This just in: Driving while black is still unsafe at any speed. The same goes for driving while brown. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report Sunday showing that white, African-American and Hispanic drivers are equally likely to be pulled over by police for an alleged traffic offense. In 2005, the year covered by the study, black drivers were actually less likely -- by a tiny margin -- to be stopped by police than drivers belonging to the other groups. You might be tempted to conclude that the constitutional imperative of equal protection had finally been extended to America's streets and highways. [continues 620 words]
Re the April 21 article Gore cancels Miami appearance in snub of Colombia's president: Former Vice President Al Gore was supposed to be the keynote speaker in Miami at the April 20 Green Forum. But he decided not to attend because he would not share the stage with Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe. Fortunately, when Uribe spoke he was received with a rousing standing ovation. Gore is ignorant of the reality in Colombia. Twenty years ago the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was advancing in gigantic steps toward the domination of the country. Wholesale kidnappings to finance their operations were the order of the day (there still are hundreds of them). The police and the army were unable to control the situation. To defend their lives and property, regional ranchers, with the consent of Uribe, then governor of the Antioquia province, resorted to becoming a private militia that managed to control the situation to a certain degree. [continues 191 words]
But Clear Conditions Should Be Attached, As Well There are plenty of reasons for members of Congress to be leery about giving more money to Colombia. A major political scandal surrounding President Alvaro Uribe and his party is growing, and getting closer to the president himself. An amnesty with paramilitary forces has been far too generous to these criminals. Human rights protections need to be strengthened, and too much of Colombia's territory remains beyond the reach of the government. And yet, Congress should approve more aid to Colombia -- with strings. [continues 353 words]
Mexican Police Said They Arrested a Key Leader of the Violent Gulf Cartel MEXICO CITY -- A man described as a key leader of the violent Gulf Cartel has been arrested as part of a widening crackdown on drug trafficking in northeast Mexico, federal authorities announced Tuesday. The announcement of the bust in the state of Tamaulipas, which borders the United States, came the day after Mexican soldiers detained more than 100 local police officers in the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon for questioning about suspected ties to drug traffickers. [continues 447 words]
Colombia Is Making A Significant Shift In Priorities In Its War Against Drugs And Guerrillas, But Critics Wonder If It Will Be Implemented BOGOTA -- With all the hoopla surrounding President Bush's recent visit to Colombia, few seemed to notice the arrival the next day of German President Horst Kohler, on the first visit since 1971 by a German head of state. But Kohler's visit symbolized a tenuous but nevertheless significant European nod of approval for a shift in Colombia's anti-drug policy, criticized here and abroad over the years as being too much military stick and not enough economic carrots. [continues 1020 words]
Guatemala knows it is losing the battle against drug trafficking - its police, military and justice system are beholden to traffickers who use the country as a way station for Colombian drug shipments to the U.S. In a case that has laid bare the extent of corruption in the Central American nation, FBI agents are trying to help discover who ordered the murders of three Salvadoran politicians and the Guatemalan police officers who said they were told to kill them. The killings and apparent cover-up has exposed the seemingly insurmountable challenges President Oscar Berger faces as he tries to regain control of a defiant and even criminal police force. [continues 707 words]
Re the Feb. 18 story U.S. base with vital role in drug war facing closure: As a retired police officer, I was surprised at the story's sky-is-falling tone about the impending loss of the airbase in Manta, Ecuador. The cartels smuggle in tons of cocaine and heroin. They have built into their business model the loss of a certain percentage of their product because of the planes at Manta. Therefore, every ton seized is meaningless. The price of cocaine and heroin has been dropping during the past 30 years, indicating an oversupply. Prohibition guarantees that Miami will always have an ample supply of drugs. As the sale of drugs funnels billions to terrorists, will we ever be as wise as our grandparents and end the new prohibition? Howard J. Wooldridge, education specialist Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Washington, D.C. [end]
