'911' COPS ON WALL OF FAME           
(1 PP NYPD Memorial Wall in the First Floor Hall of Heroes)

By MURRAY WEISS and CHUCK BENNETT – Monday, April 28th, 2008 ‘The New York Post’

 Eight city cops who succumbed to 9/11 dust-related illnesses will be memorialized on the NYPD's "Wall of Heroes" for officers killed in the line of duty - a poignant nod to their kin, who spent years battling City Hall over how the deaths should be classified.

The decision by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to include the names of the fallen officers on the memorial at One Police Plaza will culminate May 7 in an emotional ceremony at which he and Mayor Bloomberg will preside.

 "We are happy about it, but it's been a long battle," said Joseph Zadroga, whose son, Detective James Zadroga, died in January 2006 from lung disease after spending about 450 hours at Ground Zero.

For years, sickened officers and their families sparred with Bloomberg over whether their illnesses were caused by their logging hundreds of hours at the smoking pile of the World Trade Center and at the Fresh Kills landfill.

There are still about 3,000 related claims by police officers or their families that have yet to be resolved, according to lawyers.

"Little by little, the layers of denial are peeling away," said lawyer David Worby, who represents 8,000 first responders and recovery workers sickened after days toiling at the trade center site. "The city is no longer denying that a high percentage of people who spent a significant period of time there are sick."

Mayor Bloomberg vehemently fought paying out death benefits to relatives of Ground Zero responders, claiming it will cost the city too much money. Kelly, like many officials, had remained largely on the sidelines, awaiting more medical evidence.

The ceremony shows how far the city has come, supporters say.

Kelly, referring to the ceremony to honor the eight on the wall of "Names of Those of Who Died in Performance of Duty," said in a statement:

"Each of these eight individuals . . . assisted in rescue and recovery efforts. It is only fitting that they be recognized in this fashion."

Policemen's Benevolent Association head Patrick Lynch praised Kelly for adding the names.

 "Had there been no attack, these officers would be alive today," Lynch said.

At the formal ceremony, police officers James Godbe, Thomas Brophy, Ronald Weintraub and Angelo Peluso and Detectives Zadroga, John Young, Kevin Hawkins and Robert Williamson will have their plaques unveiled.

Zadroga was the first to have his deadly illness "officially" linked to toxins inhaled at Ground Zero. His case prompted New York lawmakers to pass a bill awarding accidental-death benefits to relatives of afflicted Ground Zero responders. He and the others to be honored all died between 2004 and 2007 and had their deaths formally declared as having occurred in the line of duty.

 "This is obviously very important to me and my children and Bob's family," said Maureen Williamson, who lost her detective husband, Robert, in May after a bout with pancreatic cancer.

Monday, April 28th, 2008 ‘The New York Daily Sun’ Editorial:

Police in Jeopardy

One of the next steps in the case of Sean Bell will, it appears, be a decision by America on whether to bring a civil rights case against the police detectives the state of New York had just concluded were not guilty. The civil rights laws America would be using were brought onto the books to help defeat Jim Crow, when it was possible for a white man who killed a black man to be placed in the dock without actually being in jeopardy of losing his own life or limb. This is why it was not a violation of the constitutional prohibition on double jeopardy for such a killer to be tried a second time by the federal government on civil rights charges for the same criminal act. In the south of Jim Crow, there had not been jeopardy in the first instance.

 It is, however, going to be passing difficult for the federal government to conclude that the officers acquitted Friday of murdering Sean Bell were not in genuine jeopardy when they went before Judge Cooperman. A lot of things can be said about Judge Cooperman, but one thing that cannot be said about him is that he is a racist or that he was unprepared to find the defendants guilty if the evidence demanded it. The same can be said of the district attorney of Queens County, Richard Brown. He tried his level best to gain a guilty verdict on Detectives Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora, and Marc Cooper. So between a high quality judge and a determined prosecution, there is no doubt that the three officers were in genuine jeopardy before the law. Once an acquittal is brought in, the Constitution requires that it be the end of the criminal phase of this tragedy.

 It doesn't, however, mean the end of the story. There is no doubt going to be civil litigation for damages. There is going to be a determination made by the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, in respect of the careers of the three officers. There have already been extensive reviews of police procedures to make it less likely that an unarmed individual can be gunned down in a hail of bullets fired by police officers. And there is going to have to be a constant political effort in our city between the administration and the minority community. We have never felt that the demagogues speak for large numbers, but neither do we discount the danger of a growing cynicism. It is not a small thing that an innocent individual was gunned down by police officers on the streets of New York.

 But there is a obverse danger of which the city needs also to stay aware — namely that the police will lose their nerve and their aggressiveness. We have lived, during the mayoralties of Rudolph Giuliani and Mr. Bloomberg, in an era of plunging crime rates. Under Mr. Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly, crime has fled so thoroughly that the city is the safest large city in America. At a time of economic uncertainly and possible recession, confident policing will be at a premium. Absent that, all that we have built in the years since September 11, 2001, will be at risk. The mayor spoke well after the verdict when he said, "All of us have a responsibility to improve our neighborhoods and our City, and we can only do that by working together, respecting each other, and doing everything possible to prevent future tragedies and injustices."

