The murder of the acting chief of Mexico's federal police amid an unprecedented wave of drug gang attacks on security officials will soon become a major issue in the U.S. presidential candidates' escalating war for Hispanic votes. Until now, Republicans and Democrats had tried to make as little noise as possible about the Bush administration's Merida Initiative, a request for $500 million to help Mexico fight its drug cartels. They hoped to pass it quietly, fearing that a high-profile debate would stir up political passions on both sides of the border and kill the proposal. [continues 666 words]
Florida is one of many states grappling with overcrowded prisons. States with budget shortfalls are seeking alternatives to imprisoning nonviolent drug offenders. A study conducted by the RAND Corp. found that every additional dollar invested in substance-abuse treatment saves taxpayers $7.48. There is far more at stake than tax dollars. The drug war does not promote family values. Inmates' children are at risk of academic failure, joblessness, addiction and delinquency. Not only do the children lose out, but society as a whole does, too. [continues 91 words]
The fact that the state budget has more money for prison construction than for schools is so outrageous that it is incomprehensible. Where would these legislators be now if they had to suffer the school system we have in place? When I moved to Hollywood from Cleveland in 1959, the PTA at West Hollywood Elementary said that every teacher at that school had a master's degree. Now we are lucky if we can attract teachers right out of college. A good education gives a child a better chance to succeed and keeps them from breaking the law, which results in the need for fewer prisons. HARRIET FIERING, Davie [end]
The house on Northeast 18th Street was well landscaped with lush tropical plants beyond the arched brick entranceway. Very nice. Of course, accomplished landscaping would be the least you'd expect of a grow house: palms, birds of paradise and purple orchids out front; 79 hydroponic marijuana plants inside. "No. No. That couldn't be true. Not here," a neighbor protested. "He's lived here for years. There's his pick-up truck." It just didn't compute. Not for her. Not in her neighborhood on the eastern edge of Victoria Park in Fort Lauderdale. Not that nice middle-aged fellow across the street whose house was worth about $670,000. [continues 478 words]
Re the April 27 editorial One-way approach to crime has limits: When I joined the Dade state attorney's office in 1965, I was the 33rd assistant state attorney. We faced seven public defenders, only one of whom was full time. There were three judges who handled all noncapital felonies and misdemeanor arrests made by the sheriff's office. We also represented the state in 11 traffic courtrooms. The jail had 660 beds for a Dade County population of about 900,000. [continues 258 words]
Imprisoning Felons Comes at a High Cost Our country has the unenviable distinction of holding more people in prisons than any other country in the world. In the United States, 2.3 million people are in prison -- a number that represents nearly 25 percent of the world's prison population, according to a report last week in The New York Times. The number is staggering, and it calls into question the recent hardening of attitudes and policies toward crime in America. [continues 596 words]
Proposed Funding Cuts To Successful Drug Treatment Programs May Leave Thousands Untreated A year ago, Esther Guzman wanted her crack pipe more than her kids. In her heart, she hoped to come clean for her children's sake, but her cocaine addiction lured her to the rock. Guzman got high just minutes before she grabbed a cab on March 14, 2007, to appear before a judge who would decide if she could get her four children back. A day earlier the state had taken her kids, ages 5 to 13, into foster care because she had neglected them for months. [continues 1183 words]
Proposed Funding Cuts to Successful Drug Treatment Programs May Leave Thousands Untreated A year ago, Esther Guzman wanted her crack pipe more than her kids. In her heart, she hoped to come clean for her children's sake, but her cocaine addiction lured her to the rock. Guzman got high just minutes before she grabbed a cab on March 14, 2007, to appear before a judge who would decide if she could get her four children back. A day earlier the state had taken her kids, ages 5 to 13, into foster care because she had neglected them for months. [continues 1184 words]
