History > 2007 > USA > Police (III)

City Is Doubling Police Program

to Reduce Crime

December 27, 2007
The New York Times
By AL BAKER

Every new police officer in New York City will be sent onto the streets of some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods as part of a broad anticrime operation that the authorities say has helped produce historic drops in crime, the city announced on Wednesday.

Police officials and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that each of the 914 police recruits being sworn in on Thursday would join the program, Operation Impact. They also announced that crime in almost every major category declined again this year, with violence down in the schools and on the subways and with homicides on track to fall below 500 for the first time since reliable statistics became available 44 years ago.

Because some areas, mostly in Brooklyn, show stubbornly higher crime rates, they will get a bigger influx of Operation Impact officers, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said. They include parts of Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant, East New York and Crown Heights.

Operation Impact, begun in 2003, matches new recruits with seasoned officers and supervisors to tackle crime spikes in narrowly drawn geographic areas. Coming at a time when the department is facing recruitment challenges, the new influx will double — to more than 1,800 — the number of officers assigned to those duties in a force that currently has 35,400 members.

“If you look at a map showing where crime is, it is clearly concentrated in a couple of areas, and the people that live in those areas have a right to live in a safe neighborhood just like those who are lucky enough to do so today,” Mayor Bloomberg said as he stood with Commissioner Kelly and a phalanx of police commanders inside the 28th Precinct station house in Harlem.

As of 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, 484 homicides had been recorded in New York City in 2007, Mr. Kelly said, 97 fewer than at the same time last year. Officials said the city was headed toward having fewer than 500 homicides this year, by far the lowest number in a 12-month period since reliable Police Department statistics became available in 1963, when there were 548 killings.

Asked why the officials had gathered in Harlem, Mr. Kelly said that so far this year, there have been three homicides in the 28th Precinct, while “we had over 100 homicides here, consistently,” in years past.

Homicide, which is often viewed as a bellwether for larger trends in crime, was not the only type of violent crime to decrease.

Through Dec. 23, the latest date for which overall police statistics were available, crime had fallen by 6.3 percent compared with the same period in 2006, officials said. Rapes, robberies, burglaries, grand larcenies and auto thefts also declined, compared with last year. Only felony assaults increased, to 16,864 from 16,801, a 0.3 percent rise.

Officials said crime in the subway system fell by 13 percent compared with last year. In 1990, the officials said, 48 crimes were committed, on average, each day in the subway system, compared with a current average of 6. The decline occurred despite increasing numbers of riders and a Police Department that has nearly 2,500 fewer officers than was allowed for in the city budget.

Police officials said crime in the school system dropped 20 percent compared with last year.

Dennis C. Smith, a professor at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University and an author of an analysis of Operation Impact, hailed the new emphasis on the program as a “targeted use of scarce resources.” He said he had feared that city officials might curb the program because of a crisis in the recruitment of city police officer candidates.

“This is further validation of research that has been done around the country — on smaller, more temporary versions of this approach — that hot-spot policing really works,” Professor Smith said.

Homicides hit their peak in 1990, with 2,245. Mr. Bloomberg said on Wednesday that he hoped the declines would continue after he left office in two years. “I think Ray and I have one hope, and that is whoever succeeds us takes the numbers that we left and takes them down dramatically more,” the mayor said.

Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said that stamping out crime was “good and important.” But in doing so, she said, the Police Department could not engage in tactics that alienate the community and violate individual rights.

“We have concerns, of course, about the possibility, or indeed the likelihood, that flooding the streets that are identified as ‘high crime’ will result in a sharp escalation of suspicionless street stops and breed antagonism on both sides,” Ms. Lieberman said.

“If police come in there with a hostile attitude and the assumption that everyone on the street is suspicious because it is a so-called high-crime neighborhood, then that is an invitation for civil rights violations that breed hostility, mistrust and bad experiences all around, and certainly no guarantee of a good result in reducing crime in the long term.”

Since criminals can get a sense of police operations, police officials must continually change their tactics, said Thomas A. Reppetto, a police historian who monitors the city’s crime numbers.

“The police in New York have to continue to be two steps ahead of the criminals,” Mr. Reppetto said. “There is now a lot more pinpointed police activity, aimed at smaller locales. It used to be, 10 or 12 years ago, there was drug gangs on every corner and the police swept through a whole precinct. But now there are smaller pockets of crime, and that is what these impact areas are for, and the areas are constantly shifting.”

Of the 76 police precincts in New York, there were 6 that showed slight increases in overall crime, officials said. Of those, four were in Brooklyn — the 73rd, 77th, 79th and 84th Precincts; one in Queens, the 101st Precinct; and one on Staten Island, the 122nd Precinct.

In one of the Brooklyn neighborhoods, Brooklyn Heights, the increase was very small, 0.65 percent higher than last year, the police said. And homicides rose in only one of those precincts, the 73rd, reaching 28 compared with 22 last year, officials said.

Mr. Kelly said that overall shootings — the number of occurrences and the number of victims — were down compared with last year.

He said that the Operation Impact program was being changed: Rather than moving the roughly 900 officers currently in the program to precinct assignments — and replacing them with two-thirds of the recruits graduating from the Police Academy on Thursday — the existing officers will remain in the program and be joined by all 914 recruits, who will go to existing zones or to others being newly configured.

Mr. Kelly said that about one-third of the 1,800 officers in the program would be sent to central Brooklyn precincts: the 70th, 71st, 73rd, 75th, 77th and 79th. Also, 45 officers will be assigned to northern Brooklyn as Impact Response Team officers, a flexible component within Operation Impact where the borough commander has the option of using the officers as he sees fit.

In the Bronx, the 44th, 46th and 52nd Precincts will get Operation Impact officers. In northern Manhattan, the 32nd Precinct in Harlem will get them. In southern Manhattan, the Midtown North and Midtown South Precincts will get Operation Impact officers. In Queens, the 103rd, 110th and 115th Precincts will get additional officers in the program.

In addition, a housing police unit in Brooklyn will get an Impact Response Team. Police in the transit system will get a similar team of officers, known as an Impact Task Force. Staten Island will also get more overtime tours for the program.

Mr. Kelly said that if he had to identify one program “that has been the prime reason why crime has gone down in this city, at least in this administration, it has been Operation Impact.”

The program could have fallen victim to the continuing recruiting crisis, officials said. But a historical oddity in hiring numbers is allowing Operation Impact to continue and expand. There were about 800 officers hired in 1988, compared with 5,000 the previous year, and since about 81 percent of police officers retire after 20 years on the job, Mr. Kelly said, a large loss of officers was not expected to occur in the coming year.

“We’re going to give this a try, and we’ll monitor it very closely to see if in fact we have to take officers from Impact and put them into precincts,” the commissioner said. “We’ll monitor it literally on a daily basis.”

The authorized head count for the Police Department is 37,838 officers — which is what is allowed for in the city budget. But the department has not been able to meet that goal.

Several city officials have criticized the starting salary for officers in their first six months of employment — $25,100, which first went into effect for officers hired in January 2006 — as a reason for the current recruitment crisis.

The department is now authorized to hire 2,400 new officers, but as a result of the shortage of recruits, it says it will hire only 1,000 officers for the class that begins in January.

    City Is Doubling Police Program to Reduce Crime, NYT, 27.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/nyregion/27crime.html

Settlement for Torture of 4 Men

by Police

December 8, 2007
The New York Times
By MONICA DAVEY and CATRIN EINHORN

CHICAGO, Dec. 7 — The City of Chicago is preparing to pay nearly $20 million to four men who were once sent to death row after interrogations that they say amounted to torture by the Chicago police, the city’s law department said on Friday.

If the legal settlement is approved next week by the city’s aldermen, it will be a crucial first effort to put a painful, notorious chapter in the city’s history behind it, some officials here said.

The four men were among scores of black men who reported being tortured, beaten with telephone books, and even suffocated with plastic typewriter covers during police interrogations in the 1970s and 1980s, special prosecutors found last year. The four men were pardoned by Gov. George Ryan in 2003.

Of the proposed settlement, Flint Taylor, a lawyer for one of the men, Leroy Orange, said, “It speaks volumes about the seriousness of the systematic torture, abuse and cover-up that went on in the city of Chicago for decades.”

The settlement comes at a time of tense relations between the Chicago Police Department and the city’s residents, following a string of incidents — the beatings of civilians caught on videotape, a report showing a high rate of brutality complaints, a corruption investigation into an elite police unit. Only last month, officials announced they had selected a new police superintendent from outside the city ranks.

“This is an important step down the road,” Toni Preckwinkle, an alderman, said of the planned settlement. “We have to acknowledge first that terrible wrongs were committed, then begin to make amends to those who were wronged, then put a system in place to see that this doesn’t happen again.”

