AMERICA - Extremism in the Ranks

"Extremism in the ranks: some at the January 6 Capitol riot were police, active military" PBS NewsHour 3/13/2021

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SUMMARY:  Right-wing extremists have infiltrated the ranks of the military and law enforcement, as watchdogs and counterterrorism experts have been warning for years — and some were present at, and later arrested for participating in, the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.  NewsHour Special Correspondent Simon Ostrovsky reports on the ongoing effort to root extremists out, as part of our ongoing initiative, “Exploring Hate: Antisemitism, Racism, and Extremism.”

TRUMP AGENDA - War on Law Enforcement

aka "Trump the MOB Boss"

"Brennan: Trump threatened by law enforcement because they can expose his falsehoods" PBS NewsHour 6/7/2018

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SUMMARY:  Former CIA Director John Brennan says he has become an outspoken critic of President Trump because, he charges, Trump “is deceiving the American public, and it’s going to have...negative consequences for our national security.”  Brennan joins Nick Schifrin to discuss why he feels a responsibility to condemn the President, plus whether Trump’s North Korea’s strategy is working.

TRUMP AGENDA - Immigration Enforcement Make City LESS Safe?

"Why one Texas sheriff fears tougher immigration enforcement will make her city less safe" PBS NewsHour 2/16/2017

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SUMMARY:  After President Trump was sworn in, one Texas sheriff made a policy change limiting cooperation with agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, fearing that undocumented people won't trust police if they're afraid of being deported.  Taking action to make her city a “sanctuary” has drawn criticism and retaliation.  William Brangham reports.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Many restaurants and businesses were closed today for a national strike called A Day Without Immigrants.  The closures were an attempt by participants to show how crucial immigrants are to American society.

Of course, as we heard in his press conference today, immigration remains a vital issue to the President.  He campaigned promising to deport millions and to build a wall on the Mexican border.  And, last week, federal immigration raids in at least six states arrested hundreds.

But the immigration debate also plays out in the nation's so-called sanctuary cities, where local governments resist cooperating with federal immigration officials.

The NewsHour's William Brangham went to Austin, Texas, for a closer look.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:  I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear …

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  Just a few hours after Donald Trump was sworn in as President, another newly elected official, Sheriff Sally Hernandez of Travis County, Texas, posted this video:

SALLY HERNANDEZ, Travis County, Texas, Sheriff:  I'm Sally Hernandez, your Travis County sheriff.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  The video laid out her department's policy change, which limits cooperation with agents from ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Hernandez says she doesn't want her deputies to be seen as ICE agents.

SALLY HERNANDEZ:  We in law enforcement need the cooperation of our communities of color.  We need them to be running to us, and not running away from us.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Travis County, which includes Austin, has an estimated 100,000 undocumented immigrants, like Felix Jimenez.  The sheriff says people like Jimenez won't trust police if they're constantly afraid of being deported.

And Jimenez agrees.

FELIX JIMENEZ, Undocumented Immigrant (through interpreter):  We're afraid when we see a police officer.  We're Hispanic.  We could be stopped for any reason.  The real fear that keeps me nervous after a long day is that I may not see my children because I was stopped for only a small infraction.

SALLY HERNANDEZ:  We cannot afford to make our communities less safe by driving people into the shadows.

U.S. SUPREME COURT - The Chemical Sobriety Tests

"Can police penalize drivers who refuse sobriety tests?" PBS NewsHour 4/20/2016

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SUMMARY:  At least a dozen states have made it a crime for suspected drunk drivers to refuse a chemical sobriety test.  But some opponents say these laws violate the Fourth Amendment, and are taking their complaints to the high court.  The Supreme Court considered three related cases from North Dakota and Minnesota on Wednesday.  Hari Sreenivasan talks to Marcia Coyle of The National Law Journal for more.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  First, a dispute over some laws in states to curb drunk driving.

Over the years, at least a dozen states have made it a crime for suspected drunk drivers to refuse to take alcohol tests.  But does a police officer have to get a search warrant before performing such a test?  And do these laws violate the Fourth Amendment?

The Supreme Court grappled with these questions today, as it considered three cases challenging laws of this sort in North Dakota and Minnesota.

Marcia Coyle of “The National Law Journal” was in the courtroom, as always, and she joins me now.

So, what’s the hassle in getting a warrant before you do one of these tests?

MARCIA COYLE, The National Law Journal:  Well, if you are asking the states of North Dakota and Minnesota, who are involved in this, they say that, one, you don’t have magistrates available 24/7 to answer a police officer’s call for a warrant.

