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
Chief leaves loaded gun in restaurant
Laramie Police Chief Bob Deutsch said yesterday he violated department policy by leaving his police-issued handgun in the restroom of a downtown restaurant last month.
Deutsch said he mistakenly left the loaded gun — a .40-caliber Glock pistol — in the restroom of Jeffrey’s Bistro Nov. 29. He didn’t realize the weapon was missing until a police officer returned it to him later that day.
“When I walked out of the restroom, I forgot it,” Deutsch said Wednesday. “There are no excuses. Personally, I think that’s a serious violation of policy.”
Deutsch said he was eating lunch at the restaurant when he decided to use the restroom. He placed the gun on a countertop in the bathroom, leaving it inside its holster.
A customer later found the gun and contacted a restaurant employee, who in turn called police. Officers traced the weapon back to Deutsch and returned it to him about 30 minutes after he left the restaurant.
“The (police officer) came to my office, closed the door and handed it to me,” Deutsch said. “I was very embarrassed and apologetic. I immediately e-mailed the entire department, saying I made a mistake.”
Deutsch estimated the gun was left unattended in the bathroom for no more than a couple minutes.
There was no safety lock on the Glock pistol, which is the department’s standard weapon.
After learning about the mistake, Deutsch said he issued himself a written reprimand, which is considered a low-level form of discipline.
http://www.laramieboomerang.com/news/more.asp?StoryID=104475
posted by Matthew LeFande 6:24 AM
matt@lefande.com
Flawed drug test mistakes cheese for cocaine
An internationally recognised test for cocaine is flawed - and can throw up positive results from powdered milk and parmesan cheese, say scientists. Laboratory research shows that the "Scott test" can fail to detect the drug in some samples and can wrongly identify it in some substances where no cocaine is present.
The test, introduced in 1973, is used by many police forces as a preliminary check on substances they suspect to be cocaine. A positive result is not enough to secure a conviction, but can lead to suspects being detained until a forensic laboratory completes a detailed analysis using mass spectrometry.
An alternative, more expensive test is used by some police forces, but the United Nations' field manual for drug-testing continues to recommend the Scott test, reports the magazine New Scientist.
The test involves three steps. If cocaine is present a blue precipitate should appear in the first step, disappear in the second and reappear in the third.
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=2410152005
posted by Matthew LeFande 9:07 AM
matt@lefande.com
Suspects Caught After Asking Police For Gas Money
Three suspects in a Seattle-area homicide were arrested Thursday in Oregon after asking plainclothes troopers for gas money.
Oregon State Police troopers Nick Neville and Brandon Boice, returning from a SWAT operation, stopped their unmarked Ford Expedition at a gas station off Interstate 5 in Rice Hill.
A newer BMW with Washington plates pulled alongside, and the driver asked Neville for gas money to get to California. Two other people were in the car.
Neville thought it was an odd request for someone with that type of car and radioed for a check on the BMW. He discovered that it had been stolen Wednesday from the scene of a Seattle-area homicide.
The BMW had left the station, but Trooper Joey Pollard, also returning from the SWAT operation, spotted it nearby. Richard Dwayne Jones, Douglas Art Freeman II and Ashley Nichole Boggess were arrested and taken to Douglas County Jail.
According to Seattle media reports, a man's body was found Wednesday night outside a house on Beacon Avenue where firefighters were battling a fire. Seattle police say he died of obvious homicidal violence. His car was missing.
Charges are pending.
http://www.koin.com/news.asp?ID=6025
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:59 AM
matt@lefande.com
Dulles Road Cheaters Take Toll on Virginia
When drivers blow through the toll lanes on the Dulles Toll Road without paying, a red security light immediately flashes and starts whirling in circles. A loud bell rings.
And that's it. Forever.
Despite the gaudy appearance of enforcement, it's all for show, state officials acknowledged. That little device that looks like it houses a camera? There's nothing in there. There is no equipment to catch toll cheaters. No pictures are taken. No ticket is issued. No note is sent home to Mom.
