Law Enforcement: This Week’s Corrupt Cops Stories

The Chronicle may have taken a week off, but corrupted law enforcers didn’t take time off from their illicit enterprises, and there was no letup in corrupt cops stories. Here’s this week’s motley crew.

In Verona, Virginia, an Augusta County Correctional Center guard was arrested August 1 for smuggling in marijuana for inmates. Guard April Hogsett, 26, faces a Class 5 felony charge and is looking at up to 10 years in prison. A Virginia Department of Corrections Office of the Inspector General agent executed a search warrant on Hogsett’s vehicle the previous day and seized a phone, plastic baggies, and letters — but no marijuana. That search came after an informant told authorities Hogsett was to supply marijuana to an inmate known to be dealing in the jail. Authorities said cell phone and inmate money order records backed that story.

In Clatskanie, Oregon, a Clatskanie police officer was arrested August 5 for burglarizing a home to steal prescription drugs. Officer Joseph Lee Harrison, 35, was charged with burglary, theft, and official misconduct for the late July burglary. He was accused of stealing prescription painkillers, and the victims told deputies they believed he was addicted to the drugs. Harrison is out on bail.

In Crossett, Arkansas, a Crossett police officer was arrested Sunday for selling drug investigation information and other files to the target of that investigation and conspiring with him to invest in the crack cocaine trade. Officer Darrell Webb is now a former officer, having been fired immediately after being charged with second degree forgery, theft of property, conspiracy to deliver cocaine and laundering criminal proceeds. Last July, Webb stopped a vehicle driven by the drug suspect, set up a meeting at a remote location, showed him a case file on him, and offered to sell it to him for $800. The suspect gave Webb $600 and agreed to meet later to pay the balance. The next day, the suspect called Webb at work and asked him if he wanted the rest of the money. The suspect recorded that call. The pair met, the suspect paid, and again recorded the conversation, with Webb saying he had deleted the damaging information. Webb then asked if he could make a profit investing in drugs for retail sale. The drug suspect then went to the department’s top brass with his information, and Webb went down. He’s now in jail trying to raise $50,000 bond.

In Zanesville, Ohio, a former Zanesville police officer was sentenced July 30 to 20 years in prison for teaming up with two other former local cops to rip off drug dealers. Former officer Sean Beck and his co-conspirators Trevor Fusner and Chad Mills had all originally been charged with six felony counts after being arrested in October 2007 in the act of ripping off a drug dealer at gunpoint in a local cemetery. All three eventually pleaded to one count each of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and one count each of having a weapon while committing a drug trafficking offense. The trio went down after a local drug dealer went to the Muskingum County Sheriff’s Office to complain they were shaking him down, making him sell drugs for them, and splitting the proceeds. He then became a confidential informant, recording various conversations, and informing authorities so that deputies and FBI agents were waiting when Beck and buddies tried their cemetery heist.

In San Diego, a former San Diego police officer was sentenced Tuesday to 30 months in federal prison for giving inside information to drug traffickers. Former officer Juan Hurtado Tapia, 39, had admitted informing drug traffickers about an ongoing investigation and lying to federal officials about it. He pleaded guilty to obstructing an official investigation, making false statements, and a misdemeanor count of misusing a computer. Hurtado provided traffickers with background check information about a person they suspected of being an informer.

(Read last issue’s corrupt cops compilation here.)

Bookmark & Share

Hit List — US Targets 50 Taliban-Linked Drug Traffickers to Capture or Kill

A congressional study released Tuesday reveals that US military forces occupying Afghanistan have placed 50 drug traffickers on a “capture or kill” list. The list of those targeted for arrest or assassination had previously been reserved for leaders of the insurgency aimed at driving Western forces from Afghanistan and restoring Taliban rule. The addition of drug traffickers to the hit list means the US military will now be capturing or killing criminal — not political or military — foes without benefit of warrant or trial.

The policy was announced earlier this year, when the US persuaded reluctant NATO allies to come on board as it began shifting its Afghan drug policy from eradication of peasant poppy fields to trying to interdict opium and heroin in transit out from the country. But it is receiving renewed attention as the fight heats up this summer, and the release of the report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has brought the policy under the spotlight.

The report, Afghanistan’s Narco War: Breaking the Link between Drug Traffickers and Insurgents, includes the following highlights:

•Senior military and civilian officials now believe the Taliban cannot be defeated and good government in Afghanistan cannot be established without cutting off the money generated by Afghanistan’s opium industry, which supplies more than 90 percent of the world’s heroin and generates an estimated $3 billion a year in profits.

