Taser International Inc. has developed a Taser Cam, which company executives hope will illuminate why Tasers are needed -- and add another layer of accountability for any officer who would abuse the weapon.
The Taser Cam is an audio and video recorder that attaches to the butt of the gun and starts taping when the weapon is turned on. It continues recording until the weapon is turned off. The Taser doesn't have to be fired to use the camera.
Taser Chief Executive Tom Smith said that if a Taser Cam had been used in the case of the 6-year-old, it could answer at least one important question with certainty: "If not the Taser, then what?"
"The Taser Cam could have shown why police didn't have any other option," he added. "This wasn't just Tasing someone because he was being naughty."
Unlike dashboard-mounted cameras in patrol cars, which capture the action only if it transpires where the lens happens to have been directed, the Taser cameras always face where the gun is pointed, to capture what is said and done in the moments leading up to a suspect being jolted by the device's 50,000 volts.
"It's going to give real accountability," Smith said as he demonstrated the device recently at the company's headquarters in this Phoenix suburb. "Now you'll have absolute proof."
The company plans to start selling Taser Cams as early as March. The cameras won't come standard -- they'll cost around $400. Tasers generally run $800 to $1,000, depending on the model and order size.
Analysts see the cameras as a potential boost for the company's sluggish sales, which have come amid a growing controversy over the weapon's safety. Taser's profits in the first nine months of 2005 sagged 93 percent from last year, pressing the company's stock price into the $7 range, well below the 52-week high of $33.45.
Joe Blankenship, an analyst with Source Capital Group, said most of Taser's sales come from selling dart cartridges that reload the device. Now, he said, the Taser Cam "could also be considered a very necessary accessory."
Even people critical of Tasers say the cameras are a good idea. But the critics also are skeptical that this latest technology won't be plagued by the same record-keeping problems as other accountability features already on the stun gun.
Tasers record the time and date of use, the number of times the trigger was pulled and how long it was held down each time -- essentially how long a person was shocked.
But no single agency keeps track of all Taser use. The manufacturer can only ask police departments to submit their use records voluntarily, so they're incomplete.
"There's a capacity to download data now and it's not being fully used," said Edward Jackson, a spokesman for Amnesty International. "What guarantees are there that this new technology will be used to prevent the abuse of Tasers?"
Amnesty International has compiled a list of more than 100 people the group says have died after being shocked by Tasers in encounters with law enforcement since June 2001.
The deaths have prompted some police departments to reconsider the necessity of the devices. Lawmakers have introduced bills restricting their use.
Taser denies that its products are to blame in the deaths, arguing that drugs, health conditions or other factors, not the electrical shock, have been the cause. The company also contends Tasers have saved the lives of thousands of suspects who might otherwise have been shot by police.
Taser has been selling its weapons to law enforcement since 1998. Today, about 171,000 Tasers are being used by more than 8,000 agencies in the United States, according to the company.
The weapon uses compressed nitrogen to fire two barbed darts that can penetrate clothing. The darts are attached to the stun gun by wires that deliver the 50,000-volt shock, overwhelming the nervous system and temporarily paralyzing people.
Taser executives hope the new cameras show suspects complying with officers' orders at the mere threat of a Taser being used, what they consider a best-case scenario.
The Taser Cam records in black and white but is equipped with infrared technology to record images in very low light. The camera will have at least one hour of recording time, the company said, and the video can be downloaded to a computer over a USB cable.
Al Arena, a project manager with the International Association of Chiefs of Police research center in Virginia, said the Taser Cam could "only be a good thing." But he cautioned that police departments should create policies on downloading the material to ensure no video footage is deleted.
"That transfer really needs to have some standards and requirements, otherwise there's no security there," he said.
A Taser rival, Tampa, Fla.-based Stinger Systems Inc., announced Oct. 10 that it had begun selling stun guns that can also be equipped with an audio-video recorder. The guns sell for about $600 and the recorders for about $200. The company won't say who has bought the weapons.
Matthew Felling of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a nonprofit research group, said police agencies "that don't invest in Taser Cam technology are playing with PR fire."
"The first local police force that gets accused of excessive force without video to refute the claim will be the last one," he said. "This technology pays for itself in the court of public opinion. What you lose in revenue, you gain in public trust."
http://www.local6.com/news/5263731/detail.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 10:18 AM
matt@lefande.com
Plamegate's real liar
"Scooter Libby's" indictment was not exactly good news for the White House, but it could have been a lot worse. Feverish speculation had been building that Karl Rove would soon be "frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs," as Valerie Plame's bombastic hubby, Joe Wilson, had hoped. Or even that Dick Cheney would have to resign.