And, most important for Virginia, no money is collected. The lack of enforcement costs the state about $1.2 million a year, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation, which said about 6,600, or 1.7 percent, of the 381,000 weekday toll road users get away without paying.
"That is quite a bit of money," said Dennis Morrison, Northern Virginia administrator for VDOT, who did not know about the lack of enforcement until asked about it by a reporter. "We need to quickly get a system up so we're not losing" it.
VDOT officials said glitches in toll equipment also account for some of the uncollected money.
Electronic tolls were first put on the Dulles Toll Road in 1996, but no electronic enforcement went with it. The state uses sporadic police patrols to enforce the tolls, which range from 50 to 75 cents.
So why all the bells and lights when violators drive by? "To alert a nearby toll collector if they can catch the license plate to take down information or if law enforcement is nearby and there is somebody they need to pursue," said Deborah Brown, director of innovative finance and revenue operations at VDOT.
Virginia has delayed adding high-tech enforcement on the Dulles Toll Road because there have been problems with systems at two other facilities, and VDOT wanted to find a good method that would be usable everywhere, Brown said.
Officials said the agency plans to install such a system on the Dulles Toll Road and elsewhere in fall 2006 that will include cameras to take pictures of license plates. Under that system, which will be similar to ones used in Maryland and other states, bills will be mailed to violators, officials said.
"Nothing will 100 percent solve the problem of violations," Brown said, "but it certainly will improve enforcement efforts."
Toll violations are rare at manned booths, where drivers stop to hand over money. Few drivers will speed through a booth with someone in it, and many of those lanes have gates that prevent people from passing without paying.
But toll violations have become an increasing worry since the advent of E-ZPass, Smart Tag and other electronic systems that don't require any person-to-person transactions. Concerns have grown even greater in recent years with the rising popularity of "open road" tolling, where drivers don't have to slow down to pay. On the Dulles Toll Road, the open toll lanes are on the left side, where drivers can proceed through booth-less lanes at 35 mph as the E-ZPass transponder is read by a device overhead.
With that kind of setup, it's easy for people to drive through without paying tolls.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121502196.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 8:42 AM
matt@lefande.com
Drunk Austrailian policeman crashes paddy wagon
An off-duty police officer has been caught three times over the alcohol limit driving home from his work Christmas party – in a paddy wagon.
The constable, 41, careered off a harbourside street in Bowen, south of Townsville, early yesterday morning, wiping out a fence and damaging the front of the vehicle. He was on his way home from the Bowen Memorial Services Bowls Club after partying with workmates.
The single-vehicle accident happened at the intersection of Santa Barbara Drive and Herbert St about 3am.
The incident sent the state's top brass into crisis control as it happened as police cracked down on drink-drivers over summer.
Police Minister Judy Spence said the matter would be investigated by the Ethical Standards Committee.
"It is an appalling message out there and the Queensland Police Service will act swiftly to reprimand that officer," Ms Spence said.
"It's unacceptable for police to be drink-driving and it's very unfortunate that a constable in northern Queensland has done that last night."
Ms Spence said the public would not have to pay for the damage.
"It is unacceptable for taxpayers to pay . . . and decisions will be made on what kind of disciplinary action that officer faces," she said.
Witness Travis Power was fishing nearby when the accident happened. He said the car careered around the corner and hit a chain fence on vacant land and then stopped in a ditch.
"The driver was obviously intoxicated," Mr Power said.
A police sergeant who was "not real impressed" then turned up.
A spokesman for Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson said the driver had recorded "a bit more" than 0.14 – almost three times the .05 limit, which is referred to as drink-driving. The constable had been on a rostered day off.
Police are yet to decide whether the officer should be stood down pending his court appearance in Bowen Magistrate's Court on January 6.
If found guilty he could face a maximum penalty of nine months' imprisonment.
The vehicle has been impounded by Bowen police.
http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17581563^952,00.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 10:26 AM
matt@lefande.com
Andi the Ohio Police Dog Named in Lawsuit
One of the defendants has more than a leg to stand on in a lawsuit filed by a convicted drug dealer. Andi has four legs. He's a dog used by the Athens County Sheriff's Department.