At Trade Show, China’s Police Shop for the West’s Latest

By KEITH BRADSHER – Saturday, April 26th, 2008 ‘The New York Times Technology Section’ 

BEIJING — For the Chinese police agency boss who thought he had everything, the police equipment trade show here was a chance to scrutinize the latest offerings from manufacturers around the world for secretly copying computer hard drives, suppressing riots or collecting video surveillance of public streets 

China’s crackdown in Tibet after violent protests there has set off strong criticism from human rights groups and confrontations in several countries between police officers and demonstrators during the Olympic torch relay. But here in China, the world’s fastest-growing market for security and crime-control equipment, it is business as usual between Western multinationals and Chinese police agencies. 

At the recent China International Exhibition on Police Equipment here, sponsored by the Ministry of Public Security, DuPont had a large exhibit promoting Kevlar bulletproof fabric for riot police use. Motorola was selling police radio systems as well as wireless systems for transmitting vast quantities of video surveillance data.

 And with the slogan “dress to kill” on their black T-shirts, top executives from Magnum of Britain showed off their latest police boots. “Chinese police deserve the best — Magnum protects the protectors,” said Paul Brooks, the company’s president, in a speech to police officials.

 The most intriguing device offered at the show to senior Chinese security agency officials was the Image Masster RoadMasster, a powerful computer system that swiftly copies computer hard drives without leaving any trace and comes concealed in its own color-coordinated briefcase.

 Gonen Ravid, the chief executive of the device’s manufacturer, Intelligent Computer Solutions in Chatsworth, Calif., said that the company sells exactly the same equipment in the same briefcases to the Pentagon for use in Iraq, and to the Central Intelligence Agency and other Western intelligence agencies for use around the world.

 No company in China makes similar equipment, he said. “The U.S.,” he said, “is still leading with this.”

 The trade show coincided with increasing controversy in the United States over American exports of crime-control equipment to China. After the Tiananmen Square killings in 1989, Congress passed a law that remains in effect today: it bans “the export to the People’s Republic of China of any crime control or detection instruments or equipment.”

 The Commerce Department drafted regulations in the early 1990s to put that ban into effect. But those initial regulations — which officials have said clearly apply to products aimed exclusively at law enforcement agencies, like fingerprint kits — paid little attention to the rising computer industry and have not been updated.

 The department did an internal review last winter of the rules. It is now seeking public comment on how and whether it should update its regulations on exports of crime control and detection equipment to any country subject to restrictions.

 Asked about the abundant American gear shown at the police equipment trade show, Mario Mancuso, the under secretary of commerce for industry and security, replied with a one-sentence written statement: “Enforcing U.S. regulations on crime control equipment, including the Tiananmen Square Sanctions, is a top priority, and we continually review our regulations to ensure that they effectively support our national security and foreign policy.”

 Another Commerce Department official said that questions from The New York Times about American equipment exhibited at the trade show had prompted the department to begin a review of whether American laws might have been broken. The official insisted on anonymity, in keeping with a department policy of not commenting on work that might lead to law enforcement actions.

 The department has officials in Beijing and Hong Kong who look for violations of export control laws, but did not try to send anyone into the police equipment trade show. A reporter for The New York Times was able to enter the show by filling out a routine questionnaire at the entrance about his interest in the security industry, identifying himself in English on the form as a correspondent for the newspaper and providing a copy of his business card.

 The trade show was held from April 16 to 19 at a small compound near the center of Beijing; the compound is reserved for commercial events with top-level government backing.

 At least two Hong Kong companies at the show set up booths to market fingerprint identification kits that were prominently marked as having been made in the United States by American companies.

 Many other products at the trade show were also from the United States, but their manufacturers said that they were complying with American laws.

 The extensive DuPont exhibit showed black Kevlar gloves with the word “police” in English and in Chinese characters, along with a bulletproof vest and lots of photos of riot police officers.

 DuPont said in an e-mail reply to questions that it complies with all American export control laws and that it sells Kevlar only to other companies that turn it into gloves and other products for the police market.

 “The police-oriented protective apparel on display at that trade show were not products designed, developed, produced, manufactured, assembled, repaired or tested by DuPont,” the company said. Moreover, the company added later, “DuPont is not aware of any equipment composed of Kevlar fibers being used by Chinese police in Tibet.”

 Motorola said in an e-mail reply to questions that it also had complied with the Tiananmen sanctions. The only Motorola products covered by the sanctions are fingerprint identification kits and Motorola does not sell these to China; none of the American-made fingerprint identification kits at the trade show were from Motorola.

 Motorola’s police radio and video surveillance communications equipment are not on the Commerce Department’s current list of products that qualify as crime control or crime detection gear, the company noted.