Monique Bond, a spokeswoman for the Police Department, called the settlement “a positive step forward as we make fighting crime and building community trust our No. 1 priority.”

Many of those who reported torture in police interrogation rooms pointed to a commander named Jon Burge, who was fired in 1993, and to those he supervised. Mr. Burge did not respond to a telephone message at his Florida home on Friday.

Advocates for some of the four men seemed relieved by the financial settlements, but emphasized that there were still others out there who had reported being similarly abused and tortured into confessing. Many were still behind bars, Mr. Taylor said.

Kurt Feuer, who represents Madison Hobley, another of the four men, criticized the city as taking too long.

“It shouldn’t have taken four and a half years and millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money spent on fighting us tooth and nail every step of the way,” Mr. Feuer said. “Whose interests were served by that?”

Since their pardons, Mr. Hobley, who had been convicted of killing seven people in a 1987 arson, and Mr. Orange, who was convicted in the 1984 stabbing deaths of two adults and two children, have been out of prison. Two others, Stanley Howard and Aaron Patterson, are behind bars now — Mr. Howard on an unrelated charge and Mr. Patterson on new drugs and weapon charges.

More recently, Mr. Hobley has been identified as the suspect in a federal arson and murder investigation, according to a news release from the city law department. If he is indicted and convicted in the federal case, the settlement says, a part of his money will not be paid.

Told of the settlement, Kevin Milan, a relative of Mr. Hobley, said, “They took long enough.”

“A human’s life was hanging in the balance,” Mr. Milan said. “I watched what it did to all of us — years were taken off of lives through this.”

    Settlement for Torture of 4 Men by Police, NYT, 8.12.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/us/08chicago.html

Former Officer Gets 17 Years in Beating

November 29, 2007
Filed at 1:39 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

MILWAUKEE (AP) -- A former police officer was sentenced Thursday to more than 17 years in prison for the beating of a biracial man in a case that outraged the city and sent protesters into the streets.

A judge also sentenced Jon Bartlett, 36, to three years supervision and ordered him to pay $16,365 in restitution along with the federal prison sentence of 17 years and four months.

Bartlett was convicted with two other former officers of taking part in the beating of Frank Jude Jr. outside a housewarming party in October 2004.

The other officers, Daniel Masarik, 27, and Andrew Spengler, 28, were scheduled to be sentenced later Thursday.

Bartlett was the ringleader in the attack, Jude wrote in a statement submitted to the court Thursday. Jude feared for his life and had hoped Clevert would give Bartlett the maximum 20-year sentence, he wrote.

''You and your fellow police officer friends attempted to kill me and take my life,'' he wrote. ''Mr. Bartlett, you are a disgrace, a disgrace to all police officers, and every public official in the world.''

Bartlett apologized to Jude in court Thursday, but he stood by his claim that he had to deal with unruly suspect.

A federal jury determined in July that the three violated Jude's civil rights and conspired to assault him while acting as officers. Officer Ryan Packard was acquitted of federal charges.

The trial is the second round in a case that has haunted Milwaukee. The three men were acquitted of most state charges by an all-white jury in April 2006, angering the community. Federal authorities filed the civil rights charges six months later.

In the days after the state trial, black and white residents, including the mayor, expressed their outrage at community meetings. Up to 2,000 people marched from the Milwaukee County courthouse to the federal courthouse.

Jude, 29, said he had been at a party on Oct. 24, 2004, when a group of white men who identified themselves as off-duty officers kicked and punched him, put a knife to his throat and jammed a pen in his ears as he begged for mercy. Jude said he heard Spengler call him a racial slur.

''They came close to killing Mr. Jude,'' said his attorney, Jonathan Safran. ''They caused him serious permanent physical injuries and mental injuries he and his family will have to deal with the rest of their lives.''

Jude said the confrontation began as he and a friend were leaving the party, when a group of men surrounded their truck and dragged him out, accusing him of taking Spengler's badge. No badge was ever found.

The community has cried injustice since the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published a front-page photo in February 2005 showing Jude's swollen, misshapen face just after the beating.

The police department disciplined 13 officers after the beating, including nine who were fired. Two of the fired officers won back their jobs, including Packard after a 20-day suspension.

Four others have pleaded guilty to similar federal charges. One has been sentenced to two years in prison and another a year in prison along with a year of probation, a fine of $3,000 and 100 hours of community service.

Two others are scheduled for sentencing Dec. 6.

    Former Officer Gets 17 Years in Beating, NYT, 29.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Police-Beating.html

Shooting Fuels Outcry Over NYPD Training

November 19, 2007
Filed at 6:27 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

NEW YORK (AP) -- A candy bar, a wallet, even a pair of baggy pants can draw deadly police gunfire.

The killing of a hairbrush-brandishing teenager last week was the latest instance of police shootings in which officers reacted to what they erroneously feared was a weapon. It has revived debate over the use of force, perceptions of threats and police training.

''We have cases like that all over the country where it can be a wallet, a cell phone, a can of Coca-Cola and officers have fired the weapon,'' said Scott Greenwood, a Cincinnati attorney who has worked on police use-of-force cases across the country and who is a general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

''It does not necessarily mean it was excessive use of force,'' he added. ''However, those types of incidents do give rise to greater suspicion on the part of the public about how police use force and they call into question the training departments are using to train officers to perceive and respond to threats.''

The New York Police Department says the officers who fired 20 shots at 18-year-old Khiel Coppin on Nov. 12 were justified in their use of force. The mentally ill teenager approached officers outside his mother's home with a black object in his hand -- the hairbrush -- and repeatedly ignored orders to stop.

The officers were responding to a 911 call in which Coppin could be heard in the background saying he had a gun. But in a second 911 call Coppin's mother told the operator her son wasn't armed, and after officers arrived she repeated that to them.

''Why did the police not heed the warnings ... that her son was unarmed?'' said Paul Wooten, the family's attorney. ''Why was it necessary for the overwhelming use of deadly force? Five police officers, 20 shots, eight hits. Is there no proportionality?''

Last year, New York officers fired 50 bullets at three unarmed men in a car, killing Sean Bell on his wedding day and seriously wounding his two friends. Three officers are scheduled for trial in February.

In 1999, four New York City undercover officers fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo, striking him 19 times, when the 22-year-old man reached for his wallet while standing in an apartment building vestibule. The officers said they thought Diallo was reaching for a gun.

The 2001 Cincinnati police killing of Timothy Thomas -- the 15th black resident to die at police hands since 1995 -- led to the city's worst civil unrest since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Thomas was unarmed, but was reaching to pull up his baggy pants while he was being chased.

In that case, as in other police shootings, the officer who fired said his actions were triggered by fear for his own safety.

At least 64 U.S. law enforcement officers have been killed by gunshots this year, according to the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund.

Andre Burgess was walking down a New York street in 1997 when an undercover federal agent shot him in the thigh, saying he thought the foil-wrapped Three Musketeers candy bar in his hand was a gun.

Violent confrontations between police and crime suspects occur daily in big cities, and officers are often called upon to make snap judgments on the use of force.

Early Sunday, officers in Brooklyn shot two people who they believed were dangerous; one was a suspect in a stabbing who police said advanced on officers with a broken bottle.

''Just because a subject has something unidentifiable in his or her hands, that's never an automatic justification for the use of deadly force,'' Greenwood said.

However, ''If someone is carrying around a toy pistol we don't expect the police to know it's a toy,'' he said.

Critics of police shootings have said racial stereotypes factor into officers' perceptions of threats. Some studies, for example, have shown that police use less force on white suspects than on nonwhite suspects. Thomas, Bell, Diallo, Burgess and Coppin were black.

NYPD instructors say recruits are repeatedly cautioned to be aware of their surroundings and to try to take cover and assess a situation before opening fire. But once shooting starts, officers are trained to ''shoot to stop'' by firing at a target's ''center mass'' or torso.

Despite the Bell and Coppin deaths, police officials argue that statistics show the NYPD has become more restrained: Officers fired 540 shots last year, down 13 percent from 616 in 2005. In 1996, the total was 1,292. This year, members of the 36,000-officer department have killed 10 people. Last year, the total was 13 people, up from nine in 2005, and in 1996 it was 30.

------

Associated Press writer Tom Hays contributed to this report.

    Shooting Fuels Outcry Over NYPD Training, NYT, 19.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Police-Shootings.html

Chicago Police Abuse Cases Exceed Average

November 15, 2007
The New York Times
By SUSAN SAULNY

CHICAGO, Nov. 14 — Chicago police officers are the subject of more brutality complaints per officer than the national average, and the Police Department is far less likely to pursue abuse cases seriously than the national norm, a legal team at the University of Chicago reported Wednesday.

The report, “The Chicago Police Department’s Broken System,” comes amid troubled times for the force, the nation’s second largest, which is mired in accusations of misconduct and is the subject of open feuding among elected officials who disagree on aspects of its management.