County Prosecutor C. David Warren said to his knowledge, it's the first time the county's dog has ever been singled out as a defendant. Warren has volunteered to handle Andi's defense personally.
Wayne Francis Green, 46, of Albany filed the civil suit Nov. 18 in Athens County Common Pleas Court, alleging that a search of his furniture business in 2003 was illegal. He say officers also went into an adjoining building that he owned without a warrant, but police deny it.
The search turned up 50 pounds of marijuana, and last month Green was convicted of possession and trafficking in the drug. His sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 6.
Green's lawsuit, which seeks $450,000 in damages, also was filed against police investigators, Athens County Sheriff Vern Castle and the trial judge who ruled that the marijuana was admissible as evidence because it came from the furniture business, not the other building.
Last Thursday, Andi the German shepherd was informed that he's being sued, sort of. With a paw print, the dog "signed" the paper indicating he had been formally served with the complaint.
A message seeking comment was left Monday for Green, who is representing himself in the lawsuit.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051214/ap_on_fe_st/police_dog_sued
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:58 PM
matt@lefande.com
D.C. Police Say NYPD Officer Shot Teen, Left
An off-duty New York City police official shot and wounded a 16-year-old youth who apparently was trying to rob him Friday night in Northwest Washington. The official then left the scene and reported the shooting to his department only after returning to New York, authorities said yesterday.
D.C. police said they were investigating the incident. The officer, identified as Robert Wheeler, is an inspector with 24 years of service who works for the department's transit division, authorities said.
"We're still trying to determine what happened that night," said Lt. Michelle Milam of the D.C. police. "The New York City police department is assisting us."
New York and D.C. police declined to speculate on whether the officer violated any criminal laws or police procedures.
According to a police report, the New York officer was standing in the 1600 block of Nicholson Street NW, in the Brightwood area, when a stolen car with four teenagers inside pulled up about 9 p.m.
Two of the teenagers approached and tried to rob him, according to the police report. At least one brandished what appeared to be a handgun, police said.
The New York officer opened fire, striking a 16-year-old male in the arm, police said. The officer apparently then left the scene and may have watched from a nearby house as police arrived and investigated the incident, 4th District Cmdr. Hilton Burton said last night. Police recovered five gun shell casings.
Police, responding to reports of shots fired, found the four teenagers, ages 14 to 17, at the scene. They recovered four fake guns and arrested the teenagers on charges of unauthorized use of a vehicle.
The wounded youth was treated at a hospital for injuries not believed to be life-threatening. None of the teenagers was identified.
A little more than 24 hours after the incident, Milam said, New York City police called to say that an "officer may have been involved in discharging his weapon in the District of Columbia."
A New York police spokesman said last night that the officer remains on duty.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/12/AR2005121201817.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 12:53 PM
matt@lefande.com
DWI Charge Has Long Reach in Va.
Perhaps Justin Flanagan will walk next time. Or, better yet, stick to soft drinks.
Flanagan, of Purcellville, was charged Saturday night with driving while intoxicated, although his foot never touched an accelerator and he only briefly grabbed the steering wheel.
He was the front-seat passenger.
It began with an argument about 11:30 p.m., Leesburg police said. Flanagan, 25, was riding shotgun as his 20-year-old girlfriend drove west on the Route 7 bypass in Leesburg. The two began to quarrel, and Flanagan ripped the window crank from his door, hurled it at the woman's forehead and demanded to be let out of the car, police said.
Flanagan then grabbed the steering wheel, causing the woman to lose control and sending the car careening into a median at West Market Street, police said. An officer gave the pair sobriety tests. Police said that Flanagan's girlfriend passed. Flanagan failed.
Flanagan was also charged with malicious wounding, a felony, because the woman suffered cuts and bruises to her hands, leg and arm in the crash, police said. She was treated at a hospital and released.
Reached at home yesterday, Flanagan, heeding the advice of an attorney, would not say much about what happened.
"I'm just real messed up over it. I lost a good girlfriend over it," Flanagan said. "It's just a tough time in my life."