Nuevo Laredo Has Been Handcuffed By Drug Traffickers, Who Engage In Violence, Threats And Kidnappings NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - The evening calm here is deceiving. As dusk settles, folks gather and mill around the town square, as they do in town squares throughout Mexico. But soon the talk turns to the latest deadly incident, this week's ambush of a federal congressman, which left him seriously injured and his 31-year-old driver dead. And the inevitable question arises: Is it too late to save Nuevo Laredo? [continues 769 words]
As Anti-U.S. Sentiment Grows Stronger In Ecuador, A Small U.S. Coastal Base Crucial To The Drug War Faces Near-Certain Closure MANTA, Ecuador - The U.S. military's lone outpost in South America is a modest affair -- some 220 Americans share space with a local air force wing and an international airport. They are allowed no more than eight planes at a time. But these surveillance planes -- chiefly A-3 AWACs and P-3 Orions -- play a vital role in keeping Andean cocaine and heroin from reaching the United States. They are responsible for about 60 percent of drug interdiction in the eastern Pacific. [continues 739 words]
Reject Requests To Put Fake Documejnts In Court Records Some prosecutors aren't happy with a state law that prevents them from changing or falsifying court records, so they want to change the law. In fact, the prosecutors also have asked the Florida Bar and state Supreme Court to change the rules so they can lie in court and make up phony documents to put in the official record. In other words, these prosecutors want a special law that places them and certain other officials above the law. The idea is preposterous and dangerous. It should be soundly rejected. [continues 372 words]
An Affluent City Just Two Hours From Texas Is The Newest Battleground In A War Between Drug Cartels SAN PEDRO GARZA GARCIA, Mexico -- From the shopping malls and the fashionable clothes of its residents, this could be any affluent U.S. suburb. Residents pride themselves on their prosperity. But in recent weeks, drug-related violence has shattered the tranquillity. The main targets are police, and seven officers have been gunned down in Monterrey and its suburbs this year. Men with assault weapons killed two former police officers over the weekend. [continues 449 words]
Broward's jail population, long the subject of controversy, comes under the microscope this week. A team of federal auditors is working this week to unravel the mysteries of how and why Broward's jail population has grown so rapidly. Consultants from the National Institute of Corrections, a branch of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, started work Tuesday and will continue through Friday. The three auditors will find a system where some 5,800 people sleep behind bars every night, 7,800 await trial on monitored release programs or house arrest and thousands more serve probation, never more than a missed appointment away from returning to jail. [continues 697 words]
Rival Drug Traffickers Are Sprinkling The Internet With Often-Gruesome Video Depictions Of Their Retribution MEXICO CITY - For months, video artists and videographers of varying skill have been peppering the Internet with a gruesome cavalcade of images: a woman slain in the cab of a pickup truck, an alleged Mafia hit man being tortured and executed, an assassinated singer's body splayed on a coroner's table. Many of the videos are posted at one time or another on the website YouTube. They seek to cheer on or denigrate the opposing sides in Mexico's drug wars, the Sinaloa cartel led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and the Gulf cartel believed led, until recently, by Osiel Cardenas. Mexican authorities extradited Cardenas last month to face charges in a U.S. courtroom. [continues 752 words]
Two Police Officers Were Demoted in the Department's Efforts to Clean Up the Special Investigations Unit. Two Coral Gables police officers have been demoted for their role in an illegal narcotics burn in the Redland yard of another officer. Lt. Alexander Roffe was demoted to the rank of police officer and Sgt. Alan Matas received a 10-day suspension Tuesday when the city manager's office upheld the recommendations of the police chief. Roffe, who could not be reached for comment, will start as an officer in uniform patrol on Monday, said Police Chief Michael Hammerschmidt. [continues 288 words]