The department also needs a new superintendent since Philip J. Cline, a longtime officer, resigned in April after an outcry over the lack of swift discipline against officers accused of involvement in two beatings of civilians captured on videotape.

According to the new report, rogue police officers abuse victims without fear of punishment, and the lack of accountability has tainted the entire department, resulting in a loss of public confidence. Patterns of abuse and disciplinary neglect were worst in low-income minority neighborhoods, said the authors, Craig B. Futterman, H. Melissa Mather and Melanie Miles.

The national average among large police departments for excessive-force complaints is 9.5 per 100 full-time officers. For a department of Chicago’s size (13,500, second only to New York), that would correspond to 1,283 complaints a year. From 1999 to 2004, however, citizens filed about 1,774 brutality complaints a year against Chicago officers. Less than 5 percent of the department was responsible for nearly half of abuse complaints, from 2001 to 2006.

Although a great majority of the department is not abusive, the report said, “This does not mean that it bears no responsibility,” adding, “The police code of silence contributes to the machinery of denial.”

Analyzing a broader array of complaints in another breakdown, the authors said that from 2002 to 2004 civilians filed 10,149 complaints accusing officers of excessive force, illegal searches and false arrests, and of abusing them sexually or because of race.

The rate at which the department found enough evidence to believe that the charge of abuse might have occurred in order to sustain a case was 1 percent (124 of the 10,149 complaints), the report said, compared with a national average of 8 percent from 2002, the most recent year for which national data is available.

Just 19 of the 10,149 complaints in Chicago led to suspensions of a week or more, said Mr. Futterman of the University of Chicago.

A spokeswoman for the Police Department did not respond to a call and an e-mail message seeking a response. Last month, in a measure of how hard it is to get data about the department, the City Council began to consider suing the city for access to information on police misconduct. In July, the Council voted to overhaul the department’s office that investigates abuses.

“As the numbers detailed above illustrate plainly,” the report said, “‘not knowing’ about police abuse in Chicago requires a great deal of active effort.”

    Chicago Police Abuse Cases Exceed Average, NYT, 15.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/us/15chicago.html

Boy, 16, Charged With Shooting Officers

November 14, 2007
Filed at 11:28 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A teenager was charged Wednesday with shooting two undercover narcotics officers as they were trying to serve an arrest warrant, the fourth and fifth officers shot in this city in the last few months.

Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said police trying to serve the warrant in the Philadelphia's Frankford section Tuesday rang the door bell of a house twice and then used a battering ram on the door. The shooter fired at them through a window, he said.

One officer was shot in the leg and the other was wounded in the hip. The officers, whose names were not released, were treated and released from hospitals.

''Both of them are very, very lucky,'' Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said as he arrived at one of the hospitals with Mayor John F. Street.

The suspected shooter was believed to still be inside the house about 90 minutes after the shooting, the commissioner said. A short time after that, police took up to seven people from the house into custody.

A 16-year-old was charged with attempted murder, possession with intent to deliver drugs, and aggravated assault, police said. Police have not released the teen's name.

Street decried what he called a ''deterioration of respect for law and order and for our police department'' and urged lawmakers to help the city get illegal guns off the streets.

''It's outrageous,'' mayor-elect Michael Nutter said. ''We have to get the word out that we will not tolerate people shooting Philadelphia police officers.''

The shootings happened less than two weeks after Officer Chuck Cassidy, 54, was shot when he walked in on a robbery at a doughnut shop on Oct. 31. He died the next day. A suspect was arrested days later in Miami and is now in custody in Philadelphia.

    Boy, 16, Charged With Shooting Officers, NYT, 14.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Officers-Shot.html

Police Commissioner Defends Shooting

November 14, 2007
The New York Times
By AL BAKER

A troubled 18-year-old man. A furious family argument inside a first-floor Brooklyn apartment. A 911 call. Then, in the darkness, 20 bullets fired by five police officers. The 18-year-old is fatally wounded. The police say he was holding a hairbrush.

The episode unfolded in about 14 minutes in the apartment, an alley next to it and the sidewalk in front of it on Monday evening. The victim, Khiel Coppin, was struck by 10 of the bullets fired by the police and was later pronounced dead at Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center, the authorities said.

Yesterday, the police gave their version of events, going to considerable lengths to defend the five officers who fired the shots — displaying elaborate charts, playing portions of a 911 call from Mr. Coppin’s mother in which he could be heard screaming, “I got a gun,” and showing blowup photographs of Mr. Coppin’s handwritten notes, pulled from his pockets after he died.

“As we know the facts now, this shooting appears to be within department guidelines, as officers fired at someone they reasonably believed to be about to use deadly force against them,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said, describing the shooting as a “terrible tragedy.”

Paul Wooten, a lawyer for Mr. Coppin’s family, responded brusquely to Mr. Kelly’s statements. He said the commissioner played only a small portion of the 911 tape “that helps the Police Department,” and he demanded a thorough investigation. The police later released a transcript of a second call in which an operator phoned Mr. Coppin’s mother, Denise Owens, to get a better physical description of her son, whom Ms. Owens said was not armed.

Standing with Mr. Coppin’s mother, father and siblings outside the morgue where they had just identified his body, Mr. Wooten also disputed the contention by some officials that Mr. Coppin provoked the shooting as a means toward his own death, a phenomenon known in law enforcement circles as “suicide by cop.”

“There’s no credible evidence at this time to suggest that this was a suicide attempt,” he said.

Some witnesses disputed the police account, and others asked why the police were unable to subdue the man without killing him. A group of residents from Bedford-Stuyvesant marched to the 79th Precinct station house to express their displeasure.

The shooting will be investigated by the office of Brooklyn district attorney and by the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, officials said.

It was clear yesterday that in those moments in the darkness, sudden and seemingly random movements by Mr. Coppin collided tragically with moves by the police. Dissecting what happened during those 14 minutes, action by action, shows that whatever the level of training and preparedness of the officers, in a volatile and fluid situation a potential tragedy may be just around the corner.

“It is hard to justify shooting someone with a comb,” said one police official. “And you find yourself in a position of defending the actions. Unfortunately, policing takes on the demeanor that you have to be right 100 percent of the time — and that is an impossible standard for anyone to meet.

“There will be a lot of controversy over this,” the official added. “It was a tragic accident, a tragic mistake. And, unfortunately, you cannot take back the bullets.” Mr. Kelly said the events on Monday simply outpaced the department’s ability to respond.

Mr. Coppin’s mother, Denise Owens, had experienced trouble with her son long before Monday.

Three times in January 2005, Mr. Coppin robbed people in the street, twice striking his victims and pointing a gun at them, according to a law enforcement official. He confessed to the robberies after his mother turned him in, and spent time in a juvenile facility.

Ms. Owens, the police said, struggled with her son’s psychiatric problems. He took antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs, and had been admitted to Kings County Hospital Center’s psychiatric ward, officials said.

On Monday, after reaching out to a crisis team, Ms. Owens told detectives, she asked her son to leave the apartment, but he refused. She said she twice pretended to call 911, to scare him into leaving. “She also said that Khiel had picked up a tape dispenser, put it under his sweatshirt and said that he was, quote, ‘Prepared to die,’” Mr. Kelly said.

Ms. Owens called 911 at 7:05 p.m. to report more trouble with her son. The call went over as a “10-52,” which means a “family dispute with a firearm.”

As Ms. Owens spoke to the operator, giving her address, a man she identified as her son was heard in the background saying, “I got a gun and I’m gonna shoot you,” according to a transcript of the call. He repeated the threat four times during the call, which lasted 1 minute and 17 seconds.

At 7:07 p.m., two uniformed officers from the 79th Precinct arrived at Ms. Owens’s apartment at 590 Gates Avenue. They found the door to Apartment 1D ajar and saw Mr. Coppin holding two knives, one in each hand, in the hallway between the front door and a back bedroom.

The officers ushered out Ms. Owens and her 11-year-old daughter. Ms. Owens told them that her son “was armed with knives, but not a gun,” Mr. Kelly said.

Mr. Coppin, however, told the officers he had a gun. As they approached him, he lunged toward the officers with the knives and yelled, “Shoot me, kill me,” Mr. Kelly said.

Mr. Coppin then retreated to a back bedroom as the officers went the other way, to an outside hallway, where they met two detectives.

Mr. Coppin peeked periodically from behind the bedroom door, showing a knife or holding something under his sweatshirt while saying he was armed. “At one point, he yelled at the officers, ‘Come get me, I have a gun, let’s do this,’” Mr. Kelly said.

At 7:08, the officers called the emergency service unit, whose officers are trained in the use of nonlethal restraining equipment and tactics.

At 7:17, Capt. Charles McEvoy, the second in command at the 79th Precinct, joined the four officers in the hallway.