Flanagan said the police account sounded "almost" accurate, and added, without elaborating, that he was "trying to save myself and her, really."
Authorities and observers said that, no matter what happened that night, Virginia law -- which forbids a person to "drive or operate" a vehicle while drunk -- makes it clear that drunken driving does not require driving at all. In a case like Flanagan's, it seems, the operative word is "operate."
"You can find cases when people were convicted when they were sitting in their car with the engine running, or the engine is not running and the key is in the ignition and the lights are on," said James E. Plowman, Loudoun's top prosecutor, who said he had not been briefed on Flanagan's charges.
Plowman said he once tried a case in which a police officer had pulled over a drunk driver, who, panicking, hurriedly switched seats with his passenger as the officer approached. But the passenger was drunk, too, and both were slapped with DWI charges.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/12/AR2005121201506.html.
posted by Matthew LeFande 10:11 AM
matt@lefande.com
Bronx cop shot to death
An off-duty police officer was killed Saturday in a gunfight with two burglars outside his home, and authorities said an actor from "The Sopranos" was a suspect.
Daniel Enchautegui, 28, a three-year veteran, was pronounced dead at a hospital following the 5:15 a.m. shooting, said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
He was the second officer to die in the line of duty in two weeks.
"This is a loss to the department and the city," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who joined Kelly at the hospital. "We now have another life to mourn, taken from us for no sensible reason."
The officer had returned to his Bronx home after finishing a late shift when he heard breaking glass in an unoccupied house next door, Kelly said. The officer first called his landlord, then called 911 to report a possible burglary.
The officer grabbed his off-duty weapon and went outside to investigate. His landlord heard Enchautegui shout, "Police! Don't move!", followed by the sound of gunfire, Kelly said.
The officer was struck once in the chest with a bullet from a .357-caliber revolver. Before collapsing in the driveway of the home, he returned fire and struck both of the suspects -- one was hit twice, the other four times.
One of the suspects was identified by police as Lillo Brancato Jr., an actor who also appeared in several episodes of "The Sopranos" as Matt Bevilacqua, a mob wannabe who eventually was murdered. He made his debut in the Robert De Niro-directed film "A Bronx Tale" back in 1993.
Brancato was arrested in June for criminal possession of a controlled substance.
A police car on routine patrol arrested Brancato as he was getting into a car, police said. The second suspect, Steven Armento, was arrested as he ran from the scene. Police identified Armento as the gunman.
Both men were taken into custody without incident and were in serious condition, Kelly said.
Although police were initially using dogs and a helicopter to search for other suspects, Kelly said it appeared only the two wounded men were involved. Subway trains were stopped for several hours as the search continued.
Another officer was shot on Nov. 28 during a car chase in Brooklyn and killed by a bullet that missed his protective vest.
A suspect in that shooting was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder in a separate shooting that wounded another officer earlier in November.
On Tuesday, two state troopers were wounded and a drug suspect was killed when shots were fired during a raid in the Bronx.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/nyc-cop1211,0,5675180.story?coll=ny-entertainment-headlines&track=mostemailedlink
posted by Matthew LeFande 5:09 PM
matt@lefande.com
Shaq sworn in as reserve police officer
Look out criminals, Officer Shaq is on the beat.
Miami Heat's Shaquille O'Neal was sworn in as a reserve police officer Thursday in a private ceremony.
The 7-foot-1 superstar skipped the department's public event earlier in the day to avoid the media attention, opting instead for a quiet, no-frills ceremony.
"Officer O'Neal is very considerate toward the other officers, and he was afraid if he was there he would have taken away from that moment for other officers," department spokesman Robert Hernandez said. "This is a very special time for them and their families."
The former Laker was a reserve officer in Los Angeles before moving to South Florida. He spent the past year training for the Miami Beach police reserve officer position and can now add the $1 a year salary to his $100 million, 5-year contract with the Heat.
As a reserve officer, O'Neal will be able to carry a gun, wear a badge and make arrests, but with his celebrity status, it is unlikely he'll ever be able to walk the beat or go undercover.