Mexican Troops And Police Officers Spread Out In An Area Of Western Mexico Controlled By Drug Gangs With The Goal Of 'Rconquering Territory.' APATZINGAN, Mexico - Helicopters clattered over remote mountaintops while soldiers set up checkpoints Tuesday in western Mexico, a region President Felipe Calderon has vowed to take back from smugglers challenging authorities with beheadings and large-scale drug production. Soldiers were ordered to set fire to marijuana and opium fields and round up traffickers in Michoacan -- Calderon's home state. Navy ships also were patrolling the state's Lazaro Cardenas port, a hub for drugs arriving from Central America and Colombia on their way to the United States. [continues 378 words]
BOGOTA - The former director of Colombia's FBI, known as DAS, ordered that information compromising agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration be leaked to drug traffickers, former DAS official Rafael Garcia has told government investigators. Garcia, once chief of DAS' computer systems, confirmed to El Nuevo Herald in a telephone interview from prison that he has told Supreme Court investigators that Jorge Noguera ordered him to deliver the information to the traffickers. "I carried the information in hard disks or in USB memory, per instructions from Noguera," said Garcia, who this month was sentenced to 18 years in prison for corruption. [continues 200 words]
The United States Is Pulling Some of Its Resources Out of a Key Battleground in the War Against Drugs. BOGOTA - After several years of trying to wean farmers from the drug trade in the conflictive southern province of Caqueta, the U.S. government is winding down its funding of alternative development programs in the region. The pullout comes amid a flurry of criticism of U.S.-backed efforts to eliminate illegal drug production in Colombia, and just before the U.S. Congress is expected to vote to continue aid for counter-drug programs in this nation of 41 million people. [continues 1017 words]
An Uptick In Gang Activity This Year -- And High-Profile Violence Attributed To Gangs -- Has Put Investigators And Schools On Alert In Miami-Dade When a reputed gang member peppered cops with bullets from an assault rifle last week, he illustrated what authorities say is a troubling spike in gang activity. Investigators say it's a new wave of gangs -- some loosely knit groups formed around drugs in North Miami-Dade, others national gangs drawing recruits from the suburbs. Consider: o Members of a gang called Behind the Plaza shot and wounded two Miami- Dade officers on two separate occasions, police say. Also last week in Miami Gardens, somebody shot and killed Dwayne Smith, believed to be one of the gang's leaders. [continues 1012 words]
The nonsense on Grand Avenue and Margaret Street and Thomas Avenue has to stop. The police and the politicians have to take responsibility immediately and act accordingly. The drug dealing, prostitution and assaults have been ignored for too long. Residents are living in terror. We have been begging for police to patrol the area and for a comprehensive plan to eradicate the drug dealing. It will take only one undercover officer to find out who is dealing drugs. There are three or four houses where drugs are openly sold 24/7 in the HUD housing that taxpayers fund from our hard-earned money. It is the police's job to keep our streets safe. Why should we risk our lives with zero resources to defend ourselves? Coconut Grove [end]
School Anti-Drug Club Brings The Drama A drug-free club in schools across Miami-Dade held parties, rallies, dramatizations and trivia games for Red Ribbon Week, to increase teens' awareness of the dangers of substance abuse. The door to Aaron Tucker's English class flew open, dispersing a chilly fog while a high-pitched voice ululated mournfully in the background. The Grim Reaper stepped in through the fog and paced before a circle of students, eventually choosing a girl. She shrieked, kicking as he picked her up and took her outside, returning for one more "victim." [continues 611 words]
The Nation's Longest Running Drug Awareness Campaign, Red Ribbon Week, Joined a Growing County Organization During One of Its Many Events to Keep Kids Off Drugs. Luis Melgar might only be 11 years old but he understands he has an important role at his school. "I represent an organization that promotes drug awareness and keeps other students away from drugs," he said. "If all the important figures in U.S. history would have done drugs where would America be?" Melgar is this year's Drug Free Youth in Town president, an anti-drug program working with his school, Devon Aire Elementary, along with a host of others across Miami-Dade County. [continues 374 words]