Captain McEvoy called for the hostage negotiation team. A lieutenant on the scene also called for technical assistance and response unit. In the next moments, the officers in the hallway heard Mr. Coppin moving a gate that covered the bedroom window. Officers in the street began yelling that Mr. Coppin was going out the window.

At 7:18, a sergeant on the scene reported Mr. Coppin’s location outside the window over the radio. Mr. Coppin dropped four feet to the sidewalk. He walked through an exterior gate and marched toward officers in front of the building — officers who had not been facing him inside. Captain McEvoy ordered five officers in front of the building — two officers and a sergeant from the housing bureau, and a sergeant and detective from the 79th Precinct — to back up and take cover, which they did, behind police cars.

Mr. Coppin ignored the orders to stop, show his hands and get down on the ground.

“He just kept walking toward the officers,” said Beverly Holloman, 50, who watched the police as Mr. Coppin climbed out a window three floors below hers. “He wasn’t saying anything.”

Witnesses said Mr. Coppin had his right hand under his black sweatshirt and was holding an object, with his left hand on top of his right hand. He reached under his sweatshirt, pulled out the object and pointed it in the officers’ direction as if he were aiming a gun, Mr. Kelly said.

The police officers opened fire. No gun was recovered.

But the hairbrush was.

The officers range in age from 35 to 45, and each one has at least 10 years in the department. One of the officers fired six times, one fired five shots, two of them fired four times. The detective, the only one in plain clothes, fired once, using a revolver.

A spokeswoman for the city’s medical examiner’s office said Mr. Coppin was shot in the chest, his right hip, the back of his left forearm, the front of his right and left knees, and the back of his left leg. He also suffered three wounds to the left thigh and one to the front and another to the side of his right ankle.

The notes in Mr. Coppin’s pockets said: “those closest 2 death iz closer 2 happyness” and “that’s why more bums truly smile than millionaires.”

There were angry outbursts in the neighborhood yesterday.

At one point, Mr. Coppin’s friends, acquaintances and others marched to the 79th Precinct station house to protest the shooting of an unarmed black man nearly a year after another black man, Sean Bell, was killed in a hail 50 police bullets in Queens.

The demonstration at the station house was led by a man waving a brown hairbrush.

“How many?” the man, Calvin B. Hunt Jr. said, referring to the number of police bullets. “Twenty shots,” the crowd of about 100 people answered.

At the building where Mr. Coppin lived, several people described officers swarming in the street, their guns drawn, focusing on Mr. Coppin.

A woman who witnessed the shooting but declined to give her name held her hands high to imitate how Mr. Coppin was holding his hands up as he stood in the window as police yelled for him to get down, though she could not see if he was holding anything. “I spent the majority of the night on the bathroom floor, terrified,” said one woman.

“I’m a mother,” she said. “Do you have any idea how it feels to know that I stood there and watched another mother’s child get shot?”

Reporting was contributed by John Eligon, Kate Hammer, Trymaine Lee, Thomas J. Lueck and Colin Moynihan

    Police Commissioner Defends Shooting, NYT, 14.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/nyregion/14shooting.html?hp

Man, 18, Is Fatally Shot by Police in Brooklyn

November 13, 2007
The New York Times
By BRUCE LAMBERT and ANAHAD O'CONNOR

A young man was fatally shot last night in a hail of more than a dozen bullets fired by five police officers who responded to his mother’s 911 call for help in a domestic dispute in Brooklyn, the authorities said.

The police said they believed that the man, Khiel Coppin, 18, had a gun. But when the gunfire stopped, it turned out that he had been holding a black hairbrush.

Police were investigating a number of scenarios this morning, including whether the man held the brush under his shirt to prompt officers to shoot at him, a phenomenon known in law-enforcement circles as suicide by cop. But witness accounts varied, with some people at the scene saying they heard the man tell officers he had a gun, and others saying the man was shot as he dropped the brush and attempted to raise his hands in the air in an effort to cooperate.

The shooting began shortly after officers went into the building at 590 Gates Avenue, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, about 7 p.m. The police said they were responding to a 911 call from Mr. Coppin’s mother reporting domestic abuse and asking for help to “deal with this,” and that on the call a man was overheard threatening to kill her and claiming “I have a gun.”

One resident of the building, Andre Sanchez, 17, said that after the police arrived, he saw from the hallway through the open door of the apartment that the officers inside were talking to Mr. Coppin, who was in a bedroom and opening and closing that door as they spoke, possibly with a knife in his hand.

Mr. Coppin then climbed out a first-floor window and confronted more officers outside the building, and multiple shots were fired at him, bystanders said. Wounded, Mr. Coppin fell to the ground and was handcuffed, witnesses said. He was taken to Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center, where he was pronounced dead, the police said.

It was unclear how many of the shots hit Mr. Coppin, a law enforcement source said.

Mr. Coppin’s mother, whose name was not released, was among the people outside the building during the shooting. Earlier in the day, she had called a hospital psychiatric unit asking for urgent help in dealing with her son, the law enforcement official said. Psychiatric workers came, but Mr. Coppin was gone. After waiting two hours, the workers left, and later, Mr. Coppin returned.

Two bystanders who said they had seen the shooting said that Mr. Coppin was not armed, but was carrying a hairbrush when he climbed out the window and that he dropped it when the firing began. The two witnesses also said they both heard one officer yelling for the shooting to stop.

According to the police, another witness described Mr. Coppin as concealing the hairbrush under his shirt, pointing it outward.

A restless crowd quickly gathered and grew to as many as 150, as some neighbors shouted protests against police brutality. “You need training — this is absurd!” one woman shouted out a window to the police. Another man pressed against a yellow crime-scene tape and said: “I’m not trying to start a riot. I’m just saying it’s not right.”

The site and surrounding blocks were cordoned off as dozens of police officers, detectives and community affairs officers arrived to investigate the shooting and control the crowd. Community leaders at the scene included City Councilman Albert Vann.

Witnesses and the police offered different details about how the shooting occurred.

Mr. Sanchez said that just before the shooting, he went outside and saw several officers there with guns drawn. Mr. Coppin approached the window, backed away, then returned and stood on the sill, Mr. Sanchez said. When an officer told him to get down, he jumped to the ground and started to go through a gate in the fence in front of the building, Mr. Sanchez said.

An officer told Mr. Coppin to put up his hands, and when he did he dropped the hairbrush and the shooting began, although one officer called out to stop the gunfire, Mr. Sanchez said.

Officers started chasing Mr. Sanchez and knocked him to the ground after, he said, he protested: “Why you got to shoot him like that, for nothing?”

A similar description of the shooting was given by Precious Blood, 16, who said she heard about 10 shots fired, most if not all by one officer. Another officer called out: “Stop, stop, stop shooting — he’s down,” she said, but the shooter kept firing, “like he was playing with a toy.”

The law enforcement official gave a different version of the encounter, saying that Mr. Coppin charged toward the officers and refused repeated orders to stop.

The police said they were also exploring the possibility that Mr. Coppin was trying to prompt a shooting, a phenomenon that a handful of studies in recent years have shown can account for a small fraction of police shootings in some American cities. One study by researchers at Harvard Medical School in 1998, for example, looked at all officer-involved shootings in Los Angeles County in a 10-year-period — about 430 shootings in all — and found that “suicide-by-cop” incidents accounted for 11 percent of the shootings over all and 13 percent of the fatal shootings.

Mr. Coppin’s mother was at the 79th Precinct station house last night and gave a statement to the police, they said.

The five officers who fired all passed Breathalyzer tests, the law enforcement officials said.

Al Baker and Annie Correal contributed reporting.

    Man, 18, Is Fatally Shot by Police in Brooklyn, NYT, 13.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/nyregion/14shootingcnd.html?hp

As slayings of cops rise, a new brutality surfaces

14 October 2007
USA Today
By Kevin Johnson

ODESSA, Texas — The bodies of two local police officers — both shot in the head — had just been removed from the backyard. A third lay mortally wounded at a hospital with a shotgun blast to the neck, when accused killer Larry Neil White calmly emerged from his weathered frame house and offered a chilling explanation for the early evening slaughter.

"You got these guys coming to your door," White told authorities, who originally went to his home on a domestic disturbance call. "What would you do?"

Never in the 73-year history of the Odessa Police Department had an officer been fatally shot in the line of duty. Nearly as striking, says Texas Ranger Capt. Barry Caver, was the "matter-of-fact" manner of the 59-year-old suspect who, before he was carted to jail, demanded that officers retrieve his glasses.

"I told him he didn't need any glasses where he was going," Caver says.

The shootings of Cpls. Arlie Jones, 48, Abel Marquez, 32, and Scott Gardner, 30, on Sept. 8 plunged this West Texas town into a state of grief that, more than a month later, continues to temper the giddiness of a new oil boom.