O'Neal has said he is most interested in working with the special victims detective unit to help stop crimes against children.
"He made it clear when he decided to come to Miami Beach that he didn't want to just be a poster boy for photo ops, he wanted to get down and dirty and do the job," Hernandez said. "He's here to conduct investigations and to make arrests."
And in September he did just that. After seeing a man throw a bottle and yell anti-gay slurs at a passer-by, O'Neal trailed the man and helped an officer arrest him as a hate-crime suspect.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/basketball/nba/12/09/shaq.officer.ap/index.html?cnn=yes
posted by Matthew LeFande 7:59 AM
matt@lefande.com
Suit Over R.I. Police Shooting Rejected
A federal jury Friday rejected a $20 million civil rights lawsuit against the Police Department over the fatal shooting of a black officer by two white colleagues who mistook him for a suspect.
Sgt. Cornel Young Jr., 29, was off duty and in civilian clothes when he was killed outside a diner in 2000.
The shooting sparked charges of racism on the police force, where Young's father, a major, was the highest ranking black officer. It also led the department to drop a requirement that officers carry their guns while off-duty.
Young's mother, Leisa Young, claimed in her lawsuit that the department had not properly trained one of the officers to recognize off duty or undercover officers. That officer, Michael Solitro, had been on the force for eight days.
Juror Thomas Flinn said later Friday that the case was emotionally difficult.
The jurors ultimately agreed that the department's training was not to blame for Young's death, he said, but they also agreed that the training could be improved.
The two officers, Solitro and Carlos Saraiva, were previously cleared of any criminal wrongdoing by a state grand jury.
Leisa Young left the courtroom without comment after the verdict Friday, then cried quietly on the courthouse steps before getting into a car and leaving with her lawyers.
Her attorney, Barry Scheck, called the ruling disappointing and said he will appeal, adding, "The struggle continues."
"All you can do is speak truth to power," he said.
City Solicitor Joseph Fernandez called Young's death a "painful loss for the city."
"We're neither unhappy or happy," he said. "The main thing today is to take time to remember the life of Cornel Young Jr., his service to his city, his service to his family and for his community."
Mayor David Cicilline said the shooting was a "terrible tragedy."
"The city of Providence will never forget this sacrifice," he said.
Young's father, police Maj. Cornel Young, did not join his ex-wife's lawsuit but said he supported it. He testified that the risk of misidentification was particularly great for minority officers.
Young Jr. was eating inside the restaurant when a fight broke out between two women and spilled outside. A friend of one of the women pulled a gun and got into a car, and Young drew his gun and ran outside. Solitro and his partner arrived and opened fire, thinking Young was a suspect.
The two officers testified that Young never identified himself as a police officer and that he had pointed his gun in their direction and ignored repeated commands to drop his weapon.
Scheck said Young had his gun trained on a bystander when the two officers shouted at him. He said Young was shot when he turned toward the officers.
Though both officers shot Young, the trial focused exclusively on whether the police department improperly trained Solitro, thereby violating Young's civil rights.
At the time of the shooting, Providence police were required to carry their guns off-duty and intervene when they saw an immediate threat to life or property. Carrying a gun is now optional for off-duty officers, and they are encouraged instead to try to be good witnesses if they see a crime.
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=104&sid=644527
posted by Matthew LeFande 11:32 PM
matt@lefande.com
'Camera plague' causing accidents, says IAM
Two high-profile British motoring organisations have again torn into the thinking of the UK government about its "plague of speed cameras".
Not only that, but the Institute of Advanced Motorists and the Association of British Motorists say speed limits that are set too low actually cause road accidents.
Total misunderstanding by the government of speed and its relationship to accidents, ABD says, has meant a failure to deliver an effective and reasonable safety policy.
Mark McArthur-Christie, an IAM observer and ABD road-safety spokesman, explained: "The key to driving safely is to look at the road ahead and to adjust your speed according to what you see.
"However, when the speed limit is set way below what is a reasonable and safe maximum for the road, drivers cannot do this without breaking the limit.