This weekly column is supplied by Citizens' Crime Watch of Miami-Dade and is intended to provide information that will help readers in their efforts to be safe. This past week, Citizens' Crime Watch held its 31st annual Board meeting to select members of our Executive Board and our Board of Directors. The meeting was held at the Fire Fighters Tower, with breakfast sponsored by the Miccosukee Tribe -- one of our partners -- and Chief David Ward, an Executive Board member. The event was attended by more than 100 police officers and crime watchers. A proclamation declaring October Crime Prevention Month was presented by the office of County Commission Chairman Joe Martinez, who is a member of our board. We also received a visit from state Sen. Walter ''Skip'' Campbell of Fort Lauderdale, who brought a message of support for our crime prevention programs. [continues 474 words]
WASHINGTON - A drug bust at a trailer park in New Mexico turned up what appeared to be classified documents taken from the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory, authorities said Tuesday. Local police found the documents while arresting a man suspected of domestic violence and dealing methamphetamine from his mobile home, said Sgt. Chuck Ney of the Los Alamos, N.M., Municipal Police Department. The documents were discovered during a search of the man's records for evidence of his drug business, Ney said. [continues 447 words]
President Alvaro Uribe Has Softened His Hard-Line Rhetoric And Signaled He Wants A Prisoner Swap With Colombia's FARC Rebels -- And Perhaps Even Peace Talks BOGOTA - Despite a strong mandate validating his first four years of waging all-out war against leftist rebels, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has opted for a more peaceful beginning to his second term. Since his inauguration in August, Uribe has reached out to leaders of the hemisphere's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC, by offering to swap imprisoned rebels for kidnapped politicians, citizens and soldiers in guerrilla hands. [continues 789 words]
The Broward Sheriff's Office is pursuing at least one lead in identifying a man caught on video selling crack cocaine while holding a baby. "We've got a tip, and we're following up on it," BSO spokesman Hugh Graf said Wednesday, adding that investigators still are asking anyone with information to call them. BSO released the video -- taped during an undercover sting in Dania Beach on Aug. 2 -- on Tuesday in the hopes that someone will identify the man. [continues 183 words]
An Era In The U.S. War On Drugs Ended In Miami Federal Court With The Guilty Pleas Of Two Colombian Kingpins The Colombian kingpins who revolutionized the global cocaine trade appeared as mere mortals in Miami federal court on Tuesday in pleading guilty to smuggling-conspiracy charges and apologizing for their life of crime. Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela stood in dark businesses suits before U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno as he sentenced the Cali cartel founders to 30 years in prison and ordered them to forfeit $2.1 billion in assets from their once-powerful empire. [continues 678 words]
Miami-Dade police officer Michael Wordly, recently named Florida DARE Officer of the Year, teaches fifth-graders to say 'no' to drugs and gangs. There is a good reason why Miami-Dade Police's DARE officer Michael Wordly's former fifth-grade students return to thank him. "Most of [my students] are bigger than me now, and they still remember some of the issues discussed in the DARE program ," said Wordly, 39, who was recently named the Florida DARE Officer of the Year for his work for DARE -- the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program. [continues 639 words]
HOLLYWOOD(FL) - A Hollywood home with $300,000 worth of marijuana almost went up in smoke Sunday night. Shortly before 6 p.m., someone called to say there was smoke coming from a house in the 1500 block of North 70th Way, Hollywood police spokesman Capt. Tony Rode said. Responding firefighters and police saw no flames, but did see smoke inside, Rode said. No one was home, and hurricane shutters covered some windows, Rode said. Firefighters went inside and saw a full-blown hydroponics lab, Rode said. [continues 75 words]
MEXICO CITY - Alleged drug kingpin Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix was extradited to the United States on Saturday to face drug charges, becoming the first major Mexican drug lord suspect to be sent north for trial. Mexico's extradition of the man who is suspected of having once run the Arellano Felix drug clan was a victory for U.S. officials, who have been pushing Mexico to send them more drug lords. Arellano Felix was loaded into a helicopter in Matamoros, then flown across the border and handed over to Texas officials in Brownsville after serving a 10-year sentence in Mexico. He will be taken to California to face trial on charges stemming from a 1980 case in which he allegedly sold cocaine to an undercover police officer in the United States. [continues 247 words]