TALLAHASSEE - Florida lawmakers will start to tackle the steepest budget cuts in state history Monday, the result of a chaotic economy and grim financial forecasts. Ideas already on the table: Squeezing more kids into classrooms. Flat-lining school budgets. Freezing environmental funding. Cutting costs at hospitals and nursing homes. Charging more for driver licenses and court fees. And then there's the list of programs that won't see the light of day because legislators must write a 2008-09 budget that's 16 percent lower -- $4.6 billion -- than the $72 billion budget they passed last year. [continues 904 words]
Gov. Charlie Crist Said He Doesn't Support Legislative Plans to Review Whether to Lessen Penalties for Some Crimes Such As Non-Violent Drug Possession TALLAHASSEE - Though he has admitted to smoking marijuana, Gov. Charlie Crist said he still favors Florida's tough drug laws and doesn't support legislative plans to review whether to lessen penalties for some crimes such as non-violent drug possession. The state's prison population is expected to swell at year's end to a record 100,000, about 20 percent of whom are non-violent drug offenders convicted of crimes such as trafficking and simple possession. [continues 546 words]
The city is close to signing settlement agreements with three police officers who challenged disciplinary action taken against them almost two years ago. Two Coral Gables police officers were returned to their former ranks - -- one as sergeant and the other as lieutenant -- earlier this month after an arbitrator found their demotions were unfair. The missteps could cost the city close to a $250,000. City Manager David Brown said the city and the police union were poised to sign agreements that return Sgt. Spencer Green and Lt. Alexander Roffe -- demoted to patrol officers in 2006 -- to their respective ranks. [continues 559 words]
Analysts Said Chavez's Comments Before National Assembly Amounted To a Dangerous Endorsement and Might Be An Admission Of An Illegal Act Venezuela's controversial President Hugo Chavez has revealed that he regularly consumes coca -- the source of cocaine -- raising questions about the legality of his actions. Chavez's comments on coca initially went almost unnoticed, coming amid a four-hour speech to the National Assembly during which he made international headlines by calling on other countries to stop branding two leftist Colombian guerrilla groups as terrorists and instead recognize them as "armies." [continues 642 words]
White People Are More Likely Than Minorities to Get Narcotics From Emergency-Room Doctors, a Study Found. CHICAGO -- Emergency-room doctors are prescribing strong narcotics more often to patients who complain of pain, but minorities are less likely to get them than whites, a new study finds. Even for the severe pain of kidney stones, minorities were prescribed narcotics such as oxycodone and morphine less frequently than whites. The analysis of more than 150,000 emergency-room visits over 13 years found differences in prescribing by race in both urban and rural hospitals, in all U.S. regions and for every type of pain. [continues 521 words]
OPIUM SEASON: A Year on the Afghan Frontier. Joel Hafvenstein. Lyons. 336 pages. $24.95. The author describes the dangers of helping ease Afghan farmers out of the opium business. This real-life story, which provides a chilling sense of deja vu, offers a perfect example of the old saying: Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. It's a lesson author Joel Hafvenstein relearns as a condition of employment in perhaps the "dirtiest job" in foreign service -- as a contractor in the Taliban/Khan-ruled poppy fields of Afghanistan. [continues 394 words]
Black defendants in Broward County are 10 times as likely to be incarcerated for a drug offense as white defendants, although drug usage rates by the two groups are basically the same. The disparity is even greater for blacks in Sarasota County, where they are 37 times as likely to go to prison as whites. That is the assessment of a report released Tuesday by the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit public policy outfit that works to end the reliance on incarceration. The report, which examines racial disparities and the rate at which people are admitted to prison for drug offenses, addresses the issue at the county level, its authors say. [continues 557 words]
Gen. Barry McCaffrey offers an excellent primer on Colombia's recent economic and political reforms and why the United States must pass the U.S.-Colombia free-trade agreement stalled in Washington (Congress should OK trade deal, Issues & Ideas, Nov. 25). By promptly passing the trade agreement, Congress will help cement these reforms and send the unmistakable signal to other Latin American nations that Washington takes seriously economic and democratic liberalization. The economic reasons for passage are as compelling as the national-security arguments that McCaffrey outlined. Colombia is developing into a regional economic power, and it is the second-largest Latin American market for U.S. agriculture exports. [continues 160 words]