It can take a while.  There are concerns about, you know, evidence being lost.  But, basically, the states are saying here, look, states have a bargain with drivers.  Driving is not a right.  It’s a privilege.  And when you get your license, you’re agreeing — you’re impliedly consenting to certain requirements.

And the states feel these states — there are 12 of them now and the federal government — impose criminal penalties if you refuse to take these tests.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  So, if you — is there a distinction between the type of test that can be taken, a Breathalyzer that we’re familiar with, a field sobriety test if you’re just walking a line, vs. a blood test?

MARCIA COYLE:  During the arguments today, that really did come out in some of the justices’ questioning, Justice Breyer, for example.

By the way, Hari, this was a great example of how they play devil’s advocate with each side.  Justice Breyer, for example, said to the lawyer who was representing the three men challenging these laws, you know, what’s the big deal about a breath test, for example?  You blow into a straw that’s connected to a little machine that’s about the size of a cell phone.  You’re giving up carbon dioxide that’s going to go into the environment anyway.  It’s not all that invasive, not all that intrusive.

On the other hand, then, when the states’ lawyers came up, he said — would say to them, well, look, how long does it take to get a search warrant for these breath tests?  Wyoming says it takes five minutes.  Montana says it takes 15 minutes.  How long does it take in North Dakota?

And if they’re transporting these people after they have been arrested to a police station, why can’t the police officer just make the call on the way, maybe on a cell phone that has a big 'W' for warrant on it, press the button?

It was — the argument was a lot of fun in some respects.  So, at the very end, though, Justice Kennedy asked the Obama administration’s lawyer, who was supporting the states, can we distinguish between the breath test and the blood alcohol test?

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 7/31/2015

"Shields and Brooks on police body cameras, previewing first presidential debate" PBS NewsHour 7/31/2015

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SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the indictment of a white police officer for killing a black motorist in Cincinnati, the upcoming first presidential debate among the GOP candidates, plus the ultimate anti-Washington candidate Donald Trump and the populist popularity of Sen. Bernie Sanders.

LAW ENFORCEMENT - Underused ViCAP

"The FBI Built a Database That Can Catch Rapists — Almost Nobody Uses It" by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica 7/30/2015

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For roughly 30 years the FBI has virtually ignored a system meant to help cops track the behavioral patterns of violent criminals

More than 30 years ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched a revolutionary computer system in a bomb shelter two floors beneath the cafeteria of its national academy.  Dubbed the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, or ViCAP, it was a database designed to help catch the nation’s most violent offenders by linking together unsolved crimes.  A serial rapist wielding a favorite knife in one attack might be identified when he used the same knife elsewhere.  The system was rooted in the belief that some criminals’ methods were unique enough to serve as a kind of behavioral DNA — allowing identification based on how a person acted, rather than their genetic make-up.

Equally as important was the idea that local law enforcement agencies needed a way to better communicate with each other.  Savvy killers had attacked in different jurisdictions to exploit gaping holes in police cooperation.  ViCAP’s “implementation could mean the prevention of countless murders and the prompt apprehension of violent criminals,” the late Sen. Arlen Specter wrote in a letter to the Justice Department endorsing the program’s creation.

In the years since ViCAP was first conceived, data-mining has grown vastly more sophisticated, and computing power has become cheaper and more readily available. Corporations can link the food you purchase, the clothes you buy, and the websites you browse.  The FBI can parse your emails, cellphone records and airline itineraries.  In a world where everything is measured, data is ubiquitous — from the number of pieces of candy that a Marine hands out on patrol in Kandahar, to your heart rate as you walk up the stairs at work.

That’s what’s striking about ViCAP today, the paucity of information it contains.  Only about 1,400 police agencies in the U.S., out of roughly 18,000, participate in the system.  The database receives reports from far less than 1 percent of the violent crimes committed annually.  It’s not even clear how many crimes the database has helped solve.  The FBI does not release any figures.  A review in the 1990s found it had linked only 33 crimes in 12 years.

Canadian authorities built on the original ViCAP framework to develop a modern and sophisticated system capable of identifying patterns and linking crimes.  It has proven particularly successful at analyzing sexual-assault cases.  But three decades and an estimated $30 million later, the FBI’s system remains stuck in the past, the John Henry of data mining.  ViCAP was supposed to revolutionize American law enforcement.  That revolution never came.