"When such limits are rigidly enforced drivers watching their speedometers can no longer pay attention to upcoming hazards and lose the ability to recognise and respond to them correctly.
"All road safety depends on drivers' ability to control their speed and speed limits must work with this skill to enhance, rather than undermine, that skill."
That meant they should be set at reasonable levels.
McArthur-Christie said road law enforcement should be directed at bad driving and at drivers who failed to control their speed sensibly.
That, however, depended on local authorities and the government employing trained police officers capable of identifying bad driving instead of a camera triggering an automatic fine because of a politician's arbitrary decision about a "safe" speed on any given stretch of road.
Above all, McArthur-Christie said, recognition should be given to improved driving skills, which should be positively encouraged rather than treated with contempt by speed-limit and camera-trap policy.
http://motoring.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3028331&fSectionId=751&fSetId=381
posted by Matthew LeFande 11:07 AM
matt@lefande.com
UDOT to shell avalanches, not homes
The Utah Department of Transportation is preparing to resume using a cannon for avalanche control in Provo Canyon and believes it can do so this time without shelling any neighborhoods.
On March 23, an errant 105mm Howitzer round went over a hill and into the backyard of Lori and Scott Connors' Pleasant Grove home.
The explosion sent shrapnel through their house, damaging the homes of several neighbors and leaving a gaping crater in their yard.
The Army shell was pre-packed with seven bags of propellent, and the avalanche safety workers were supposed to remove two of those bags before firing. The round was supposed to go less than 4,000, but instead flew about 9,000 yards.
''What we found wasn't a breakdown in procedure but a breakdown of the human element of the procedure,'' UDOT spokesman Tom Hudachko said.
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3292889
posted by Matthew LeFande 11:04 AM
matt@lefande.com
Rock Paper Saddam Presents: "The Painting"
Saddam:
Let me see, let me see, ch ch ch, oh here it is: "Whatever you do, never put that painting on the back wall over there
-- because that would be ridiculous. It would not provide the room a sense of flow, and also it says that you are a big stupid jerk -- and to bring me a soda."
http://www.rockpapersaddam.com/thepainting/
posted by Matthew LeFande 9:11 AM
matt@lefande.com
Officer Zaps Partner After Soda Dispute
Authorities said a police officer in Michigan used a Taser stun gun on his partner during an argument about stopping for a soft drink.
The suspect was fired after the Nov. 3 incident and is charged with assault.
Ronald Dupuis, 32, could get up to 93 days in jail if convicted.
Authorities said Dupuis asked partner Prema Graham to stop at a store for a soft drink, but she refused and instead kept driving back to headquarters.
Authorities said the partners struggled over the steering wheel, and Dupuis hit Graham's leg with his department-issued Taser gun. She wasn't seriously hurt.
http://www.local10.com/news/5490762/detail.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 6:07 PM
matt@lefande.com
Nebraska Judge Says 128 mph Not 'Reckless'
Speeding is not necessarily reckless, even at 128 mph, a judge ruled in the case of a motorcyclist who tried to flee from state troopers.
With some reluctance, County Judge John Steinheider ruled last week that Jacob H. Carman, 20, was not guilty of reckless driving on Sept. 5, when he was spotted by a trooper who then chased him at the top speed of his cruiser's odometer - 128 mph.
"As much as it pains me to do it, speed and speed alone is not sufficient to establish reckless driving," the judge told Carman on Friday. "If you had had a passenger, there would be no question of conviction. If there had been other cars on the roadway, if you would've went into the wrong lane or anything, I would have convicted you."
Otoe County prosecutor David Partsch acknowledged that Carman could have been charged with speeding but, "We felt that the manner in which he was operating the motorcycle was reckless."
Carman didn't get off entirely. He was fined $300 for expired tags and other violations.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BRF_RECKLESS_CHARGE?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=ENTERTAINMENT
posted by Matthew LeFande 9:25 PM
matt@lefande.com
Reinventing 911 - How a swarm of networked citizens is building a better emergency broadcast system.