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- New mint packets being sold by The Hershey Co. look nearly identical to the tiny heat-sealed bags used to sell illegal powdered drugs like crack, heroin and cocaine and glorify the drug trade, a Philadelphia police official said. Ice Breakers Pacs, nickel-sized dissolvable pouches with a powdered sweetener inside, hit store shelves in November. The packets, which come in blue and orange plastic slide-up cases, are similar enough to drug packets that a child familiar with the candy could mistakenly swallow a heat-sealed bag of drugs, Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector William Blackburn told the Philadelphia Daily News for an article published Friday. [continues 98 words]
Mandatory minimum prison sentences have done little more than give the land of the free the highest incarceration rate in the world (For equal treatment under the law, Opinion, Nov. 21). The deterrent value of tough drug laws is overrated. During the crack epidemic of the '80s, New York City chose the zero-tolerance approach, prosecuting as many offenders as possible. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry was smoking crack, and America's capital had the highest per-capita murder rate in the country. Yet crack use declined in both cities simultaneously. [continues 95 words]
The U.S. Sentencing Commission is taking welcome steps toward ending an unjust disparity in federal sentences for cocaine-related crimes. For two decades, people convicted of possessing or selling crack cocaine have been treated to much harsher penalties than those involved with powder cocaine. Under federal law, it takes 100 times as much powder cocaine as crack to draw stiff five- and 10-year mandatory prison terms. Target Drug Kingpins Even if the commission does all it can, it would not be enough to eliminate the injustice that has disproportionately imprisoned crack-cocaine offenders. Only Congress can fix what it broke when it set badly skewed mandatory-minimum prison sentences based on misinformation. [continues 339 words]
Re Jim Shultz's Nov. 8 letter Evo Morales negotiated: The letter was a response to Roger Noriega's Nov. 5 Other Views article, No crime, no punishment, on Bolivia. The letter writer says that Bolivian president Evo Morales' first act after losing the elections in 2002 was not to encourage "violent protests but to sit down with the new president for cordial negotiations over the complex coca issue." This was not the case. As Noriega correctly stated, Morales rose to power after conducting a mob-style movement to topple a democratically elected government using terror tactics. [continues 193 words]
A Police-Involved Shooting Outside a Busy Davie Home Depot Leaves One Person Dead One person was shot and killed late Friday at a Davie Home Depot in an undercover police drug investigation. The shooting occurred about 8 p.m. in the parking lot of the giant home improvement store at 2300 S. University Dr. in the Tower Shops, a busy strip mall with dozens of popular retail stores on University Drive, just south of Interstate 595. Federal DEA agents had been working a cocaine investigation, said Jeannnette Moran, spokeswoman for the DEA. [continues 266 words]
Prosecutors Should Ask For Reversal Of Penalty Pedro Zapeta managed to accomplish what many Americans have yet to master: Saving money. Now he is appealing a federal judge's ruling that unjustly took away most of his nest egg. Returning Mr. Zapeta's money would be morally right and correct a serious miscarriage of justice. How did a humble Guatemalan without legal status manage to accumulate more than $59,000 in 10 years here? He did it the hard way, doing the kind of work that many U.S. residents won't do. Mr. Zapeta worked sweaty, low-wage jobs, mostly as a dishwasher for Stuart restaurants, and as a gardener in his "time off." He lived frugally, scrimping for the day he would have enough savings to return home, start a business and build a house for his family. When that day arrived, he bought a plane ticket and stuffed his fortune in a black duffel bag. [continues 323 words]
