Ex-New Orleans Cops Indicted In Taped Beating

Felony Charges Could Bring Years in Prison

Two former New Orleans police officers who were caught on videotape beating a retired teacher were indicted on felony charges that could send them to prison for years.

The officers -- Robert Evangelist and Lance Schilling -- were fired after the Oct. 8 beating of Robert Davis, 64, was captured on video by an Associated Press Television News crew covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Evangelist, 36, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of false imprisonment while armed with a dangerous weapon and second-degree battery. Schilling, 29, could spend five years behind bars if convicted of second-degree battery.

"I hope this will result in something good for our city," said Davis, who spent more than an hour Wednesday testifying about the beating, which left him lying on the street, hands cuffed and blood flowing from his head and face.

A third officer, Stewart Smith, 50, was charged with simple battery. If convicted, he faces up to 6 months in jail and a $500 fine. Smith was suspended for 120 days but remains on the force.

Evangelist and Schilling were charged with battery against Davis, and Smith was charged with battery against a reporter.

A telephone call Wednesday to an attorney representing Evangelist, Schilling and Smith for comment was not returned.

Police Superintendent Warren Riley said in a statement late Wednesday that Smith would be reassigned to desk duty pending the outcome of his trial.

After the grand jury appearance, Davis told reporters that he still has headaches and back problems. He had to interrupt his testimony to take medicine.

The retired elementary school teacher said he had returned to the storm-struck city to check on his property and was looking for a place to buy cigarettes in the French Quarter when police grabbed him.

The videotape shows an officer hitting Davis at least four times on the head. Davis twisted and flailed as he was dragged to the ground. One officer kneed Davis and punched him twice.

Smith had ordered APTN producer Rich Matthews and the cameraman to stop recording. When Matthews held up his credentials, the officer grabbed him, jabbed him in the stomach and delivered a profanity-laced tirade.

The video also shows two FBI agents joining the police in subduing Davis. Their role is being investigated by federal officials.

A federal civil rights investigation also was launched.

"Without this videotape, I'm sure this case would be swept under the rug," said Davis' attorney, Joseph Bruno.

District Attorney Eddie Jordan agreed the videotape was important.

"Any time you have strong evidence, and I consider a videotape strong evidence, it helps your case," he said.

When asked if the false imprisonment charge meant that Davis should not have been arrested, Jordan said, "I think that's a fair inference."

Davis has pleaded not guilty to municipal charges of public intoxication, resisting arrest, battery on a police officer and public intimidation. His lawyer said this week he expects the charges will be dropped.

Thursday, March 30, 2006; Posted: 3:58 a.m. EST (08:58 GMT)
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/03/30/taped.beating.ap/index.html

Juvenile Justice

The tragic death of a youth in a boot camp last month once again brings a grim spotlight on the inner workings of the Department of Juvenile Justice.

Juvenile Justice has moved the furthest in the privatization journey and made the least progress. The agency, like most social service agencies in the state, has been organized, reorganized, restructured, revamped and reengineered at every change in the state administration and at every media crisis.

Only the Department of Children and Families (DCF), which was once the home of Juvenile Justice when DCF was Health and Rehabilitation Services (HRS), has experienced more turmoil in the name of progress.

In the present era of more justice and less service, even the mission statement of Juvenile Justice proclaims that children are not their first priority: "Protect the public by reducing juvenile crime and delinquency in Florida."

Yes, the Department of Juvenile Justice does not exist to help the youth of Florida. By its own mission statement, it exists to protect the public. This is significant. If your first priority is not your clients, then the care and well-being of your clients takes a backseat to the public interest.

Recent headlines reveal that the health care and security of youths in residential care is in jeopardy. A youth dies after a beating; another dies complaining of stomach pains; a pregnant girl is delayed medical treatment until she gives birth; a youth is attacked by a fellow client who has been assigned to bathe him.

These types of incidents will continue to occur in part because they are not the first priority of the department.

The public safety was never in danger, so the department is obviously doing just what they say they are suppose to do. If children die or are abused while in the custody of the department, it is tragic, but predictable.

Removing Juvenile Justice from the old Department of HRS and creating a separate department was suppose to give the new department more autonomy, flexibility and accountability. It did, but it also changed from a service provider to a punishment provider.

Approximately 90 percent of all Juvenile Justice services are privatized. In the area of "Residential Corrections" there are 157 residential programs throughout the state, and 87 percent of them are under private contract. Twenty-three programs remain under state control and department administrators stress that these programs are needed so that the state can send in trained staff when the private programs get into trouble.

Over 70 percent of the youth in residential programs are being treated for mental health issues, and almost 50 percent have substance abuse needs. However, the treatment programs in the private facilities are a matter of concern.

The legislative oversight group, the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA), recommended that the Department strengthen its program monitoring, provide more frequent monitoring and provide for withholding payments for providers who do not comply with their contracts. From 30 percent to 40 percent of the special needs and mental health programs provided by private contractors received a quality assurance rating of minimal or failed.

One of the significant factors in juvenile justice referrals is that youth are confined, not for a specified number of weeks or months, but until they satisfactorily complete their treatment program. If a program changes or closes, or if a youth is transferred to another program, the youth must start over.

With almost 90 percent of the programs in private provider hands, closings and transfers are not uncommon. Of the 152 residential programs in the Department's 2005 Program Accountability Report, 27 have closed in the past two years.

With costs for completion of these programs ranging from $5,000 to $165,000, why would the citizens of Florida want to support failing and ineffective programs? The number of closings alone is problematic. Not only are we putting all of the youth in these programs at risk, we are extending their treatment at significant cost and duplication of effort.