But with his investigation all but over, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has found no criminal conspiracy and no violations of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a crime in some circumstances to disclose the names of undercover CIA operatives. Among other problems, Plame doesn't seem to fit the act's definition of a "covert agent" — someone who "has within the last five years served outside the United States." By 2003, Plame had apparently been working in Langley, Va., for at least six years, which means that, mystery of mysteries, the vice president's chief of staff was indicted for covering up something that wasn't a crime.
Making the best of a weak hand, Democrats argued that the case was not about petty-ante perjury but, as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid put it, "about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president." The problem here is that the one undisputed liar in this whole sordid affair doesn't work for the administration. In his attempts to turn his wife into an antiwar martyr, Joseph C. Wilson IV has retailed more whoppers than Burger King.
The least consequential of these fibs was his denial that it was his wife who got him sent to Niger in February 2002 to check out claims that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence later stated, in a bipartisan report, that evidence indicated it was Mrs. Wilson who "had suggested his name for the trip." By leaking this fact to the news media, Libby and other White House officials were merely setting the record straight — not, as Wilson would have it, punishing his Mata Hari wife.
Much more egregious were the ways in which Wilson misrepresented his findings. In his famous New York Times Op-Ed article (July 6, 2003), Wilson gave the impression that his eight-day jaunt proved that Iraq was not trying to acquire uranium in Africa. Therefore, when administration officials nevertheless cited concerns about Hussein's nuclear ambitions, Wilson claimed that they had "twisted" evidence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." The Senate Intelligence Committee was not kind to this claim either.
The panel's report found that, far from discrediting the Iraq-Niger uranium link, Wilson actually provided fresh details about a 1999 meeting between Niger's prime minister and an Iraqi delegation. Beyond that, he had not supplied new information. According to the panel, intelligence analysts "did not think" that his findings "clarified the story on the reported Iraq-Niger uranium deal." In other words, Wilson had hardly exposed as fraudulent the "16 words" included in the 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." In fact, the British government, in its own post-invasion review of intelligence, found that this claim was "well founded."
This is not an isolated example. Pretty much all of the claims that the administration doctored evidence about Iraq have been euthanized, not only by the Senate committee but also by the equally bipartisan Robb-Silberman commission. The latest proof that intelligence was not "politicized" comes from an unlikely source — Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, who has been denouncing the hawkish "cabal" supposedly leading us toward "disaster." Yet, in between bouts of trashing the administration, Wilkerson said on Oct. 19 that "the consensus of the intelligence community was overwhelming" that Hussein was building illicit weapons. This view was endorsed by "the French, the Germans, the Brits." The French, of all people, even offered "proof positive" that Hussein was buying aluminum tubes "for centrifuges." Wilkerson also recalled seeing satellite photos "that would lead me to believe that Saddam Hussein, at least on occasion, was … giving us disinformation."
So much for the lies that led to war. What we're left with is the lies that led to the antiwar movement. Good thing for Wilson and his pals that deceiving the press and the public isn't a crime.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-boot2nov02,1,1444434.column
posted by Matthew LeFande 9:53 AM
matt@lefande.com
Clevland Police used a taser to subdue the same man twice this week.
Brian Weems, 30, was arrested Monday and released Tuesday for running naked near trick-or-treaters. Police used a taser to subdue him.
Tuesday night, police caught Weems trying to kick in a door. He was naked, and again resisted arrest.
Police used a taser in arresting him Tuesday.
This is the first and second time that a Cleavand officer who is not a SWAT member has used a taser on a suspect.
http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=42836
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:29 AM
matt@lefande.com
Sista Rosa thrownin down gangsta signs...
posted by Matthew LeFande 10:57 PM
matt@lefande.com
Son of Miami Chief Timoney arrested on drug charges in New York
The 25-year-old son of Miami police Chief John Timoney was arrested for trying to buy 400 pounds of marijuana from an undercover federal agent, the Drug Enforcement Administration said Wednesday.
A court complaint said Sean Timoney of Philadelphia gave the agent a gym bag filled with approximately $450,000 in cash.
Timoney and Jae Seu, 23, of Glenside, Pa., were arrested Tuesday night in Spring Valley, said Elizabeth Jordan, a spokeswoman for the DEA in Manhattan. They were charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute a controlled substance.