A traffic crash that left Richard Paey in such pain that he forged prescriptions ultimately led him to a wheelchair and then a prison cell, where he was sentenced to 25 years as a drug trafficker. On Thursday, as Paey's attorney, wife and four children wept, Gov. Charlie Crist and the Cabinet said it was all too much. They unanimously and unexpectedly voted to give Paey a full pardon and released him from prison about five hours later. 'It is unbelievable. It is like Dorothy going home. I was thinking that on the way down here, 'There is no place like home.' That has been on my mind for . . . 1,165 days I have been in prison," Paey said after a guard wheeled him out of Tomoka Correctional Institution in Daytona Beach. [continues 740 words]
BOGOTA -- One of the world's most-wanted drug lords was captured hiding under a pile of leaves Monday in a major strike against a powerful and violent cocaine cartel that had managed to infiltrate the top ranks of Colombia's security forces. Diego Leon Montoya Sanchez, who goes by the name "Don Diego," was the leader of the Norte del Valle cartel, believed to be responsible for nearly two-thirds of the 500 tons of cocaine exported from Colombia every year and at least 1,500 murders. Among the FBI's top 10 most wanted criminals, he has been indicted in the United States, including in South Florida. [continues 722 words]
WASHINGTON -- Relatives of three U.S. contractors kidnapped by Colombian rebels more than four years ago turned Wednesday to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for help securing their loves ones' release under a swap of imprisoned rebels for hostages. "We're very hopeful. They are working hard to include the three Americans" in the possible exchange, Lynn Stansell, whose son Keith is among the hostages, said after a meeting with Venezuela's ambassador to Washington, Bernardo Alvarez Herrera. Her son was grabbed in 2003 by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, along with fellow U.S. contractors Marc Gonsalves and Thomas Howes when their plane crashed during an anti-drug mission. [continues 386 words]
LIMA -- The United States is moving cautiously to find a new air base for anti-drug surveillance in South America in the face of vocal opposition to the idea in Peru and Colombia. Defense Secretary Robert Gates met Friday with Peruvian Defense Minister Allan Wagner, who told reporters a day before Gates arrived here that the topic would not come up in their meetings. Both Peru and Colombia have offered to talk to the Pentagon about a new base location, a senior U.S. defense official said earlier this week, but he also noted that it wasn't on Gates' agenda Friday. [continues 302 words]
It's no secret that Florida's economy has taken it on the chin with regard to the distressed housing market. The downturn in such a key economic sector of our state has now compelled Gov. Charlie Crist to ask Florida lawmakers to return once again to Tallahassee to reduce the state's spending plan. But legislators will be faced with trimming a budget already pruned pretty tightly. It's not just fat that will be hitting the butcher's floor this time around. Budget reductions will affect programs and policies of great significance in the sunshine state. [continues 437 words]
Reacting to the city police union's allegations that his department has whitewashed crime statistics, Miami Police Chief John Timoney on Friday called for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to review the city's record-keeping. The police union called a news conference Friday to accuse Timoney's administration of systematically downgrading the severity of crimes in its record-keeping, but offered little proof of the coordinated, departmentwide effort that union officials described. Armando Aguilar, president of the union, said he has received phone calls from more than 100 officers who are uncomfortable with how Miami is recording its crime stats, but declined to share much of their information with reporters. Aguilar said some cops are afraid to tell even the union what they know. [continues 622 words]
Re Michael Shifter's Aug. 19 Other Views column, Help Mexico with costs of the drug war: Just like alcohol prohibition gave rise to Al Capone, drug prohibition created the violent drug-trafficking organizations blamed for all the killing in Mexico. With alcohol prohibition repealed in the United States, liquor bootleggers no longer gun each other down in drive-by shootings. Mexico's recent upsurge in violence began after an anti-drug crackdown created a power vacuum among competing cartels. From a political perspective, Mexican President Felipe Calderon stands to benefit from the violence. The drug war is perpetuated by the mainstream media's complicity in refusing to put so-called ''drug-related'' crime in context. U.S. politicians have proven particularly adept at confusing the drug war's collateral damage with drugs themselves. [continues 74 words]