Gunmen Threw Five Human Heads Onto A Bar's Dance Floor In Mexico. Investigators Think The Beheadings Could Be Linked To The Country's Brutal Drug Wars. MEXICO CITY - Gunmen roll human heads onto bar floor. Gunmen barged into a bar in central Mexico early Wednesday and tossed five human heads on the dance floor after ordering customers to get down on the floor -- a chilling show of brutality in a nation plagued by growing drug violence. The Internet site of the Mexican newspaper Reforma carried a gruesome photo of heads scattered across a white tile floor smeared with blood. Next to the heads was a note written on a piece of cardboard reading: ``The family doesn't kill for money. It doesn't kill women. It doesn't kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die. Everyone knows that. This is divine justice.'' [continues 322 words]
The Colombian Government Is Getting Criticized For Admitting Drug Traffickers Into The Paramilitary Peace Process Some 32,000 illegal paramilitary fighters have surrendered and their top leaders are in custody. But the Colombian government now finds itself on the defensive about the peace talks with the so-called paras, amid complaints that top drug traffickers infiltrated the paramilitaries to avoid extradition to U.S. courts. "It's a farce," said one longtime U.S. government investigator of drug trafficking in Colombia whose agency's regulations do not allow him to be further identified. "Some of these guys were never paramilitaries before." [continues 930 words]
It has been 25 years since we first learned of a disease that was killing a handful of white, gay men in a few of our nation's largest cities -- a disease that later became known as AIDS. But lulled by media images that portrayed AIDS mainly as a white, gay disease, we looked the other way: Those people weren't our people. AIDS was not our problem. It had not entered our house. We had our own problems to deal with, so we let those people deal with their problem. But that was a quarter-century ago, and a lot has changed. Now, in 2006, almost 40 million people worldwide have HIV, and 25 million are dead. And most of those who have died and are dying are black. That's not just because of the devastation the pandemic has wreaked upon Africa. [continues 621 words]
WASHINGTON - Federal drug agents arrested Mexican drug lord Francisco Javier Arellano-Felix, a leader of a major violent gang responsible for digging elaborate tunnels to smuggle drugs under the U.S. border, a Justice Department official said Wednesday. The federal law enforcement official added that Arellano-Felix, 37, was captured by Drug Enforcement Administration agents, aided by the U.S. Coast Guard, on Monday while he was deep sea fishing off the coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula. He is wanted in both the United States and Mexico for his role as a leader in the violent and sophisticated Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix gang, which includes seven brothers and four sisters from the Arellano family. [continues 126 words]
Some workers took part of their pay in crack cocaine, witnesses said at the outset of the trial of a North Florida labor contractor. JACKSONVILLE - The migrant workers were recruited to Ronald Evans Sr.'s labor camp from homeless shelters, soup kitchens and underpasses -- and took part of their wages in cocaine, a federal prosecutor told jurors at the start of the labor contractor's criminal trial. Some of the workers who toiled in the potato and cabbage fields took part of their pay in $10 foil packages of cocaine called "bells" that they got at a makeshift company store, with the price of the cocaine and other purchases deducted from their cash wages each week, according to details emerging in the trial. [continues 419 words]
Traffickers are setting up cocaine labs in Argentina, long merely a transit point for cocaine, and creating new addicts with 'paco,' a cheap, toxic byproduct with a short, intense high. 'Paco' boosts Argentine drug trade Matias Salas tried marijuana when he was 11. By age 17, he smoked pot every day, sniffed cocaine when he could get it and was a regular user of pills. Then, a new drug hit Argentina. "I have never tried anything so addictive in my life. I am no rookie, but this just hit me like a log. I couldn't stop," says Salas, now 20 and one of thousands of working-class youths in that country hooked on smoking paco. [continues 818 words]
I am African American. Last week, I sat at my breakfast table with The Miami Herald. I was sickened by the headline Bullet kills 9-year-old playing in yard. Tears welled in my eyes and streamed down my face. I hurt for this stranger, this family, this housing project with yet another innocent child being killed. I asked myself, What can I do? What can one senior citizen do about black men killing each other and innocent bystanders? I prayed and began to think about possible solutions. [continues 217 words]