•As part of the US military expansion in Afghanistan, the Obama administration has assigned US troops a lead role in trying to stop the flow of illicit drug profits that are bankrolling the Taliban and fueling the corruption that undermines the Afghan government. Simultaneously, the United States has set up an intelligence center to analyze the flow of drug money to the Taliban and corrupt Afghan officials, and a task force combining military, intelligence and law enforcement resources from several countries to pursue drug networks linked to the Taliban in southern Afghanistan awaits formal approval.

•On the civilian side, the administration is dramatically shifting gears on counternarcotics by phasing out eradication efforts in favor of promoting alternative crops and agriculture development. For the first time, the United States will have an agriculture strategy for Afghanistan. While this new strategy is still being finalized, it will focus on efforts to increase agricultural productivity, regenerate the agribusiness sector, rehabilitate watersheds and irrigation systems, and build capacity in the Afghan Ministry of Agriculture Irrigation and Livestock.

While it didn’t make the highlights, the following passage bluntly spells out the lengths to which the military is prepared to go to complete its new anti-drug mission: “In a dramatic illustration of the new policy, major drug traffickers who help finance the insurgency are likely to find themselves in the crosshairs of the military. Some 50 of them are now officially on the target list to be killed or captured.”

Or, as one US military officer told the committee staff: “We have a list of 367 ‘kill or capture’ targets, including 50 nexus targets who link drugs and insurgency.”

burning of captured Afghanistan hashish cache, world record size, 2008 (from nato.int)US military commanders argue that the killing of civilian drug trafficking suspects is legal under their rules of engagement and the international law. While the exact rules of engagement are classified, the generals said “the ROE and the internationally recognized Law of War have been interpreted to allow them to put drug traffickers with proven links to the insurgency on a kill list, called the joint integrated prioritized target list.”

Not everyone agrees that killing civilian drug traffickers in a foreign country is legal. The UN General Assembly has called for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty. In a 2007 report, the International Harm Reduction Association identified the resort to the death penalty for drug offenses as a violation of the UN Charter and Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

“What was striking about the news coverage of this this week was that the culture of US impunity is so entrenched that nobody questioned or even mentioned the fact that extrajudicial murder is illegal under international law, and presumably under US law as well,” said Steve Rolles of the British drug reform group Transform. “The UK government could never get away with an assassination list like this, and even when countries like Israel do it, there is widespread condemnation. Imagine the uproar if the Afghans had produced a list of US assassination targets on the basis that US forces in Afghanistan were responsible for thousands of civilian casualties.”

Rolles noted that while international law condemns the death penalty for drug offenses, the US policy of “capture or kill” doesn’t even necessarily contemplate trying offenders before executing them. “This hit list is something different,” he argued. “They are specifically calling for executions without any recourse to trial, prosecution, or legal norms. Whilst a ‘war’ can arguably create exceptions in terms of targeting ‘enemy combatants,’ the war on terror and war on drugs are amorphous concepts apparently being used to create a blanket exemption under which almost any actions are justified, whether conventionally viewed as legal or not — as recent controversies over torture have all too clearly demonstrated.”

But observers on this side of the water were more sanguine. “This is arguably no different from US forces trying to capture or kill Taliban leaders,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on drugs, security, and insurgencies at the Brookings Institution. “As long as you are in a war context and part of your policy is to immobilize the insurgency, this is no different,” she said.

“This supposedly focuses on major traffickers closely aligned to the Taliban and Al Qaeda,” said Ted Galen Carpenter, a foreign policy analyst for the Cato Institute. “That at least is preferable to going around destroying the opium crops of Afghan farmers, but it is still a questionable strategy,” he said.

But even if they can live with hit-listing drug traffickers, both analysts said the success of the policy would depend on how it is implemented. “The major weakness of this new initiative is that it is subject to manipulation — it creates a huge incentive for rival traffickers or people who simply have a quarrel with someone to finger that person and get US and NATO forces to take him out,” said Carpenter, noting that Western forces had been similarly played in the recent past in Afghanistan. “You’ll no doubt be amazed by the number of traffickers who are going to be identified as Taliban-linked. Other traffickers will have a vested interest in eliminating the competition.”

“This is better than eradication,” agreed Felbab-Brown, “but how effective it will be depends to a large extent on how it’s implemented. There are potential pitfalls. One is that you send a signal that the best way to be a drug trafficker is to be part of the government. There needs to be a parallel effort to go after traffickers aligned with the government,” she said.

“A second pitfall is with deciding the purpose of interdiction,” Felbab-Brown continued. “This is being billed as a way to bankrupt the Taliban, but I am skeptical about that, and there is the danger that expectations will not be met. Perhaps this should be focused on limiting the traffickers’ power to corrupt and coerce the state.”