In Quebec tomorrow, a large U.S. aid package to Mexico -- reportedly on the order of several hundred million dollars a year -- will be on the agenda at a North American summit meeting with President Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. The eight-month-old Calderon government has repeatedly called for substantial U.S. support to help stem the uncontrolled, drugfueled violence that is subduing city after city in Mexico. For the health of our southern neighbor's nascent democracy and the strengthening of our own border controls, it is fundamental that the United States and Mexico enhance their cooperation. [continues 751 words]
Workplace Drug Tests Showed A Big Decline In Cocaine Use Across The Country And Especially In South Florida. Cocaine use in South Florida's workforce has experienced a sharp decline this year compared to 2006, mirroring a national trend that shows the drug's use at a 10-year low, a leading U.S. testing firm reports. "The Miami-Fort Lauderdale area saw a dramatic decline of approximately 18.1 percent in cocaine positivity rates among workers," said Barry Sample, the director of science and technology for employee testing at Quest Diagnostics. "This drop may suggest that employees in the area either are choosing not to use cocaine or lack access to the drug." [continues 464 words]
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A Pasco County man with multiple sclerosis who was convicted of drug trafficking for having a large stash of prescription drugs he said were for pain should receive clemency, his family said Thursday. Richard Paey has served four years of a 25-year minimum mandatory sentence for drug trafficking. The former lawyer and father of three injured his back in a 1985 car crash and has said he has pain from that in addition to his multiple sclerosis. He argued in court that only large amounts of strong narcotics eased that pain. [continues 217 words]
Mexico's Monterrey Was Considered The Safest City In Latin America, But Drug-Related Violence Has Spread Fear In The City MONTERREY, Mexico -- Biti Rodriguez could have gone anywhere for her 10-year-old's birthday party. But Incredible Pizza, a mammoth restaurant and fun house tucked into the corner of a strip mall in Monterrey, offered her something that suddenly has become a consuming obsession: safety. She herded her daughter, Alejandra, and a dozen other giggling girls through two metal detectors one recent afternoon at this pizza parlor that promises "incredible security for your children," then dumped bags of presents on a table to be probed by a guard. It took a while to actually get inside, but Rodriguez didn't care. She thinks all the extra security is super bien -- super good. [continues 934 words]
MIAMI - In a landmark ruling, an appeals court has dismissed a case against a Saudi prince's former lover and a Colombian man convicted two years ago of conspiring to smuggle two tons of cocaine. The pair were found guilty of using the prince's Boeing 727 to transport cocaine from Venezuela to France. But a three-judge panel at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that no crime had been committed "against the United States," because the drugs never touched U.S. soil and were never intended for the American market. [continues 292 words]
Colombia must prepare to stand starkly alone. It is very likely that military aid from the United States will vanish in the near future, as Republicans and Democrats do battle. President Alvaro Uribe may be winning the war in the Colombian jungles, but he's losing it in Washington. It is not true that the two U.S. parties unite patriotically when faced with major foreign-policy challenges. That's part of the American mythology. If there's any electoral advantage in throwing overboard a foreign ally (or supporting him), Republicans and Democrats will do it. The only immovable principle is that elections must be won at any cost and under any pretext. [continues 643 words]
Hispanic and black men are more likely to contract AIDS through drug use, the biggest factor in the spread of AIDS. Drug use and the resulting risky behavior are the biggest factors in the spread of HIV/AIDS in the United States, and Hispanic and black men are more likely to be infected this way than others, an AIDS expert told a national AIDS conference in Miami Beach on Monday. "Drugs, whether you inject them, inhale them or take them orally, alter your judgment and put you at risk for HIV," Dr. Rhonda Hagler, medical director of Proceed Inc., an Elizabeth, N.J., AIDS clinic, told the 2007 National Conference on Latinos and AIDS, meeting here through today. [continues 473 words]