It's another dangerous day in America. Bird flu is spreading, the North Koreans have a nuclear bomb, and Osama bin Laden is still at large. The federal security threat-warning system points to "elevated." Citizens nationwide have been told to be extra vigilant against new terror attacks.
In the world of disaster management, here is some of the stuff that happens: Levees burst, power grids go dark, oil tankers run aground, railcars full of toxic chemicals tumble off their tracks, tornadoes sweep houses into the sky. In dealing with such catastrophes, emergency managers have experience in the cascade of consequences: Phone service vanishes, hospitals are jammed, highways slow to a crawl, shelters overflow. No matter how much advance planning may have been done, disaster response becomes an improvisation, and society eventually rights itself through the cumulative effect of many separate acts of intelligence.
Obviously, if you want citizens to improvise intelligently, it is wise to let them know as soon as possible when something goes wrong. Back in 1989, when he was working for the state of California, Botterell started creating an innovative warning system called the Emergency Digital Information Service. Botterell's system - still in use - aggregates weather alerts, natural disaster information, and other official warnings into a common database, then makes them available through multiple media: pager, email, the Web, and digital radio broadcast. Because EDIS warnings are picked up by television newsrooms, local police, school principals, building management firms - anybody who wants them - the system injects massive redundancy into the public warning system and ensures that any serious news will immediately be bouncing around multiple communication channels.
EDIS was designed to fix two flaws in traditional warnings like tsunami sirens, telephone trees, and old-fashioned broadcast alerts. The first problem is that specialized warning systems are infrequently used, and usually fail under stress. But the second problem is more serious: Humans are encoded with a tendency to pause. When we receive new information that requires urgent action, we hesitate, testing the reality of the news and thinking about what to do. Emergency managers are all too familiar with this feature of human nature. They call it milling.
Milling is rational - and dangerous. Even when a warning is successfully delivered, there are deadly delays before people respond. What are they doing in these minutes, hours, and even days? They are talking to friends and family, watching the news, listening to the radio, calling the police, counting their money, and trying to balance the costs of leaving against the risks of staying. When alerts are given through rarely used pipelines, milling increases. And when the information distributed by hard-pressed government officials is confusing or contradictory, milling increases even more.
During a large disaster, like Hurricane Katrina, warnings get hopelessly jumbled. The truth is that, for warnings to work, it's not enough for them to be delivered. They must also overcome that human tendency to pause; they must trigger a series of effective actions, mobilizing the informal networks that we depend on in a crisis.
To understand the true nature of warnings, it helps to see them not as single events, like an air-raid siren, but rather as swarms of messages racing through overlapping social networks, like the buzz of gossip. Residents of New Orleans didn't just need to know a hurricane was coming. They also needed to be informed that floodwaters were threatening to breach the levees, that not all neighborhoods would be inundated, that certain roads would become impassible while alternative evacuation routes would remain open, that buses were available for transport, and that the Superdome was full.
No central authority possessed this information. Knowledge was fragmentary, parceled out among tens of thousands of people on the ground. There was no way to gather all these observations and deliver them to where they were needed. During Hurricane Katrina, public officials from top to bottom found themselves locked within conventional channels, unable to receive, analyze, or redistribute news from outside. In the most egregious example, Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff said in a radio interview that he had not heard that people at the New Orleans convention center were without food or water. At that point they'd been stranded two days.
By contrast, in the system Botterell created for California, warnings are sucked up from an array of sources and sent automatically to users throughout the state. Messages are squeezed into a standard format called the Common Alerting Protocol, designed by Botterell in discussion with scores of other disaster experts. CAP gives precise definitions to concepts like proximity, urgency, and certainty. Using CAP, anyone who might respond to an emergency can choose to get warnings for their own neighborhood, for instance, or only the most urgent messages. Alerts can be received by machines, filtered, and passed along. The model is simple and elegant, and because warnings can be tagged with geographical coordinates, users can customize their cell phones, pagers, BlackBerries, or other devices to get only those relevant to their precise locale. The EDIS system proved itself in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, carrying more than 2,000 news releases and media advisories, and it has only grown more robust in the decade since.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/warning.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 1:46 PM
matt@lefande.com
Fear, Inc.- How homeland security became the biggest market opportunity since the dotcom boom.