Another danger, said Felbab-Brown, is if the policy is implemented too broadly. “If the policy targets low-level traders even if they are aligned with the Taliban or targets extensive networks of trafficking organizations and ends up arresting thousands of people, its disruptive effects may be indistinguishable from eradication at the local level. That would be economically hurting populations the international community is trying to court.”

Felbab-Brown pointed to the Colombian and Mexican examples to highlight another potential pitfall for the policy of targeting Taliban-linked traffickers. “Such operations could end up allowing the Taliban to take more control over trafficking, as in Colombia after the Medellin and Cali cartels were destroyed, where the FARC and the paramilitaries ended up becoming major players,” she warned. “Or like Mexico, where the traffickers have responded by fighting back against the state. This could add another dimension to the conflict and increase the levels of violence.”

The level of violence is already at its highest level since the US invasion and occupation nearly eight years ago. Last month was the bloodiest month of the war for Western troops, with 76 US and NATO soldiers killed. As of Wednesday, another 28 have been killed this month.

From a church leader in Honduras to Americans!

The USPS Proposes a Ban on Cockfighting Publications

The US Postal Service is proposing an amendment to their policies on shipping mailings that violate the Animal Welfare Act, namely publications about animal fighting.

As of last year cockfighting has been banned in every state, and is considered a felony in most. However, there are still magazines dedicated to promoting the so-called sport, including The Gamecock and Grit and Steel. A third publication, The Feathered Warrior, stopped printing in July.

The Humane Society sued the Postal Service in 2007, under the pretense that their refusal to stop mailing cockfighting magazines was a violation of the Animal Welfare Act and the Postal Reorganization Act. In 2009, the Postal Service was ordered by a federal court to reconsider its decision.

“The advertisement and shipping of fighting birds, magazines, knives and other contraband are the glue that holds the animal fighting industry together. It is long past time for the Postal Service to stop enabling this organized criminal industry,” according to the Humane Society.

The Postal Service will be taking comments on the proposed change until September 2, 2009.

For more information, visit the Humane Society’s Cockfighting Fact Sheet.

Bookmark & Share

Hawaii protecting coral reefs with big fines

By AUDREY McAVOY
HONOLULU (AP) — Wrecking coral will cost you in Hawaii. A Maui tour company is paying the state nearly $400,000 for damaging more than 1,200 coral colonies when one of its boats sank at Molokini, a pristine reef and popular diving spot. Another tour operator faces penalties for wrecking coral when it illegally dropped an anchor on a Maui reef.

The state plans to sue the U.S. Navy to seek compensation for coral ruined when a guided missile cruiser the length of two football fields ran aground near Pearl Harbor in February.

The fines began issuing fines two years ago as part of its efforts to punish those who damage a resource critical to Hawaii’s fragile environment and tourism, the state’s No. 1 industry.

“People are going to have to be more careful out here, because it if keeps getting damaged, we’re going to lose it,” said Laura Thielen, chairwoman of the state Board of Land and Natural Resources, which decides how much to fine. “We have to take some very strong action or else it’s going to be too late.”

Hawaii is home to 84 percent of all coral under U.S. jurisdiction. About 15 percent of U.S. coral is in state waters surrounding the main Hawaiian islands from Niihau to the Big Island. Another 69 percent is in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands _ a stretch of mostly uninhabited atolls President George W. Bush made a national marine monument in 2006.

Coral reefs provide vital habitats for fish, help protect shoreline areas during storms, and support a thriving snorkeling and scuba diving industry.

Experts say coral reefs in the marine monument are in good shape. But those near population the main Hawaiian island population centers are under pressure from sediment found in runoff, overfishing and invasive algae.

Careless ocean users, who can kill a 500-year-old coral in five minutes, are another danger.

“Each one may be considered fairly small. But when you add them together, then the impact gets to be even greater,” said University of Hawaii coral reef expert Richard Richmond.

Kuulei Rodgers, a Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology assistant researcher, said injured corals will have a harder time recovering from global warming and rising levels of carbon dioxide the oceans are absorbing amid growing greenhouse gas emissions.

“It’s the same as if when a disease hits people, it’s the weaker ones that will normally be the ones that suffer the high mortality,” Rodgers said.

The state imposed its first-ever fine for breaking coral in June 2007, when it ordered Lahaina-based tour operator Crystal Seahorse to pay $7,300 for illegally entering a natural area reserve and breaking 11 coral specimens there.