 Police cars are exempt from American restrictions, and nearly a dozen automakers had exhibits at the trade show.

 Mr. Ravid of Intelligent Computer Solutions said that the RoadMasster kits for copying computer hard drives had their roots in gear that his company developed in the 1990s. The Defense Department asked him to develop computers for forensic use in the late 1990s, and demand from American government agencies soared after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

 Intelligent Computer Solutions soon began receiving requests from foreign governments. The company provided the Commerce Department with a detailed product sheet and was promptly issued a broad export license that included sales to China, Mr. Ravid said.

 For sales to China, Intelligent Computer Solutions works through a distributor that specializes in marketing security equipment, Ryan Security Technologies Ltd. (Hong Kong), a partnership whose president, Eric Ryan, is based in Santa Barbara, Calif. Mr. Ryan said in a telephone interview that he and the companies he controls obey United States export laws.

 The RoadMasster equipment being marketed to China by Ryan has been enhanced. The company has added a wide variety of software from various suppliers in the United States and China, and has tailored the computer programs to the methods that Chinese security agencies use to keep track of cases, said Ke An, a Chinese engineer for Ryan Security who has done much of the work on the device and was at the company’s exhibit at the police equipment trade show.

 The RoadMasster being sold in China has software that allows it to break computers’ encryption, Mr. Ke said. Other software added to the equipment now allows the device to search an 80-gigabyte computer hard drive in a few seconds for any mention of certain keywords of interest to the authorities.

 The highly portable design of the RoadMasster makes it ideal for police officers who need to enter a home or office surreptitiously, Mr. Ke said. “You have to sort of steal stuff,” he said, “to make sure you’re on the right track.”

 Chinese security agencies have been enthusiastically buying the devices and many more orders are in the pipeline, Mr. Ke added.

 A partner in Ryan’s Hong Kong office and the chief operating officer of its China business, Liu Qing, who was also at the trade show, discouraged Mr. Ke from speaking further to a reporter, saying, “All of the companies here have been told by the Ministry of Public Security not to say much to anyone who is not a security professional.”

Cops union President bars Daily News from press talk

Unnamed Author(s) – Saturday, April 26th, 2008 ‘The New York Daily News’

Detectives Endowment Association President Michael Palladino called a press conference yesterday to trumpet the acquittal of the Sean Bell case cops - but banned Daily News reporters and photographers.

 Asked by other media outlets why The News was excluded, Palladino claimed the paper had an "agenda" and mentioned its exclusive interview on Thursday with Bell's parents.

The ban was a hollow gesture. The press conference was carried live on several TV channels.

Mexican security, railway damage slow flow of illegal immigrants from Central America to U.S.

By Olga R. Rodriguez (The Associated Press) – Sunday, April 20th, 2008, 1:15 AM EDT

 ARRIAGA, Chiapas — For thousands of illegal immigrants from Central America, the long journey to the U.S. has started here, on the groaning back of a freight train they call "The Beast."

These days, however, fewer of them are finding their trips to be a success.

 Central Americans without documents face increased security within Mexico, including checks on the train for stowaways. It's also harder for them to head north once they cross into Mexico because of hurricane damage to the tracks.

 The result: The number of non-Mexican immigrants stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol has dropped almost 60 percent from 2005. About 68,000 non-Mexican immigrants — mostly Central Americans — were detained last year, compared with 165,000 in 2005. Non-Mexicans make up about 10 percent of the immigrants detained by officers.

Mexico is seeing fewer illegal immigrants — 120,000 were arrested last year, a 50 percent drop from 2005, when Hurricane Stan hit and destroyed the railroad, according to the National Immigration Institute. Since President Felipe Calderón took office two years ago, Mexico has added soldiers and federal police on its border with Guatemala and more checkpoints in the south.

Despite its efforts to secure its southern border, Mexico does not try to stop its citizens from crossing north illegally into the U.S., beyond pursuing drug and people smugglers.

Final Patrol - Pennsylvania Trooper

We have just been notified of the untimely death of Pennsylvania Trooper Kenton E. Iwaniec, who died on March 27, 2008, following a crash the previous night in Chester County.  Trooper Iwaniec died just three months after graduating from the State Police Academy on December 21, 2007.  He served with Troop J in the patrol unit at the Avondale Station in Chester County.
 
Pennsylvania State Police said Iwaniec, a Lancaster native, had just completed an evening shift and was driving home in his personal vehicle when another vehicle crossed the center line of Rt. 41 in London Grove Township and crashed into his vehicle.  Trooper Iwaniec was wearing a seat belt.  He was transported by helicopter to Christiana Hospital where he died early the next day, State Police said.  No one else was injured in the crash.
 
Please keep Trooper Iwaniec’s family in your thoughts and prayers.
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STEVE SLEURS
ASSOCIATION OF FORMER STATE TROOPERS
STATE SECRETARY CLERK
CAPITAL DISTRICT CHAPTER TREASURER

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