Their deaths are part of a rising number of fatal police shootings across the nation that have led police officials and law enforcement analysts to suggest that an increasing number of suspects are adopting a troubling disregard for cops. Miami Police Chief John Timoney describes the phenomenon as an emerging "hunter" mentality among criminals.

As of Tuesday, 60 officers had been fatally shot this year, up 54% from the same period last year, according to the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund in Washington, D.C., which tracks officer fatalities. There already have been more fatal shootings of officers this year than in all of 2006, when there were 52 such slayings, a decline from 59 in 2005. The rate of police slayings began to accelerate in late 2006, and the trend has continued this year.

Police officials from departments across the country say they are confronting more combative suspects in situations ranging from robberies to routine traffic stops.

"There is a basic lack of respect for authority," says Caver, who is overseeing the Odessa investigation and has noticed a significant shift in attitudes in other Texas cities. "Lately, it seems like there is a brutality and a willingness to cross a line, to take a life, even if it is a police officer. The capacity is growing, and it is disturbing."

•Since March, five police agencies — in New York City; Bastrop, La.; Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C.; Monck's Corner, S.C.; and Henderson County, Texas — each have lost two officers in brutal attacks.

"To actively kill multiple cops is another animal altogether," says Craig Floyd, chairman of the memorial fund. "I can tell you that a lot of police chiefs are very concerned."

•At least one-third of the 60 victims this year were shot in the neck or head, including Clay City (Ky.) Police Chief Randy Lacy, who was killed June 13 by a drunken-driving suspect. The location of the wounds, some police officials say, could suggest the suspects had lethal intent because many officers wear body armor that better protects their torsos.

•In one of the worst assaults, South Carolina Constable Robert Lee Bailey was found May 19 after being fatally shot and buried in a shallow grave. Five days earlier, he had disappeared while on patrol. Investigators found Bailey's abandoned police cruiser burning in Lincolnville, S.C., about 5 miles from his last call, a traffic stop.

The escalating brutality has driven many police agencies, including Miami and the Orange County, Fla., sheriff's department, to provide more powerful guns to patrol officers, including military-style assault weapons. Others are moving toward updated communications systems to offer more information about potential suspects. The nation's largest association of police chiefs is urging Congress to enact a new ban on assault weapons such as some types of AK-47s.

Jack Levin, director of Northeastern University's Center on Violence and Conflict, says the police killings are a disturbing outgrowth of rising violence across the nation. In September, the FBI reported that violent crime had increased in 2006 for the second consecutive year after more than a decade of decline.

"With crime re-emerging, we are asking police to become more aggressive," Levin says. "They are confronting gang members and an increasing number of offenders released from prisons."

Many suspects, he says, have "little regard for the consequences of their actions. … They will shoot to kill."

A tragedy unfolds in Odessa

More than a month after the Odessa police slayings, the house at 2912 Ventura Ave. still bears the scars of a vicious assault and a community's grief. The chain-link fence that once ringed Larry White's backyard is in a crumpled heap.

On a recent afternoon, curious local residents were still driving by White's home, a sign of lingering questions surrounding what neighbor Garry Givens, 51, describes as Odessa's "dog-day afternoon."

Caver gives the following account of the events of Sept. 8, based on interviews with witnesses and evidence collected from the scene:

Before the shooting started, Marquez and Jones responded to the disturbance call at White's house about 6:30 p.m.

White's wife, Judith, met the officers outside and told them her husband had struck her and had been drinking. According to local court records, Judith White had filed abuse complaints against her husband as early as 1996.

In the Sept. 8 incident, she told officers her husband had a knife and other firearms stored in a vehicle inside the closed garage. Caver says about six firearms, a mix of hunting rifles and handguns, were found later in the house.

After knocks at the front door went unanswered, Marquez and Jones went to the backyard. Investigators believe White, peering through the cracked opening of the back door, opened fire at close range with a 12-gauge shotgun.

Caver believes Marquez fell first, hit with a blast in the left side of his neck. Jones was shot in the head. The first distress call came shortly after 6:30, when Marquez somehow gathered himself and spoke into a body microphone to summon help.

As backup officers arrived, they found Marquez, despite his grave wounds, standing near the front of the house covered in blood, his gun drawn. As gunfire again rang out, he lurched back toward the yard before he slumped near a patrol car.

Odessa Police Sgt. Pete Marquez, one of the backup officers, says his dazed brother was still trying to direct arriving officers as Pete bundled him into the patrol car that rushed him to the hospital.

At some point, another group of officers, including Gardner, was sent to the back of the house. Caver says they believed the shooter was incapacitated, based on information that Abel Marquez gave before he was whisked away.

As Gardner crept along the back wall of the home trying to locate White through a rear window, Gardner was shot in the head. After he fell, White tried to burst out the back door. He was driven back inside by officers returning fire.

About four hours later, the standoff ended. White, wounded slightly, surrendered and walked out the front door.

Besides the criminal investigation, Odessa Police Chief Christopher Pipes says, the case will be reviewed to determine whether the officers should have handled the situation differently. So far, Pipes and Caver say, the evidence suggests they acted appropriately.

White's attorney, Woody Leverett, did not respond to requests for comment.

Among the evidence investigators have reviewed is a videotape of Abel Marquez taken from a camera mounted inside the patrol car that rushed him to the hospital.

The video, aimed at the backseat where suspects usually sit, shows Marquez in apparent shock, gripping his gun, peering at wounds on his arm.

"He was moaning," Caver says. "He told the (driver) to roll the window down. He had this shocked look on his face. "Looking at that image, knowing that he later died, it's hard to watch."

New push to restrict weapons

Until the internal review of the officers' response is complete, Pipes says he'll hold off on making changes to department policy. Other law enforcement agencies, however, are bolstering their defenses, alarmed by the apparent increasing threat to officers.

In addition to pushing for a new ban on assault weapons, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) wants a ban on high-caliber sniper rifles and armor-piercing handgun ammunition.

A previous assault weapons ban expired in 2004, and proposals to reinstate it have been bitterly opposed by the gun lobby, including the National Rifle Association.

Chris W. Cox, the NRA's chief lobbyist, says, "There's no comprehensive evidence" to support the ban. "The focus should be on substantive reform, not on arbitrary proposals like this."

The IACP sees it differently. "For the first time in decades, more officers are being … killed with firearms than are being killed in car crashes," it said in an April report. "The startling statistics make plain the need for more protections for our officers and more action from policymakers to keep them safe."

Scott Knight, chairman of the IACP's firearms committee, says an informal survey of about 20 police agencies earlier this year showed that since the assault weapons ban expired, departments either have increased the number of weapons in officers' patrol units or upgraded to military-style arms.

"There is a bit of an arms race out there to outgun the criminals," says Knight, the police chief in Chaska, Minn. "There is a view that (suspects) are more prone to shoot first."

Knight cited an armored car robbery Oct. 4 in Philadelphia, where two guards, both former Philadelphia police officers, were killed in an apparent ambush by a gunman.

Because they were retired, the guards are not included in the official officer death count. But Knight says the shootings signify a more dangerous environment. He notes that recent anecdotal evidence suggests that suspects, especially in robberies, are more likely to use force against officers than in the past. "It is disturbing," he says.

After the March slayings of two officers, the Monck's Corner Police Department in South Carolina is trying to expand its communication system. The changes would give police and other first responders access to broader background information about potential suspects, says Capt. Mark Murray.

In Florida, after the fatal shooting of a Miami-Dade County officer Sept. 13, Miami Police Chief Timoney announced his officers could carry department-issued assault rifles if they completed training.

"We're seeing a huge increase in the number of AK-47s on the street," Timoney says.

"It reminds me of the early '90s back in New York," he says of the drug-fueled violence that plagued the city when he was its second-highest ranking police official. "Here we are again."

'All a bad dream'

Less than a month after his brother was killed, Sgt. Pete Marquez was back on the street. Not long into his first shift, he was the first to respond to an armed robbery call.

Was there any hesitation?

"Not one bit," says the sergeant, whose surviving brother, Phillip, also is an Odessa officer. "I wanted to get back into the game."

Eager to return to something familiar, Marquez concedes everything felt different, draining. Every day, he thinks about his brother — and how he couldn't save him.

He seizes on an awful irony: Abel Marquez was supposed to be off that day but signed on to earn overtime pay.

Only recently have Pete Marquez's nightmares lessened in intensity. "I get up in the morning and I think it was all a bad dream, and then it hits you," he says. "That's been hard. It's still so hard to believe."

    As slayings of cops rise, a new brutality surfaces, UT, 14.10.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-10-14-copshoot_N.htm

Texas Cops in Standoff With Accused Man

October 13, 2007
Filed at 9:05 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- Police were in a standoff Friday with a man accused of killing his estranged wife and two stepchildren and then dropping off his blood-covered but unharmed 3-year-old daughter at a church, police said. Someone at the church in nearby Arlington called police after seeing the child and hearing the man say he had committed a crime at his house, Fort Worth Police Lt. Dan Draper said.