Hawaii had the legal authority to impose such fines before, but instead preferred to simply educate offenders about reefs and have them assist with the cost of restoration. It shifted course after realizing this wasn’t prompting people to take necessary precautions around coral.

Maui Snorkel Charters, which runs tours under the name Maui Dive Shop, is paying the largest fine assessed so far.

In 2006, its Kai Anela tour boat headed to Molokini with 15 snorkelers and a captain armed with just three days of training. No tourists were hurt when the ship sank after developing mechanical problems, but the company tripled the original coral damage area by bungling salvage attempts.

The state’s staff biologist estimates the area will take 80 years to recover.

Maui Snorkel Charters is paying $396,000 in a settlement, with part of the money up front and the rest in installments through 2011. The company apologized, and the Kai Anela is back in service.

The Navy is another target, for coral wrecked over a 6- to 10-acre area when the USS Port Royal ran aground. The Navy has already spent nearly $40 million on ship repairs and some $7 million restoring the reef, including dispatching scuba divers to help reattach more than 5,000 broken coral colonies.

Florida, which has 2 percent of U.S. coral _ the most of any state after Hawaii _ is also moving to shield the resource.

Under the newly passed Coral Reef Protection Act, approved by the Legislature this year, Florida may fine culprits up to $250,000 and sue offenders for unlimited compensatory damages. Until the law, which took effect July 1, Florida had to seek compensation through the courts.

The federal government has in the past fined offenders millions of dollars for coral wrecked in marine sanctuaries.

Tori Cullins, co-owner of Wild Side Specialty Tours in Waianae, supports fines.

“Unless you hit people in the pocketbook, I don’t think it’s going to matter much,” said Cullins, who operates marine mammal viewing tours.

Associated Press writer Brian Skoloff in West Palm Beach, Fla. contributed to this report.

Kansans reject Guantanamo detainees

LEAVENWORTH, Kansas (Reuters) – Not in my backyard! Not in my state! Not in my country! That was the response from politicians and business leaders in Kansas Monday to moves by President Barack Obama to transfer terrorism suspects from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to facilities in the United States, perhaps including Kansas.

“This is a patently bad idea,” Republican Senator Sam Brownback told reporters in the northeast Kansas riverside community of Leavenworth near the Fort Leavenworth U.S. Army base, which was cited this weekend as a possible new home for the Guantanamo prisoners.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that a government task force was considering as possible sites Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and a 604-bed maximum security prison in Standish, Michigan, that is scheduled to be closed.

An Obama administration official confirmed Monday that those sites were being looked at but said there were “many, many options” under consideration.

Obama has pledged to close the prison at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo by the end of the year but faces strong opposition from fellow Democrats and Republicans in Congress to transferring the remaining 240 prisoners to U.S. soil for detention and trial.

Harsh interrogations that some see as torture and the detention of suspected Islamic militants without trial at Guantanamo, opened for prisoners in President George W. Bush’s war against terrorism, have seriously damaged the United States’ international reputation.

Brownback said the inmates should stay at Guantanamo and vowed to work with other members of Congress to prohibit any funds from being used to move the prisoners to American soil.

He and other opponents say moving to a U.S. site would make the community a target for terrorist attacks and note that Leavenworth is close to rail lines and the heavily trafficked Missouri River.

They say no move is needed at all as the detainees are already being held “appropriately and safely” at the prison in Cuba, where there are also court facilities.

“NO” TO DETAINEES

“This community has spoken loud and clear. They don’t want the detainees here,” Republican U.S. Representative Jerry Moran told Monday’s news conference.

But the Obama administration counters that the U.S. court and prison systems have handled terrorism cases in the past and could deal with Guantanamo detainees. A number of convicted militants are already being held in U.S. prisons.

Congress has set strict limits on moving detainees until certain conditions are met, including informing lawmakers first and spelling out any threats prisoners could pose or how they were mitigated.

The 134-year-old military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth is already a hardened high-security facility that could be further protected by the surrounding military base.

Business leaders in Leavenworth, about 40 miles from the Kansas City metropolitan area, say locating detainees near their community will depress property values, discourage new business development and put the residents at risk.

“We are not afraid of the prisoners breaking out,” said Leavenworth-Lansin Chamber of Commerce executive vice president Tim Holverson. “We are more concerned with their friends trying to break them out. We don’t want to be a target.”

(Reporting by Carey Gillam, additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; Editing by David Storey)

Huge crowds honor Aquino cortege in Manila

MANILA, Philippines – Huge crowds reminiscent of the 1986 “people power” demonstration took to Manila’s streets Monday to honor the passing of former President Corazon Aquino, who captured the hearts of Filipinos by ousting a brutal dictator and keeping democracy alive in the Philippines.