Mexican President Felipe Calderon, locked in a bloody confrontation with drug cartels, is negotiating a counter-drug aid package with the Bush administration worth hundreds of millions of dollars, say several U.S. officials familiar with the discussions. Officials on both sides are working out the details of a package that resembles a similar plan for Colombia. The talks have been taking place quietly for several months and will be a central item on the agenda Aug. 20-21 when President Bush and Calderon are expected to meet in Quebec. [continues 832 words]
Colombia Announced It Will Favor Manual Eradication of Coca Crops Over the Current System, Which Focuses Heavily on Aerial Spraying BOGOTA -- In a major policy shift likely to get both praise and close examination in Washington, Colombia has announced it will favor manual eradication of coca crops over the current system that focuses heavily on aerial fumigation. The iconic image of Colombia's largely U.S.-funded war on drugs may well be a single-engine airplane spraying bright green fields of coca bushes with chemical defoliants -- the country's key strategy since the 1980s. [continues 1092 words]
Costa Rica is Showing Progress in its War on Drugs, but Concerns Exist That the Country is Used as an Exchange Center for Major Drug Trade SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- Known abroad mostly for its political stability, pristine beaches and eco-tourism, this country without an army has suddenly found itself in the middle of the war on drugs. During President Oscar Arias' 14 months in office, Costa Rican and U.S. authorities have set seizure records in increasingly spectacular drug busts -- nearly 50 tons of cocaine, compared with 2003, when seizures didn't reach one ton. [continues 535 words]
Cheese Heroin, an Illegal Drug That Includes Cold Medicine and Sells for as Little as $2 a Hit, Has Killed at Least 20 People in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area WASHINGTON -- Federal and state officials are stepping up efforts to block the spread of an emerging drug menace called cheese heroin, which has been blamed for the deaths of at least 20 young people in the Dallas-Fort Worth area over the past two years. The drug, a mixture of black tar heroin and cold medicine, sells for as little as $2 a hit and is being targeted at kids, often as an inducement to join a gang. [continues 352 words]
The Colombian Government Agreed to Provide an Alternative Base for Counter-Drug Efforts if the United States Loses Access to the Manta Airfield in Ecuador The U.S. accord with Ecuador for use of the base in Manta expires in 2009. Ecuador's president has pledged not to renew the accord. Colombia has offered the U.S. government an alternative base for counter-drug surveillance flights if Ecuador evicts it from its largest South American military outpost, according to a senior U.S. defense official. [continues 412 words]
New Figures Point To Success In the Global War on Drugs, Thanks to Worldwide Efforts to Step Up Seizures and Disrupt Production WASHINGTON -- One war appears to be going well for the United States and its allies these days: the drug war. The availability of all major illegal drugs -- except Afghan heroin -- is flat or down, and drug seizures are up sharply, according to newly released global figures. No one's saying the world's drug problem is solved, and the data on cocaine production in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia show little overall change. But one top analyst said the problem appears to be contained for now. [continues 892 words]
President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia is visiting Washington again this week -- to urge U.S. support for a bilateral trade agreement and for continued U.S. aid to his country. His efforts should not be necessary because support for Colombia is in the national interest of the United States. Colombia has been the largest recipient of U.S. aid in Latin America since the Clinton administration provided a special assistance package to support democracy and to counter the threat posed to that country by illegal drugs -- which fueled the insurgent groups, paramilitaries, and criminal gangs. [continues 683 words]