Fort Worth police then went to the one-story brick house and found the bodies of the woman, her 13-year-old daughter and her 10-year-old son, Draper said. All of them were shot to death, he said.

No names were released.

The several-hour standoff started after the armed man parked in an Arlington driveway near the church and was surrounded by police.

Arlington police were talking to the man over a loudspeaker and said he was agitated.

''He is very worked-up right now,'' said Arlington Police Lt. Blake Miller. ''We are just trying to work through this with him.''

Fort Worth police were called to the couple's home at least twice since last month, Draper said.

In late September, the man called and said he was afraid the girls were home alone because no one would answer the door, he said.

A week ago, the woman called police and said her estranged husband was knocking on the door, ringing the doorbell and would not go away. But the man was gone when police arrived, Draper said.

The slayings shocked neighbors in this middle class neighborhood of one-story brick houses and well-kept lawns.

A woman who knew the family arrived at the house Friday afternoon, then began wailing and collapsed in the street after hearing of the killings. As a police officer tried to console her, she screamed: ''Why did he do it? He was so happy yesterday.''

Neighbors said the children often rode bicycles and walked their dog around the neighborhood. Just last week, the boy was happily playing outside and when he politely asked a neighbor for a glass of water.

''I saw them last week, and they seemed fine,'' said Schawan Smith, who had gotten to know the family because the 3-year-old attended a Fort Worth day car run by Smith's mother. ''I'm heartbroken because my kids played with them.''

The man was friendly and often played in the yard with his stepchildren, who called him Daddy, neighbors said.

''He was the friendliest guy around,'' neighbor Tommy Talbott said. ''He was a happy go lucky guy. Every time I saw him, he had a smile.''

Another neighbor, Paula Bledsoe, said the man bought her parents' old car and then brought it back to show her elderly mother after he fixed it up. He also frequently asked how her mother was doing.

''It's a total shock, just terrible. I was praying it wasn't the kids,'' she said.

    Texas Cops in Standoff With Accused Man, NYT, 13.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bodies-Found.html

U.S. Reports 2,002 Deaths in Arrests in 2003-5

October 12, 2007
The New York Times
By SOLOMON MOORE

At least 2,002 people died during their arrests by state and local law enforcement officers from 2003 through 2005, the Justice Department reported yesterday.

Of those suspects, officers themselves killed more than half, 80 percent of whom, the officers reported, had threatened or assaulted them with a weapon.

Drug and alcohol intoxication was the second-leading cause of death, accounting for 13 percent of the total, followed by suicide, accidental injuries, and illnesses or other natural causes.

The study, the first federal assessment of deaths related to arrests by state and local agencies, was based on responses from 47 states and the District of Columbia. It was mandated by the Death in Custody Reporting Act, which requires state agencies to complete questionnaires on the issue as a condition of receiving federal correctional grants.

In all, the study dealt with a pool of nearly 40 million arrests. So related deaths were quite rare in a relative sense, fewer than one ten-thousandth of 1 percent of the arrests.

California led the nation with 310 deaths, followed by Texas with 298 and Florida with 204. New York reported 97, New Jersey 37 and Connecticut 9.

Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 44 percent of the deaths, African-Americans for 32 percent and Hispanics for 20 percent. Nearly all of the dead were men, who averaged about 33 years of age.

Of those people killed by officers, almost all were shot to death. Three-fourths of those killed by officers were suspected of a violent crime.

For purposes of the study, the period of arrest was considered to span the time from the onset of officers’ trying to apprehend the suspect until the booking. Two-thirds of the deaths occurred at the scene of the arrest, and the remainder at a police station or a booking facility. Suicides that occurred at booking facilities were usually hangings.

Of the 252 intoxicated people who died, 198 succumbed at the arrest scene. Of those 198, a total of 157 had been handcuffed.

In all, the number of arrest-related deaths increased 13 percent over the course of the three years studied, to 703 in 2005 from 622 in 2003. The number of deaths caused by homicide and accidental injuries remained relatively steady, while intoxication deaths increased by 11 percent, to 90 from 81, and suicides by 63 percent, to 91 from 56.

While the report dealt primarily with the deaths of suspects, it did find that 380 law enforcement officers died during arrests over the three years, most by accident. Homicide was the second-leading cause.

The study also cited statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation showing 174,760 assaults on law enforcement officers during the three-year period.

    U.S. Reports 2,002 Deaths in Arrests in 2003-5, NYT, 12.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/us/12arrest.html

Ind. Man Charged in Death of Girlfriend

October 11, 2007
Filed at 12:32 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

RICHMOND, Ind. (AP) -- A man who said he discovered his girlfriend unresponsive was charged Wednesday with killing her, while authorities investigate why her sister died mysteriously six days later.

James McFarland Jr., 23, who has denied any involvement in the sisters' deaths, was being held in jail without bail a day after he was arrested at a friend's home.

Police said they have been suspicious of McFarland since his girlfriend's body was found Sept. 1 at her parents' home in Centerville.

McFarland and Erin Stanley, 19, had just moved into her parents' home with their infant daughter, according to a probable cause affidavit. McFarland was in bed with Stanley at the time of her death, the report said.

An autopsy found bruising on the woman's neck ''as though someone had used their hands and squeezed on Stanley's throat,'' the affidavit stated.

''He has been a person of interest from the start,'' Centerville Police Sgt. Ed Buchholz said.

On Sept. 7, Stanley's 18-year-old sister, Kelly, was found dead. Prosecutor Mike Shipman said he was investigating whether her death was a homicide.

Officials have released little information about the deaths in the town about 60 miles east of Indianapolis.

In an interview last week with the Palladium-Item, McFarland said he had planned to marry Erin and was devastated by her death.

He told investigators that he woke up when the baby was crying and noticed that Stanley was unresponsive, the court document said.

''I've got nothing to hide,'' he told the newspaper. ''I didn't have anything to do with either death.''

Circuit Judge David Kolger entered a not guilty plea on McFarland's behalf during an initial court hearing, a court employee said. Kolger set a pretrial hearing for Dec. 10.

McFarland was not represented by an attorney at the hearing and the judge did not appoint a public defender for him on Wednesday. Shipman said he did not know whether McFarland had a defense attorney.

    Ind. Man Charged in Death of Girlfriend, NYT, 11.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Dead-Sisters.html

Man Charged in the Killing of 2 Guards at an A.T.M.

October 7, 2007
The New York Times
By JON HURDLE

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 6 — The Philadelphia police on Saturday announced the arrest of a man in the killings of two armored truck security officers who were shot execution-style while they serviced an automatic teller machine in Northeast Philadelphia on Thursday morning.

The man, Mustafa Ali, 36, of Northeast Philadelphia was arrested Friday afternoon and has been charged with two counts of murder, aggravated assault, robbery and firearms offenses, the police said.

Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson, speaking at a news conference, said Mr. Ali had a criminal record but declined to provide details.

“We are just thankful that this person is off the street and will never walk the streets again hopefully in his lifetime,” Commissioner Johnson said.

William Widmaier, 65, and Joseph Alullo, 54, were shot at about 8 a.m. Thursday after getting out of an armored truck operated by the Loomis armored car company to service the A.T.M. outside a branch of Wachovia Bank. The men were retired officers from the Philadelphia Police Department.

Both men died at the scene; a third security officer was slightly wounded by broken glass after the gunman opened fire on the truck.

Lt. Frank Vanore, a police spokesman, described the killings as “an assassination.” Referring to the gunman, he said: “He never asked them for anything. He just opened fire.”

After the shooting, the police found an empty duffel bag in a nearby alley. They declined on Saturday to say whether any stolen cash had been recovered.

The police initially said they were looking for four suspects but later Thursday narrowed the search to one suspect who was seen getting into a black car.

Commissioner Johnson praised the public for coming forward with information that led to the arrest of the suspect, and urged city residents to abandon a “stop snitching” campaign that encourages retaliation against people who provide information to the police.

“You are not snitching if you come forward as a witness,” he said.

Commissioner Johnson said that in this case, the tips proved highly valuable.

“A couple of people called up, they gave us a direction,” he said. “That’s all we really need is a direction. Unless those citizens called up, we wouldn’t be standing here today.”

    Man Charged in the Killing of 2 Guards at an A.T.M., NYT, 7.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/us/07armored.html

Chicago Video Surveillance Gets Smarter

September 27, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:45 a.m. ET
The New York Times

CHICAGO (AP) -- A car circles a high-rise three times. Someone leaves a backpack in a park.