Few law enforcement officials dispute the potential of a system like ViCAP to help solve crimes.  But the FBI has never delivered on its promise.  In an agency with an $8.2 billion yearly budget, ViCAP receives around $800,000 a year to keep the system going.  The ViCAP program has a staff of 12.  Travel and training have been cut back in recent years.  Last year, the program provided analytical assistance to local cops just 220 times.  As a result, the program has done little to close the gap that prompted Congress to create it.  Police agencies still don’t talk to each other on many occasions.  Killers and rapists continue to escape arrest by exploiting that weakness.  “The need is vital,” said Ritchie Martinez, the former president of the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts.  “But ViCAP is not filling it.”

Local cops say the system is confusing and cumbersome.  Entering a single case into the database can take an hour and hits — where an unsolved crime is connected to a prior incident — are rare.  False positives are common.  Many also said the FBI does little to teach cops how to use the system.  Training has dropped from a high of about 5,500 officers in 2012 to 1,200 last year.

“We don’t really use ViCAP,” said Jeff Jensen, a criminal analyst for the Phoenix Police Department with 15 years of experience.  “It really is quite a chore.”

The FBI has contributed to the confusion by misrepresenting the system.  On its website, the FBI says cases in its database are “continually compared” for matches as new cases are entered.  But in an interview, program officials said that does not happen.  “We have plans for that in the future,” said Nathan Graham, a crime analyst for the program.  The agency said it would update the information on its website.

The agency’s indifference to the database is particularly noteworthy at a time when emerging research suggests that such a tool could be especially useful in rape investigations.

For years, politicians and women’s advocates have focused on testing the DNA evidence in rape kits, which are administered to sexual assault victims after an attack.  Such evidence can be compared against a nationwide database of DNA samples to find possible suspects.  Backlogs at police departments across the country have left tens of thousands of kits untested.

But DNA is collected in only about half of rape cases, according to recent studies.  A nationwide clearinghouse of the unique behaviors, methods, or marks of rapists could help solve those cases lacking genetic evidence, criminal experts said.  Other research has shown that rapists are far more likely than killers to be serial offenders.  Different studies have found that between one-fourth to two-thirds of rapists have committed multiple sexual assaults.  Only about 1 percent of murderers are considered serial killers.

Studies have questioned the assumptions behind behavioral analysis tools like ViCAP.  Violent criminals don’t always commit attacks the same way and different analysts can have remarkably different interpretations on whether crimes are linked.  And a system that looks for criminal suspects on the basis of how a person acts is bound to raise alarms about Orwellian overreach.  But many cops say any help is welcome in the difficult task of solving crimes like rape.  A recent investigation by ProPublica and The New Orleans Advocate found that police in four states repeatedly missed chances to arrest the former NFL football star and convicted serial rapist Darren Sharper after failing to contact each other.  “We’re always looking for tools,” said Joanne Archambault, the director of End Violence Against Women International, one of the leading police training organizations for the investigation of sexual assaults.  “I just don’t think ViCAP was ever promoted enough as being one of them.”

The U.S. need only look north for an example of how such a system can play an important role in solving crimes.  Not long after ViCAP was developed in the United States, Canadian law enforcement officials used it as a model to build their own tool, known as the Violent Criminal Linkage Analysis System, or ViCLAS.  Today, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police maintains a database containing more than 500,000 criminal case profiles.  The agency credits it with linking together some 7,000 unsolved crimes since 1995 – though not all of those linkages resulted in an arrest.  If the FBI collected information as consistently as the Mounties, its database would contain more than 4.4 million cases, based on the greater U.S. population.

Instead, the FBI has about 89,000 cases on file.

Over the years, Canada has poured funding and staff into its program, resulting in a powerful analytical tool, said Sgt.  Tony Lawlor, a senior ViCLAS analyst.  One critical difference, in the U.S., reporting to the system is largely voluntary.  In Canada, legislators have made it mandatory.  Cops on the street still grumble about the system, which resembles the American version in the time and effort to complete.  But “it has information which assists police officers, which is catching bad guys,” Lawlor said.  “When police realize there’s a value associated with it, they use it.”

The ViCAP program eventually emerged from the fallout shelter where it began.  It set up shop in an unmarked two-story brick office building in a Virginia business park surrounded by a printer’s shop, a dental practice and a Baptist church.

In a lengthy interview there, program officials offered a PowerPoint presentation with case studies of three serial killers who were captured in the past eight years with the help of the ViCAP program.  They called the system “successful.”

“We do as good a job as we possibly can given our resources and limitations,” said Timothy Burke, a white-haired, 29-year agency veteran who is the program manager for ViCAP. “ As with anything, we could always do better.”