At a recent backyard barbecue in Miami's Upper Eastside, a group of middle-age, middle-class folks tamely sipped berry cocktails and beers. Among them: a couple of lawyers, a couple of city administrators and an arts administrator. Somewhere between the skirt steak and the apple pie, somebody lit a joint and passed it around. Nobody blinked. Even in mainstream, white-collar settings, smoking marijuana can be commonplace and unremarkable, like having a little wine with dinner. Once a stamp of the arty, the marginal and the counterculture, today marijuana's popularity cuts across social boundaries. Yet several high-profile marijuana arrests have recently made headlines, highlighting the hazy double standard that exists around an illegal, potentially harmful drug that continues to encroach into the mainstream: [continues 1154 words]
Almost every week of their college lives, Chris and Gabriel have done something illegal. Chris and Gabriel, along with millions of other college students, smoke marijuana and think nothing is wrong with it. Almost 35 percent of U.S. college students -- nearly six million -- said they had smoked pot in their lifetime, according to the spring 2006 National College Health Assessment by the American College Health Association. In fact, one in five students -- more than two million -- said they smoke every month, and in Florida, monthly smokers are 5 percent higher than the national average, according to national surveys and the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey. [continues 490 words]
Re John Negroponte's May 22 Other Views article, Helping Colombia is in our national interest: Negroponte wants to keep pumping in $15 million a week to fund military drug enforcement. The results? Cheap cocaine on our streets, traffickers pushed from Colombia to destabilized neighbors, twisted paramilitary pay-offs and corruption in counter-narcotics programs. Since 2000, we've spent billions of dollars in Colombia through Plan Colombia. The only thing we've bought besides 475 extradited drug traffickers is a military presence next to Venezuela. [continues 92 words]
A decade ago, Colombia teetered on the brink of disintegration. Terrorist groups were taking thousands of citizens hostage. Unfettered drug trafficking was threatening core institutions and the basic cohesion of the state. As I saw first-hand earlier this month on a visit to Colombia, the picture today is strikingly different: A democratically elected government is making great strides in curbing violence and drug trafficking. It has restored the integrity of the state and taken the fight to the terrorists and traffickers themselves. Colombia's rebirth is one of Latin America's success stories. [continues 648 words]
Five evenings a week, Amado Ramirez fielded complaints from his radio listeners on everything from corrupt public officials to the booming drug trade in this famous resort city. Then, on a Friday night, just blocks from a beachside strip of bars where thousands of tourists were partying, a gunman ambushed Ramirez in his car as he attempted to leave his Radiorama office. Bleeding profusely from bullet wounds in the chest, side and thigh, Ramirez dragged himself several yards to a hotel to plead for help, according to police and witness reports. Minutes later, he collapsed dead. [continues 696 words]
A third Hollywood police officer pleaded guilty Wednesday to heroin conspiracy charges arising from an undercover FBI corruption sting in which federal agents posed as mobsters involved in drug trafficking, illegal gambling and stolen valuables. Detective Thomas Simcox, 50, pleaded guilty to being one of four Hollywood officers who helped escort a large load of what they thought was heroin concealed inside a truck from Miami Beach to northern Broward County in November 2006. In reality, the drugs were fake and the traffickers were FBI agents. [continues 372 words]
Broward Bench's 'Rough Patch' Needs Effective Reforms Maybe Gerald Kogan, a former Florida chief justice, is right. Maybe Broward County's judicial bench is just going through "a rough patch." Or maybe the serial missteps by Broward judges is part of an endemic problem -- say a lack of diversity in Broward courts, or insularity in a county where judges rarely face reelection challenges. In The Eyes Of The Law Whatever the cause, the buck stops with Chief Judge Dale Ross. He must take steps to repair Broward courts' tarnished image caused by errant judges or make room for a leader who can. The latest gaffe comes from Criminal Administrative Judge Charles Greene. After a jury delivered a not-guilty verdict in an attempted first-degree murder case in April, the judge made a remark that court insiders link to minorities and others considered less than equal in the eyes of the law. The case, which involved a black defendant, black victims and a black witness, is an "N.H.I.," Judge Greene told lawyers. [continues 287 words]