Such things go unnoticed in big cities every day. But that could change in Chicago with a new video surveillance system that would recognize such anomalies and alert authorities to take a closer look.

On Thursday, the city and IBM Corp. are announcing the initial phase of what officials say could be the most advanced video security network in any U.S. city. The City of Broad Shoulders is getting eyes in the back of its head.

''Chicago is really light years ahead of any metropolitan area in the U.S. now,'' said Sam Docknevich, who heads video-surveillance consulting for IBM.

Chicago already has thousands of security cameras in use by businesses and police -- including some equipped with devices that recognize the sound of a gunshot, turn the cameras toward the source and place a 911 call. But the new system would let cameras analyze images in real time 24 hours a day.

''You're talking about creating (something) that knows no fatigue, no boredom and is absolutely focused,'' said Kevin Smith, spokesman for the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

For example, the system could be programmed to alert the city's emergency center whenever a camera spots a vehicle matching the description of one being sought by authorities.

The system could be programmed to recognize license plates. It could alert emergency officials if the same car or truck circles the Sears Tower three times or if nobody picks up a backpack in Grant Park for, say, 30 seconds.

IBM says this approach might be more effective than relying on a bleary-eyed employee to monitor video screens. ''Studies have shown people fall asleep,'' Docknevich said.

It is unclear when the system will be fully operational. Existing cameras could be equipped with the new software, but additional cameras probably will be added as well, Smith said.

''The complexity of the software is going to define how quickly we are able to do this,'' he said.

Chicago's announcement comes as it is vying to bring the 2016 games to town. A purportedly security-enhancing surveillance system is something city officials could trumpet to International Olympic Committee.

''The eventual goal is to have elaborate video surveillance well in advance of the 2016 Olympics,'' said Bo Larsson, CEO of Firetide Inc., the company providing the wireless connectivity for the project.

Neither Smith nor IBM would reveal the cost of the network, but Smith said much of it would be paid by the Department of Homeland Security. The cost of previous surveillance efforts has run into the millions of dollars. Just adding devices that allow surveillance cameras to turn toward the sound of gunfire was as much as $10,000 per unit.

Some critics question whether such systems are effective and whether they could lead to an unwarranted invasion of privacy.

Jonathan Schachter, a public policy lecturer at Northwestern University, said there are no studies that show cameras reduce crime. And the idea that placing cameras near ''strategic assets'' would prevent a terrorist attack is ''absurd,'' he said.

Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said he was concerned that more cameras and more sophisticated technology would lead to abuses of authority.

''It is incumbent on the city to ensure that there are practices and procedures in place to sort of watch the watchers,'' he said.

    Chicago Video Surveillance Gets Smarter, NYT, 27.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Chicago-Security-System.html

Arrest Made in 1993 Slaying in Buffalo

September 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:48 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- Detectives have charged a man with a Buffalo strangling 14 years ago and say he is ''a person of interest'' in two other slayings in western New York.

Dennis Donohue, 55, was arraigned and jailed Tuesday on a second-degree murder charge for the 1993 death of Joan Giambra, according to police.

Giambra's body was found in her South Buffalo home after colleagues at a church pantry where she worked went to check on her because she failed to show up for her shift.

The Buffalo Police Cold Case Squad reopened the case last year, when improved DNA technology turned up new evidence from the crime scene. The DNA evidence links Donohue to the Giambra case, police told The Buffalo News.

The newspaper reported Wednesday that police are looking at Donohue's possible involvement in another 1993 killing -- the strangulation of 13-year-old Crystallynn Girard, the daughter of his former girlfriend. Lynn DeJac, the girl's mother, was convicted of that killing, despite her protests of innocence, the newspaper reported.

Police are also reviewing the cold case of Carol Reed, who was in a relationship with Donohue and was found strangled in her apartment in 1975.

Giambra and Reed were each killed on a Sept. 9, which is Donohue's birthday, according to television reports.

Police weren't saying Tuesday whether they have DNA evidence linking Donohue to the other two killings.

Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark cautioned against jumping to conclusions that an innocent person has been imprisoned in the Girard case.

''If the police feel they have enough evidence to link him to those other crimes, then we'll prosecute at that time,'' Clark said. ''Right now, all we have is speculation.''

    Arrest Made in 1993 Slaying in Buffalo, NYT, 19.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Cold-Case-Arrest.html

Florida Gunman Kills 1 Officer and Is Later Slain

September 14, 2007
The New York Times
By TERRY AGUAYO

MIAMI, Sept. 13 — A Miami-Dade County police officer was killed, and three other officers were wounded Thursday by a driver who then fled the scene, the authorities said, setting off a manhunt that ended with the suspect being killed shortly before midnight.

After a search by land and air that closed streets and locked down an entire neighborhood, the police tracked the suspect, a 25-year-old man they identified as Shawn S. Labeet, to an apartment in Pembroke Pines. Few details were available. Cmdr. Linda O’Brien, a police spokeswoman, said Mr. Labeet was armed and had extra ammunition.

Mayor Carlos Alvarez of Miami-Dade County earlier described Mr. Labeet as “an extremely violent individual that we don’t need out there in our community.”

The officers who were shot were working on burglary surveillance in Cutler Bay, a suburb about 20 miles south of downtown Miami, when they tried to pull over Mr. Labeet around 11 a.m. for driving erratically, the police said. Mr. Labeet stepped out of the car and opened fire with an assault rifle, hitting all four, they said, then drove off.

The officer who was killed was identified as Jose Somohano, 37, who was married and had two children. The wounded officers were identified as Jody Wright, 31; Christopher Carlin, 34; and Tomas Tundidor, 37.

Hundreds of police officers from various agencies joined the search, some wearing combat helmets and fatigues. Schools were locked down and parts of Florida’s Turnpike were closed while the police scoured neighborhoods and helicopters buzzed overhead.

Residents of the neighborhood where the shootings occurred, in the southwest part of the county, waited hours in 90-degree heat to be allowed back into their homes.

“There are a lot of people here who have family who need assistance,” said Daniel Soto, who was trying to get inside his home to attend to his wife, who has cancer. “There’s no sense in us having to wait out here.”

Felix Perez, owner of a local sandwich shop, brought bottled water and ice for residents who waited to get to their homes. “It’s a shame to see little kids out here for six hours,” Mr. Perez said.

American Red Cross disaster relief workers also handed out energy bars and drinks.

The authorities first identified another man as the suspect, but hours later corrected themselves and named Mr. Labeet. The police found the weapon they believe had been used in the shootings and the Honda Accord Mr. Labeet was driving, Commander O’Brien said.

Officer Wright, whose leg was shattered by a bullet, was airlifted to a trauma center at Jackson Memorial Hospital The two others were treated at local hospitals and released.

It was the third time in six weeks that South Florida police officers had been shot in the line of duty. Last month, Sgt. Chris Reyka, a Broward County sheriff’s deputy, was shot and killed in Pompano Beach as he investigated a suspicious car in a parking lot. Four days earlier, Maury Hernandez, an undercover Broward County sheriff’s deputy, was critically wounded when he was shot by a motorcyclist he had stopped.

Carmen Gentile contributed reporting from Cutler Bay, Fla.

    Florida Gunman Kills 1 Officer and Is Later Slain, NYT, 14.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/us/14cops.html?hp

Miami - Dade Officer Killed, 3 Wounded

September 13, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:05 p.m. ET
The New York Times

CUTLER BAY, Fla. (AP) -- A gunman killed a police officer and injured three others during a traffic stop Thursday, triggering a manhunt in a suburban Miami neighborhood, officials said.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez confirmed that one of officers died. All four had been brought to hospitals, but authorities refused to release further information on them because they were trying to notify their families.

The officers were conducting burglary surveillance when they stopped the man because he was driving a car erratically, said Linda O'Brien, a police spokeswoman. The man opened fire with a high-powered weapon and fled. It was not immediately clear if the officers returned fire.

TV footage showed several officers briefly surrounding a house, guns drawn, before moving on. Others swept through a grassy area on foot and picked through a garbage truck.

Authorities were looking for 30-year-old Kevin Wehner, last seen driving a white Honda Accord, O'Brien said. There was a chance another man also was involved.

Investigators believed they had recovered a vehicle and a gun used in the shooting, O'Brien said.

No other details were immediately available.

Cutler Bay is a suburb southwest of downtown Miami. Several schools were locked down due to the search.

    Miami - Dade Officer Killed, 3 Wounded, NYT, 13.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Officers-Injured.html

4 Miami - Dade Police Officers Shot

September 13, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:51 p.m. ET
The New York Times

CUTLER BAY, Fla. (AP) -- A man shot and injured four police officers during a traffic stop Thursday and fled, triggering a manhunt in a suburban Miami neighborhood, officials said.

The Miami-Dade County officers were being treated at hospitals and one was in surgery, but authorities refused to release information on their conditions because they were trying to notify their families.