A terrorist would kill for this view. The 11th-floor office of Fortress America, an Arlington, Virginia, company located at the heart of the disaster economy, is surrounded by opportunities for mayhem.
To the west, the suburbs of Washington, DC, sprawl toward Dulles International Airport, the transit point for 63,000 passengers a day. The Pentagon lies a few miles southeast, and still higher-profile targets - the White House, Capitol Hill - are just east, across the Potomac. At the base of the building, a DC Metro station handles thousands of commuters every day.
But when Tom McMillen looks out these windows, he sees different opportunities - for baggage screening machines, biological and nuclear sensors, data analysis software, video surveillance, and high tech gear for emergency personnel. McMillen founded Fortress America last winter as a corporate shell, or so-called blank check company. In July, with no product, no revenue, and certainly no profits, he managed to raise $46.8 million in an IPO based on a simple promise: to spend at least $30 million acquiring a company in the business of preventing, deterring, or cleaning up after a disaster. Now he's looking for somewhere to invest the money.
So how does someone raise millions in the public market with nothing more than a vague pledge to buy something? The answer to that question stretches back to 1972. "I was very young, 20 years old," he says. He was playing for the US basketball team at the Munich Olympics when 11 Israeli athletes were taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists. All of the hostages died, two in their room, the rest in a bungled rescue attempt at the airport. "At the time I said to myself, it won't be long before this comes to America," McMillen recalls. "It took 30 years."
During that time, he says, as Europe and Israel began fostering strategies to defend themselves against terror, the US failed to develop the mentality - or technology - to protect its citizens. After 9/11, McMillen decided it was time to suit up. Fortress America is one of three ventures he founded to capitalize on a society increasingly preoccupied with disaster. Global Secure, which he helped start in 2003 by combining three smaller companies that sell first-responder training, technology, and equipment, filed for a $100 million IPO in August. (McMillen now has no official role with the company but remains one of its largest shareholders.) The company's prospectus says it anticipates more than $15 billion in federal spending in the "critical incident response marketplace" in the next year. In August, McMillen took over a company called Celerity Systems, turned it into a Fortress America-style outfit focusing on acquiring startups for less than $30 million, and promptly renamed it Homeland Security Capital.
To run Fortress America, McMillen, a Democrat, has assembled a team of advisers that includes former Republican senator Don Nickles and former Republican representative Asa Hutchinson, who also served as an undersecretary at the Department of Homeland Security for two years. About $40 million of the IPO money sits in an escrow account, while McMillen and the company's CEO, a tech industry veteran named Harvey Weiss, sift through acquisition targets. "There were probably a thousand new companies on September 12 that didn't exist on September 10, repackaging what they knew as an antiterrorist or homeland security initiative," says Weiss. "A lot of those failed. But the government has spent a lot of money in research and development, giving very bright PhDs and laboratories a lot of dollars to develop new things quickly."
McMillen and Weiss aren't the only ones combing the homeland security landscape. In fact, Fortress America isn't even the only blank check corporation in the building. Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar and author of Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, has a firm called Good Harbor Partners that's headquartered eight floors down. Clarke is taking Good Harbor public even though, like Fortress America, it's little more than a promise to be a holding company. The firm's prospectus says it plans to use its cash to acquire a firm that specializes in areas like "threat management, crisis management, and risk mitigation."
Welcome to the homeland security industrial complex, a world where doomsday scenarios double as marketing pitches, patriotism mingles with capitalism, and the spoils go to whoever can placate a skittish society. "The best thing that will happen is that we will never have a nuclear event in the United States, never have a sarin gas event," Weiss says. "But do you know how much money is going to be spent" preparing for such events? "It's only a matter of time before someone finds something bad in a container coming through the port of Baltimore, Charleston, or Long Beach."
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.12/homeland.html
posted by Matthew LeFande 1:39 PM
matt@lefande.com