The flag-draped coffin of Aquino, who died Saturday after a yearlong battle with colon cancer, was paraded atop a flatbed truck along the streets where the hundreds of thousands of protesters she inspired had faced down army tanks 23 years ago and toppled Ferdinand Marcos.

Tens of thousands of mourners left their offices, schools and homes and converged on streets and overpasses, clutching yellow balloons, waving yellow ribbons and showering yellow confetti from high-rises on to Aquino’s casket. Yellow was her signature color and the symbol of the nonviolent mass movement that ushered in an era of democracy after 20 years of authoritarian rule.

Manila’s notorious traffic came to a standstill as the cortege inched on its five-hour procession through the city, including Ayala Avenue, where Aquino led many pro-democracy marches. Motorists rolled down windows and put out their hands to flash Aquino’s trademark “L” sign for “laban,” or “fight” in Filipino, the key slogan of the anti-Marcos campaign.

“I really just appreciate the love,” said daughter Kris Aquino of Monday’s gathering. “Everybody’s saying thank you to us for sharing my mom.”

At a time when some fear for the future of Philippine democracy, or at least are skeptical about the intentions of its politicians, Monday’s gathering transcended class and wealth, underscoring the groundswell of public feeling that propelled the “people power” uprising of 1986.

Nuns, priests, students, wealthy residents and their uniformed maids all jostled for space on the crowded sidewalks and people repeatedly chanted her name. Company employees watched from the windows of towering office blocks. Women, some dressed in black, wept. A man on a bicycle released four doves.

“Thank You Corazon Aquino” and “You’re Not Alone” — another Aquino slogan — was emblazoned from huge banners. Even the Philippine Stock Exchange’s streetside neon screen eschewed the usual ticker of stock prices and flashed Aquino’s portrait and a message: “Goodbye Cory.”

The funeral convoy briefly stopped at a monument to Aquino’s husband, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. — whose 1983 assassination upon his return from U.S. exile to challenge Marcos would propel Corazon Aquino to the forefront of the anti-Marcos opposition movement.

The dictator, a stalwart U.S. ally, finally fell after claiming victory over Aquino in a 1986 election widely seen as fraudulent. A group of military officers rebelled against him, triggering the three days of protests by hundreds of thousands that finally toppled Marcos.

Ever since, political mass movements in the Philippines are invariably likened or compared to that watershed in the history of the former American colony.

Businesswoman Bing Cuchatin, who wore a yellow blouse and hair ribbon, said the memory of Aquino will continue to be a potent weapon against any threats to democracy.

“There is only one Cory and she’s really a big, big loss,” Cuchatin said. “But there are so many now who stand for her ideals.”

However, after she took office in 1986 following Marcos’ ouster, Aquino struggled to meet high public expectations. Her land redistribution program fell short of ending economic domination by the landed elite. Her leadership, especially in social and economic reform, was often indecisive, leaving many of her closest allies disillusioned by the end of her term.

Still, the bespectacled, smiling woman remained beloved in the Philippines, where she was affectionately referred to as “Tita (Auntie) Cory.”

She stepped down in 1992 after serving for six years.

Since her death on Saturday, the casket had been open for public viewing at a school stadium. It was finally driven Monday to Manila Cathedral, where her children, former Cabinet members and fellow pro-democracy activists gathered for a Mass.

Her body will lie in state for public viewing until Wednesday’s private funeral. She will be buried beside her husband.

In a rare conciliatory gesture, Aquino’s youngest daughter Kris said her mother had forgiven all her political enemies, including Marcos.

Nevertheless, Kris Aquino said her family refused current President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s offer of a state funeral because the government had attempted to recall two soldiers assigned to guard her mother when she was still alive. Former Philippine presidents traditionally have the right to retain at least two guards.

Aquino’s only son, Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, said the family would not be too enthusiastic to see Arroyo at the funeral but she could pay her respects.

Months before she was diagnosed with cancer, Aquino joined street protests organized amid opposition fears that Arroyo could amend the country’s 1987 constitution to lift term limits or impose martial law to stay in power when her term ends next year. Arroyo has said she has no desire to extend her term.

___

Associated Press writer Hrvoje Hranjski and photographer Bullit Marquez contributed to this report.

San Francisco and California See Results With Solar Incentive Programs

http://tinyurl.com/mlvfks

Teen sails alone around world

http://tinyurl.com/nqfrrj

Apollo legacy: Private sector leads space race

http://tinyurl.com/mllsgt