Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske Named
New Drug Czar
President Obama has named Seattle Police
Chief Gil Kerlikowske to head the Office of National Drug Control
Policy (ONDCP), colloquially known as the drug czar's office,
a White House official confirmed Thursday. It is not clear when
the official announcement will be made.
It is also not clear whether ONDCP will
retain its position as a cabinet-level entity, which it has been
under recent administrations. That, too, will be cleared up when
the official announcement is made, the official said. The drug
czar possibly being demoted could be a good thing or a bad thing,
depending on his proclivities.
How Kerlikowske will behave as drug czar
is unclear. His has not been a loud voice on drug policy, but
he has been police chief in a city, Seattle, that has embraced
lowest-priority policing for adult marijuana offenses and needle
exchange programs, and he has gone with the flow in regards to
those issues.
Prior to being named Seattle police chief
in 2000, Kerlikowske served as deputy director in the Justice
Department, where he oversaw the Community Oriented Policing
Services (COPS) grant program. He also spent four years as Buffalo's
police commissioner. The military veteran has a total of 36 years
in law enforcement, where he has earned a reputation as a progressive.
While Kerlikowske has a national profile
in law enforcement circles, it is not because of drug policy.
His interests have been around gun policy, immigration, and electronic
data mining of private records, which he has criticized as highly
intrusive and not very useful.
Drug reformers had advocated for someone
with a public health -- not a law enforcement -- background to
head ONDCP. But a progressive law enforcement official who has
a record of tolerating drug reform and harm reduction efforts
may make for a decent drug czar from the reform perspective.
"While we're disappointed that President
Obama seems poised to nominate a police chief instead of a major
public health advocate as drug czar, we're cautiously optimistic
that Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske will support Obama's
drug policy reform agenda," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive
director of the Drug
Policy Alliance. "What gives us hope is the fact that
Seattle has been at the cutting edge of harm reduction and other
drug policy reform developments in the United States over the
last decade," he said.
American Violet
Opens nationwide April 17, 2009
Based on real events and set in a small
Texas town in the midst of the 2000 Bush/Gore Presidential election,
American Violet tells the astonishing story of Dee Roberts,
a 24 year old African-American single mother of four who is wrongfully
swept up in a drug raid. Despite the urgings of her mother, and
with her freedom and the custody of her children at stake, she
chooses to fight the powerful district attorney and the unyielding
criminal justice system he represents.
The film is based on the true story of
Regina Kelly, who lived in Hearne, TX, the town where she was
falsely accused of felony drug-trafficking charges based on the
uncorroborated testimony of a single informant. Kelly successfully
fought the charges with the help of the ACLU. Her case resulted
in changes to Texas law.
Director: Tim Disney; Writer: Bill Haney.
Cast: Alfre Woodard, Michael O'Keefe, Tim Blake Nelson, Will
Patton, Charles S. Dutton, Xzibit, Nicole Beharie
In a little-noticed remark during a late
February news conference, Obama Attorney General Eric Holder
said that the Justice Department will no longer raid medical
marijuana dispensaries established under state laws but technically
prohibited by the federal government.
The DEA continued to carry out such raids
after Obama's inauguration, despite an Obama campaign promise
to cease the practice. Holder said it wouldn't be the Administration's
policy going forward.
"No, it won't be Obama policy",
Holder stated. "What the president said during the campaign,
you'll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we'll
be doing in law enforcement. He was my boss during the campaign.
He is formally and technically and by law my boss now. What he
said during the campaign is now American policy."
Source: Huffington Post (US)
Cops Don't Like Getting TASERed
Three members of the Metro Las Vegas Police
Department are suing Taser International for injuries suffered
during "training exercises" with the stun devices in
2003. Officer Lisa Peterson was permanently injured when she
fell face first onto the floor after receiving a Taser jolt during
a training seminar. She and two other members of the police force
all claim in the suit that Taser failed to "adequately warn
the police department of the potential for injury and minimized
the risks of being shocked, which officers had been assured was
not only safe but advisable."
The CIA obstructed inquiries into its role
in the shooting down of an aircraft carrying a family of Americans
in Peru in 2001, the agency's inspector general has concluded.
The report said a CIA-backed program in Peru targeting drug runners
was so poorly run that many suspect aircraft were shot down by
Peruvian air force jets without proper checks being made first.
A small plane carrying Christian missionaries
was shot down by a Peruvian jet on April 20, 2001, after it was
tracked by a CIA surveillance plane that suspected it was carrying
drugs. Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter, Charity, were
killed, while their pilot, Kevin Donaldson, was badly injured.
Peruvians and Americans involved in the
program told investigators that following the proper identification
procedures could have given suspect aircraft time to escape.
It was also sometimes simply easier to shoot down the aircraft
than to force it down, they said.
"The result was that in many cases,
suspect aircraft were shot down within two to three minutes of
being sighted by Peruvian warplanes - without being properly
identified, without being given the required warnings to land,"
the report said.
Source: Reuters (US)
Feds Investigate Sheriff Joe
The self-proclaimed "Toughest Sheriff
in America" may have met his match. In February, members
of the House Judiciary Committee asked Attorney General Eric
Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to investigate
allegations of misconduct and abuse by Maricopa County (AZ) Sheriff
Joe Arpaio.
For years Arpaio has made a PR spectacle
of himself: running an unconstitutionally deplorable jail system,
letting inmates die under tortuous conditions, violating the
civil rights and liberties of those under his control, especially
minorities, and costing Maricopa County untold millions in legal
settlements. With a fraction of their inmate populations, Arpaio's
department has had 50 times as many lawsuits as the New York,
Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston jail systems combined.
His most recent embarrassment is the reality
show, Smile: You're Under Arrest, where he tricks and
humiliates those with outstanding warrants and parole violations
on nationwide TV.
Source: AlterNet (US)
Ex-cops Sentenced in Kathryn Johnston
Murder
Three former Atlanta police officers who
each pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge in connection
with the death of an elderly woman during a botched drug raid
were sentenced in February to federal prison terms.
Jason R. Smith, Gregg Junnier and Arthur
Tesler received sentences ranging from five years to 10. Kathryn
Johnston, 92, was killed by police gunfire during the 2006 raid
in Atlanta, GA. Police used a "no-knock" warrant to
enter Johnston's house to look for drugs. But prosecutors said
officers found none and tried to cover up the mistake by planting
baggies of marijuana.
Source: MSNBC (US)
Aghhhh! Another Report!
This was going to be just another newsy
mini-article about the latest report from The Pew Center of the
States, 1
In 31: The Long Reach Of American Corrections (pdf), showing
that one in 31 Americans are now under the control of the justice
system (in jail or prison; on probation or parole). Another world
record moment for the World's Leading Jailer.
I'm the one who reviews and links studies
and reports at november.org. I have to wonder how many studies
showing what an utter disaster the war on drugs is, how much
evidence our nation's leaders need before they change bad laws?
We have collected links to hundreds of pertinent studies,
reports and other data from the last dozen years. If I printed
them all, they would overflow a prison cell.
As social scientists statistically demonstrate
time and again, the drug war applied is racist, ineffective,
costly, counter-productive, inhuman -- but ideology prevails,
the war drags on, and the prisoners endure another year. The
facts are in: There is no justice in the war on drugs.
In
the News