Haiti's Ex-President Is Main Focus Of Investigation Of Bribes From Drug Traffickers, But Paper Trail Is Lacking Jean-Bertrand Aristide was a modern-day Moses to Haiti's poor masses, a former Catholic priest who rose to the presidency by promising to wash away the country's bloody and corrupt past. But since his ouster as president in 2004, U.S. authorities have been investigating detailed accounts alleging that Aristide and several top aides sought and took millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers in Haiti, The Miami Herald has learned. [continues 1885 words]
The area where the Lost City was built centuries ago now is home to one of the most lucrative and destructive businesses in the world: cocaine trafficking. And for a $10 fee, those who come to see the Lost City can take a detour to see the first stage of the dirty process involving gasoline and sulfuric acid, among other appetizing ingredients, that makes a simple, hard-edged leaf into a deadly and addictive powder. On my recent trip, three travelers accompanied by myself and a photographer, paid close attention to all the details, then asked questions of Adan Bedoya, a 62-year-old campesino from the Santa Marta mountain range, who showed us through the process step by step. The tourists then toyed with the ingredients and took some photos in the so-called "factory" for their parents. One of them asked Bedoya for some cocaine and was disappointed to find that Bedoya rarely has contact with "the actual stuff." [continues 69 words]
As Federal Agents Prepared to Arrest Six Corrections Officers In Tallahassee, One of the Suspects Pulled a Gun. The Ensuing Shootout Left Him and an Agent Dead TALLAHASSEE - The arrests of six federal prison guards were supposed to go down quietly, with a group of federal agents showing up unannounced at the detention facility early in the morning to take the men into custody. But something went badly wrong. Within minutes of the agents' arrival at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee on Wednesday morning, one of the six guards about to be arrested got a revolver. Shots were exchanged between the startled agents and the guard. [continues 726 words]
Tom Gallagher's admission that a 1979 extramarital affair led to his divorce forced the candidate for governor to leave the script of his family-focused campaign. TALLAHASSEE - Tom Gallagher, the Republican state chief financial officer running for governor on a platform of family values, admitted Monday that he had an extramarital affair that led to his 1979 divorce and said he used marijuana before he was elected to public office "many, many" years ago. Gallagher, 62, conducted an impromptu news conference with his wife, Laura, after The Tampa Tribune asked him about 26 pages excerpted from his 27-year-old divorce file, expunged from Miami-Dade court files years ago in a routine purging of dated records. [continues 755 words]
Scores Of Deaths Across The Country Have Been Blamed On Abuse Of Medical Patches Containing Fentanyl, A Synthetic Narcotic. ST. LOUIS - Justin Knox bit down on the bitter-tasting patch, instantly releasing three days' worth of a drug more powerful than morphine. He was dead before he got to the hospital. The 22-year-old construction worker and addict was another victim in an apparent surge in U.S. overdoses blamed on abuse of the fentanyl patch, a prescription-only product that is intended for cancer patients and others with chronic pain and is designed to dispense the medicine slowly through the skin. [continues 260 words]
AIDS Showed The Media At Their Best, Worst And Everywhere In Between Media's Flaws Resulted In Many Untold Stories Margaret Fischl kept her voice even and civil, but when she got off the phone with the reporter, she shook her head in furious exasperation. A box of syringes had been found in a parking lot, the reporter had told her breathlessly. Did that mean an epidemic of AIDS would lay waste to Miami in the coming months? And what if kids had played with syringes? Was an AIDS epidemic coming to South Florida's kindergartens? Fischl couldn't figure out what was more depressing -- the stupidity of the questions or their salaciousness. [continues 2170 words]
U.S. Authorities Have Offered Up To $5 Million For Information That Helps Capture A Reputed Leader Of The Gulf Cartel. The Mexico-Based Smuggling Operation Is One Of The World's Most Powerful Drug Organizations MEXICO CITY - The United States offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the capture of the man they say heads the feared Gulf Cartel, believed to smuggle tons of cocaine and marijuana north each year. U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza, in a statement released late Thursday, called Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez ``the linchpin of a network of drug dealers and murderers.'' [continues 383 words]