Investigators were looking for 30-year-old Kevin Wehner, last seen driving a white Honda Accord, said Linda O'Brien, a police spokeswoman. There was a chance another man also was involved.

The officers originally were conducting burglary surveillance when they stopped the man because he was driving a car erratically, O'Brien said. The man opened fire with a high-powered weapon and fled. It was not immediately clear if the officers returned fire.

TV footage showed several officers briefly surrounding a house, guns drawn, before moving on. Others swept through a grassy area on foot and picked through a garbage truck.

No other details were immediately available.

Cutler Bay is a suburb southwest of downtown Miami. Several schools were locked down due to the search.

    4 Miami - Dade Police Officers Shot, NYT, 13.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Officers-Injured.html

Police Officer Is Charged in Death of Immigrant

September 7, 2007
The New York Times
By LISA W. FODERARO

MOUNT KISCO, N.Y., Sept. 6 — A village police officer was charged on Thursday with second-degree manslaughter in the death of a homeless Guatemalan immigrant four months ago that had shaken this community of 10,000 people.

The officer, George Bubaris, also faces one count of unlawful imprisonment and two counts of official misconduct, according to an indictment unsealed in Westchester County.

Officer Bubaris, 30, was the first of three Mount Kisco officers to answer a 911 call placed by the man who died, Rene Javier Perez, from a laundry on the night of April 28.

An hour later, Mr. Perez, a 42-year-old vagrant with a history of alcoholism and a long arrest record for petty crimes, was found unconscious on the side of a dirt road a few miles away in the neighboring town of Bedford and died in a hospital a few hours later.

The county medical examiner ruled the death a homicide, saying Mr. Perez died of internal abdominal injuries.

In a news conference on Thursday, the Westchester district attorney, Janet DiFiore, refused to detail what investigators believe transpired between Officer Bubaris and Mr. Perez, other than to say that Officer Bubaris, “while on duty as a Mount Kisco police officer, restrained Rene Perez and exposed him to a risk of serious physical injury,” recklessly causing his death.

It was still unclear, for example, whether Mr. Perez got into Officer Bubaris’s patrol car after leaving the laundry. Entries from that night’s police log show that the three officers left the laundry at 10:55 p.m. after deciding that what they encountered “there was not a police matter,” according to a dispatcher’s notes.

But a lawyer for Officer Bubaris, Eddie Hayes, said in a telephone interview after the indictment was unsealed that prosecutors could not “prove that anything my client did caused” Mr. Perez’s death.

Without saying whether Officer Bubaris left Mr. Perez on the roadside, Mr. Hayes contended that the victim “was a physical mess, sleeping in the streets and an alcoholic for decades.”

Mr. Hayes added, “There’s really no sign of beating, and in any case you really don’t know whether he fell down or had a fight with someone else.”

Ms. DiFiore said no additional charges would be filed in the case, adding that she was satisfied with the grand jury’s decision to charge only Officer Bubaris in Mr. Perez’s death.

Officer Bubaris pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in White Plains, where the State Supreme Court justice, Lester B. Adler, gave him a day to post a $100,000 bond, which Mr. Hayes said his client would do.

The top charge of manslaughter in the second degree carries a maximum penalty of 5 to 15 years in state prison.

The death of Mr. Perez, who was here illegally, upset the already fragile relations in this wealthy village in northern Westchester County, where professionals and owners of rambling horse farms coexist with day laborers and struggling families. About one-quarter of residents are Hispanic, most of them immigrants from Guatemala.

The death of Mr. Perez followed at least two other suspicious and unsolved homicides of illegal immigrants in recent years. Santos Bojorguez, 33, was found strangled here in 2003, and Robert Martinez, 42, was killed the same way in 2004.

In a news conference outside the Police Department here on Thursday afternoon, Fernando Mateo, president of Hispanics Across America, a Manhattan-based advocacy group, called on the police to renew efforts to solve the earlier killings.

Mr. Mateo also said that while Mr. Perez should have been deported for racking up a string of arrests, the police overstepped their bounds.

Mr. Perez “was wrong in that he violated certain laws, but unfortunately the law was taken into the hands of a police officer, and that’s even worse,” Mr. Mateo said. “Murder is not deportation. You don’t murder someone to get rid of them. If you’re a police officer you should be protecting the community, not assaulting the community.”

Some residents said the manslaughter charge against Officer Bubaris brought a sense of relief.

“I’m pleased that they didn’t just sweep it under the rug,” said Shantae Artis, a 26-year-old office assistant and mother who was born and raised here. “You don’t want to think that you’re not safe in your own town.”

Others who work with immigrants tried to put the crime in perspective, crediting the police with reaching out after the killing.

“The general impression of the immigrant community that comes to our center is that the police in general have treated people fairly over time,” said Carola Otero Bracco, executive director of Neighbors Link, a local nonprofit social service agency for Hispanic immigrants. “There’s a lot of hope that we will be able to move forward and make things better at some point.”

At the news conference at the district attorney’s office in White Plains, the chief of the Mount Kisco police, Steven Anderson, said he planned “to make every effort to restore the public’s trust” in the department.

    Police Officer Is Charged in Death of Immigrant, NYT, 7.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/nyregion/07arrest.html

Man Sought in 6 Deaths Is Arrested in New York

August 28, 2007
The New York Times
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL

HOUSTON, Aug. 27 — A 43-year-old man sought in six killings since last week in the Texas Hill Country and in Pennsylvania was arrested Monday in Shirley, N.Y., after a brief standoff, the federal Marshals Service said Monday.

The man, Paul G. Devoe III of Llano, Tex., with roots in Suffolk County on Long Island, N.Y., was charged in one killing and held on $2 million bail, the Travis County Sheriff’s Office in Texas said.

Mr. Devoe had been hunted after the killing of a bartender Friday night in Marble Falls, Tex., northwest of Austin, and the discovery of four bodies in a house in nearby Jonestown on Sunday.

On Monday, after Mr. Devoe’s arrest, the marshals added a sixth possible killing. They traced a car found with him on Long Island to a woman in Greencastle, Pa., near the Maryland border, who was then discovered dead.

Tom Smith, supervisor of the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force, a group of Texas law enforcement agents sponsored by the United States Marshals Service, said the task force had learned that Mr. Devoe might be heading to Long Island, where his mother and sister lived, and midday Monday staked out a house belonging to a friend and former co-worker of Mr. Devoe.

“He was already in that residence,” Mr. Smith said. “They were going to knock when they saw him with a gun. He bolted, and they called for a SWAT team, but they were able to talk him out.”

Cmdr. Lenny DePaul, of the New York-New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force of the Marshals Service, said Mr. Devoe was being held for transfer to Texas and would be arraigned in Suffolk County on Tuesday morning. If he waives extradition, Commander DePaul said, Texas will send officers to take him back. He may also face charges in Pennsylvania and a weapons charge in New York.

The victims in the house in Texas included a woman Mr. Devoe was said to have known, her daughter, and two visitors. Officials said they might have been killed before the bartender.

Mr. Devoe’s arrest capped a search that began Friday night after the fatal shooting of the bartender, Michael Jay Allred, 41, in O’Neil’s Bar in Marble Falls. According to the Texas fugitive task force, Mr. Devoe had tried to shoot two women in the bar when Mr. Allred “heroically intervened and was gunned down.”

The same evening, according to the Llano County Sheriff’s Department, a man identified as Mr. Devoe held a gun to the head of a woman and fired several shots at a house in Llano where he was living and doing carpentry work. The woman was unharmed.

The search for Mr. Devoe intensified Sunday with the discovery of the bodies of Paula Marie Griffith, 46, her daughter, Haylie Marie Faulkner, 15, as well as a male companion of the mother and a friend of the daughter, in the Griffith home in Jonestown. The two unnamed victims were not officially identified pending release of an autopsy report. To expedite the case, Mr. Devoe was initially charged only with Ms. Griffith’s murder.

A son of Ms. Griffith, Jonathon Griffith of San Antonio, and acquaintances of the family were quoted by Texas news outlets as saying that Mr. Devoe had dated Ms. Griffith, and blogs posted a MySpace entry showing that Mr. Devoe had put up Ms. Faulkner’s photo as one of his friends. Mr. Griffith did not respond to a message left at his home.

Roger Wade, a spokesman for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, said deputies were drawn to the house on Sunday after the father of Haylie’s friend reported that the girl had not returned home after a weekend trip she was to have taken with Haylie.

Deputies then found the bodies in the house and a pickup belonging to Mr. Allred. Ms. Griffith’s station wagon was missing.

Bruce Lambert contributed reporting from Garden City, N.Y., and Staci Semrad from Jonestown, Tex.

    Man Sought in 6 Deaths Is Arrested in New York, NYT, 28.8.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/us/28texas.html