The two defendants were taken to Albany for arraignment and were ordered held there pending a bail hearing Friday.
The complaint said the defendants met in a Spring Valley hotel room with DEA agent Leonard Uller at 8:30 p.m. After handing over the cash as a "partial payment," they left the hotel room to inspect the purchased marijuana and were arrested, it said.
The meeting had been arranged by Seu and Uller, according to the complaint.
Miami police said Chief Timoney was "aware of the arrest."
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051102/APN/511021026
posted by Matthew LeFande 10:55 PM
matt@lefande.com
Judge wins $1 million verdict against State Patrol trooper
A federal jury on Friday awarded a municipal judge from southern Colorado a $1 million verdict against a Colorado State Patrol trooper who arrested the judge on a drunken-driving charge in 2001.
The jury found the trooper did not have probable cause to arrest John S. Wilder for drunken driving and prohibited use of a weapon, and that he violated the judge's civil rights. Jurors also found that Cpl. Kevin P. Turner was not entitled to qualified immunity.
Wilder, of Monte Vista, said he had offered to settle the lawsuit without a monetary award if arrest procedures were modified, an offer he said was refused.
Turner and his lawyers declined to comment, referring questions to attorney general spokeswoman Kristin Hubbell.
"We're going to look at our options," Hubbell said. "However, we believe the trooper acted properly and we presented a strong case."
Maj. Jim Wolfinbarger, a State Patrol spokesman, added: "The Colorado State Patrol is shocked and disappointed in the decision reached in this case and we are working very closely with the state attorney general's office in determining the most appropriate steps to take. The trooper involved in case, who is now a corporal, is a nine-year officer with a solid reputation."
The trial before U.S. District Judge Wiley Daniel was a retrial of the case, which Wilder lost in 2004. Wilder was granted a new trial.
The case began on a November evening in 2001 when Turner stopped Wilder, a municipal judge in Monte Vista, for speeding. The trooper said Wilder's breath smelled of alcohol and he had watery, pinkish eyes. The judge admitted he had consumed a glass of wine 10 minutes before being pulled over, according to court documents.
The trooper also saw an open, airline-size bottle of wine in the car, which was legal at the time. The judge told the officer he had a license to carry a concealed weapon and that there was a handgun in the car.
Wilder initially refused a roadside sobriety test and was arrested. Because it is a misdemeanor in Colorado to have a gun while drunk, the judge also was charged with prohibited use of a weapon.
When Wilder's blood-alcohol content was tested, it was well below the limit that Colorado law defines as driving while impaired and the charges were dropped.
The judge sued.
http://www.denverpost.com/coloradosunday/ci_3162600
posted by Matthew LeFande 10:53 PM
matt@lefande.com
Molotov cocktail flies at anti-Bush rally in downtown San Francisco
The uniform of a San Francisco police officer caught fire after a Molotov cocktail was hurled near as an anti-Bush protest Wednesday afternoon in downtown San Francisco.
A large crowd made its way from the Civic Center down Market Street, blocking traffic during the afternoon commute.
"My partner and I are standing here monitoring the crowd and all of a sudden I heard glass breaking, and the bottle apparently hit right there and gasoline spilled and the next thing I know my shoulder is on fire," said police officer Gary Constantine.
Just when it looked like the protest was wrapping up in the evening, some protesters sat down in the middle of a busy intersection to block more traffic. The group refused police requests to disperse so they were arrested at the scene, according to police.
http://www.bakersfield.com/state_wire/story/5667050p-5684913c.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 10:47 PM
matt@lefande.com
'Fiddy-Cal' Becomes Weapon of Choice in Iraq
U.S. troops in Iraq are firing .50-caliber machine guns at such a high rate, the Army is scrambling to resupply them with ammunition -- in some cases dusting off crates of World War II machine gun rounds and shipping them off to combat units.
In the dangerous and unanticipated conflict that has intensified in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003, the gun that grunts call the "fiddy-cal" or "Ma Deuce," after its official designation, M-2, has become a ubiquitous sight mounted on armored Humvees and other heavy vehicles.
Above the staccato crackle and squeak of small arms fire, the fiddy-cal's distinctive "THUMP THUMP THUMP" indicates that its 1.6-ounce bullets, exactly the weight of eight quarters, are going downrange at 2,000 mph. The bullets are said to be able to stop an onrushing car packed with deadly explosives dead in its tracks from a mile away. A .50-cal round can travel four miles, generally not with great accuracy.