Man With Prescription for Pot Denied Permission by Bahamian Government to Take His Stash on a Trip to the Islands Sponsored by His Company Irvin Rosenfeld hesitated when his company rewarded him with a vacation this weekend to the Bahamas. Before accepting, the stockbroker from Lauderhill wanted to clear his medical prescription with the Bahamian government. But he never got the official OK because his medicine is illegal there. The drug he uses? Marijuana. "It's bad enough to be singled out for using cannabis," said Rosenfeld, 53, who lights up to relieve his rare and painful bone and muscle condition. He is one of only five people in the country who receive medicinal marijuana from the federal government to treat muscle and bone disorders such as multiple sclorosis and glaucoma. [continues 538 words]
So now we know how Martin Lee Anderson died. We can forget the original autopsy report filed by Charles Siebert, a doctor so inept that he wasn't technically a doctor (he had allowed his license to lapse) when he issued the report. A doctor so inept that he once described a person he autopsied as having "unremarkable" testes. The person was a woman, so if she had testes at all, it would seem quite remarkable, indeed. Siebert claimed that after being hit, manhandled and choked by guards Jan. 5 at a so-called boot camp in Panama City, the 14-year-old Anderson died of sickle cell trait, a genetic blood disorder carried by one in 12 Americans of African heritage. That finding has been roundly hooted by real doctors, who say it is unlikely in the extreme that the condition could lead to death. [continues 555 words]
The following are translations of future letters to the editor of El Universal, a newspaper in Mexico City. The date of publication: May 12, 2016. Dear Editor: Yesterday's massive immigration rights rally in the capital should be a wake-up call for all Mexicans. I could not believe my eyes: one million American illegals marching in the streets to protest that bill in Congress to secure our northern border. We are being overrun by these people and it's our own fault: We should never have legalized drug possession back in 2006. -- IGNACIO RAMIREZ, Veracruz [continues 496 words]
The following are translations of future letters to the editor of El Universal, a newspaper in Mexico City. The date of publication: May 12, 2016. Dear Editor: Yesterday's massive immigration rights rally in the capital should be a wake-up call for all Mexicans. I could not believe my eyes: one million American illegals marching in the streets to protest that bill in Congress to secure our northern border. We are being overrun by these people and it's our own fault: We should never have legalized drug possession back in 2006. -- IGNACIO RAMIREZ, Veracruz [continues 491 words]
The Covenant with Black America is not a fun read. Not unless you're the wonky type who likes to snuggle up with a good policy proposal. One would assume there aren't nearly enough wonks in the world to put a book like that within shouting distance of The New York Times bestseller list, much less at the top of it. Yet, The Covenant went to No. 1 on the paper's nonfiction paperback list on April 23. It is, according to its editor, Tavis Smiley, the first black book to achieve that distinction. [continues 606 words]
President Vicente Fox Said He Would Ask Mexico's Congress To Amend A Drug Decriminalization Bill. The Decision Was Praised By The White House, Which Had Voiced Serious Concerns. MEXICO CITY -- U.S. officials welcomed Mexican President Vicente Fox's decision not to sign a drug decriminalization bill that some had warned could result in "drug tourism" in this country and increased availability of narcotics in American border communities. Fox said Wednesday he was sending the bill back to Congress for changes, just one day after his office had said he would sign into law the measure, which would have dropped criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs. [continues 311 words]
State Lawmakers Have Passed Legislation That Will Give Thousands Of Ex-Felons a Better Shot at Regaining Their Civil Rights, Including The Right to Vote. TALLAHASSEE - In a rare show of support for disenfranchised felons, the Florida Legislature on Monday unanimously passed a bill requiring county jails to help thousands of inmates apply for their civil rights once they have paid for their crimes. The bill, now headed to Gov. Jeb Bush for approval, closes a little-known loophole in state law that has cost an estimated 50,000 felons since 1980 the chance to vote, serve on a jury, hold public office or qualify for various occupational licenses. [continues 473 words]