At closer ranges, it is so powerful that a round will obliterate a person, penetrate a concrete wall behind him and several houses beyond that, gunners in Iraq have said.
"You can stop a car, definitely penetrate the vehicle to take out the engine -- and the driver," said Army Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., who recently retired after commanding the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq.
Merely "the noise of it is huge. Intimidating," Swannack said. But it's so powerful, he added, "I would not use it in an area where there's lots of noncombatants."
In the 1990s, fiddy-cals and crates of .50-cal ammunition gathered dust as the Army struggled to shed its heavy image and become lighter, quicker and more high-tech. Fiddy-cals are early Industrial Age artifacts, invented by John Moses Browning during World War I. Browning's 1919 drawings specified machined steel plates and rivets; today's manufacturers haven't monkeyed with his basic design. The gun alone weighs a bone-crushing 84 pounds, not including its 40-pound tripod and heavy brass-jacketed ammunition.
Outmoded or not, when Iraq erupted, the Army and Marines reached back for the .50-cal and its heavy killing power.
Swivel-mounted in the turret of a Humvee, the gun can lay down a heavy steel blizzard, 40 rounds a minute, on grouped insurgents or vehicles, and is often used in convoys or at checkpoints as a last resort to stop suicide car bombers.
Small wonder, then, that the steady increase in .50-cal use began to rapidly drain ammo stockpiles. At the Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond, Ky., ammunition left over from Desert Storm, Vietnam, Korea and even World War II had been stored in massive concrete bunkers, including some 12 million rounds of .50-cal. They began shipping it off to Iraq.
By the time the war stretched into its second year, the Blue Grass stockpile of .50 cal had shrunk to 4 million rounds.
The Army surged production of new .50-cal ammunition, taking on more than a thousand new workers at its Lake City ammunition plant in Independence, Mo.
"Fifty-cal is crazy," said Bryce Hallowell, spokesman for Alliant Techsystems Inc., the contractor that runs the plant. Four years ago, Lake City was manufacturing about 10 million rounds a year; currently it is producing at an annual rate of 50 million rounds and rising.
Even that five-fold increase hasn't been enough.
At Blue Grass, Darryl Brewer, a combat medic in Vietnam, is chief of logistics for the ammunition depot. Recently, he started pulling out .50 cal. crates marked 1945. He opened some up and peered inside.
"Pristine," Brewer reported. "It's in lead-sealed cans, like sardines. Just like it was made yesterday."
The 1945 ammunition was opened and test rounds fired to check for reliability and accuracy, standard testing done for all aging ammunition. "They find anything wrong, they'll do a suspension," Brewer said, adding with some pride, "Very seldom you see that in a fiddy-cal."
Fifty-cal rounds are linked into belts that are fed from steel ammo boxes into the side of the weapon. At Blue Grass, technicians have to replace the World War II links, using a "delinker-linker" machine so old they had to make parts for it before it would work. The relinked rounds are sealed back in ammo boxes, like sardines, and shipped.
Once grunts open up the boxes in Iraq, "then you start to have deterioration," Brewer said. "Stuff goes pretty fast."
Like other workers at Blue Grass, Brewer, 58, has a personal stake in the war, and the ammo. His son, 1st Lt. William Bryan Brewer, deploys to Iraq in December as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot. Conceivably, suppressive ground fire from .50-cals will force insurgents to keep their heads down as his aircraft passes.
"We got a couple guys with sons over there," Brewer said. "That's why we're kinda particular to make sure this stuff is right when it goes out.
"It could save their lives one day, you never know."
a href="http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/wood110105.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 5:06 PM
matt@lefande.com
Bad lasagna sours Argentina summit security
The massive security force deployed by Argentina for an Americas-wide presidential summit this week suffered its first glitch on Wednesday -- food poisoning.
At least 70 federal police officers guarding the beach resort hotel where U.S. President George W. Bush and others will meet were overcome by diarrhea and vomiting after dining on lasagna at a nearby hotel late Tuesday, police commissioner Daniel Rodriguez told local radio.
The indisposed officers received medication and were expected to be well enough to resume their duties later in the day, Rodriguez said.
The hotel is the preferred eating grounds for the 700-strong police squad patrolling the city, but was closed by city inspectors following the incident.
The federal police are among 7,000 police and military personnel forming a fortified security ring around the top hotels for the 34-nation summit in Mar del Plata, 250 miles south of Buenos Aires, Friday and Saturday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051102/od_nm/argentina_dc#l#l
posted by Matthew LeFande 4:57 PM
matt@lefande.com