The providers claim that they cannot provide effective service because they cannot retain good staff. They cannot retain good staff because they pay low wages.

A 2005 Gainesville Sun article listed the average pay for employees in the private facilities as $8.36 per hour, or less than $18,000 per year. State employee salaries are significantly higher, plus their benefit packages are usually much better. Yet on average, the privatized programs cost more than the state operated programs.

Treating problem youth is not an easy job. It takes very dedicated staff with specific skills and training. Military personnel and corrections personnel also have difficult jobs that require specific skills, however, the jobs are not interchangeable. Privatizing social services does not save money, increase services or save lives.

Perhaps if the Department of Juvenile Justice changed its mission to "protecting youth" instead of "protecting the public," we would all benefit and fewer children would die.

Sue Tennant is a former state human resources manager and author of the book "The Fleecing of Florida, Privatization in the Shadows of the Sunshine State." She lives in Gainesville.

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006203260325&source=email

Self vs. Savior -- Conversation with a Humanist

My e-mail address is public so, as you can imagine, I get plenty. Mostly just advertisements for Mexican banks, Canadian drugs, or items of an extremely personal nature. Extremely personal. Between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. I will receive around 100 messages. The first 30 minutes of my weekday morning is spent clicking through e-mails and deleting 90% of them without even looking past the subject line. And, because of the nature of my work -- and the fact that I am somewhat opinionated -- I get my share of detractors.

A couple of weeks ago I received an e-mail from a young college student named Clark who was upset with me for several reasons. He started out by saying that our country's founding fathers were not Christians, but rather deists. When I pointed out to him that deism says that God is not active in the affairs of men and that America's founding fathers -- even Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin -- believed in divine providence and prayer, he changed the subject. His other problem with me was the fact that I am against same-sex marriage. He said it was people like me who were fostering hatred towards homosexuals. Said that the American Family Association was made up of a bunch of fools. He later made some other less-than-positive comments, but that was the essence of it.

I told Clark I was a Christian and that I believe in the Holy Bible as the Word of God, and that is where I got my value system. I cited the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. He told me my "moral compass" was "broken." I asked him what he believes in. He told me he is a "humanist" and believes in the "innate" goodness of man. I told Clark that was great, but I wanted to know what that meant exactly. How does a humanist define "good," for instance? Clark didn't really have an answer.

A humanist is someone who basically believes that man is god. Not in a New Age spiritual sense, but rather the humanist does not believe God exists, and therefore he sees life though a purely secular prism. Any form of religion, to the humanist, is man-invented superstition. It is unprovable. And in America, humanists find Christianity particularly bothersome.

Humanism teaches that there is no such thing as moral absolutes. While the Christian and the Jew would say the Ten Commandments are given to mankind by Almighty God as rules by which we should conduct ourselves, humanists do not believe there is such a "rule book" for life. Whereas the Christian believes that to violate a commandment is to sin against God (which then requires repentance and forgiveness), there is no such concept of "sin" to the humanist.

While one might not agree with the Christian view of morality (and even Christians sometimes disagree on context and definitions), at least we have something to point to (the Bible) and a logical reason why it then affects our thinking and our behavior so strongly. However, as I found out with Clark, while a humanist finds fault with Christianity, there is nothing for him to fall back on as a superior moral value system. They have no moral value system other than the one each man makes up for himself which, in the end, comes down to being a matter of personal opinion. And personal opinions, like noses, are something we all have.

To the Christian, morality is objective truth given to us by God. To the humanist, morality is subjective opinion given to them by ... well ... themselves.

What I found with Clark, as I have with other humanists, atheists and agnostics, is that they revel in pointing out hypocrisy among Christians. And while hypocrisy is a bad thing, it does not negate the truth of the Christian message. It merely means that Christians are exactly what the Bible teaches all human beings are -- sinful creatures in need of help from God. We need to be saved from our sin that separates us from God (salvation) and we need the power of God to live the life He desires us to live.

Clark and I went several rounds back and forth with each other. Each time I asked him for some resource outside himself to prove the validity of his beliefs, he would change the subject, usually with another criticism of Christians.

I challenged Clark that if the Christian value system is such a bad one, name a better one. He has not done that to date. But if you think about it, when Clark tells me my moral compass is broken, isn't he passing judgment on me? And that is precisely why he wrote me in the first place, telling me (with respect to homosexual marriage) I had no right to judge other people. Clark, you are confusing me, man.

Tim Wildmon
March 1, 2006
(AgapePress)

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/3/12006gst.asp

The Joy of Being Blameless

The contrast could not have been more stark, nor the message more clear. On the day that a court-martial imposed justice on a 24-year-old Army sergeant for tormenting detainees at Abu Ghraib with his dog, President Bush said once again that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose benighted policies and managerial incompetence led to the prisoner abuse scandal, was doing a "fine job" and should stay at his post.

We've seen this sorry pattern for nearly two years now, since the Abu Ghraib horrors first shocked the world: President Bush has clung to the fiction that the abuse of prisoners was just the work of a few rotten apples, despite report after report after report demonstrating that it was organized and systematic, and flowed from policies written by top officials in his administration.

Just this week, Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall provided a bloodcurdling account in the Times of how a Special Operations unit converted an Iraqi military base into a torture chamber, even using prisoners as paintball targets, in its frenzy to counter a widely predicted insurgency for which Mr. Rumsfeld had refused to prepare. In early 2004, an 18-year-old man suspected of selling cars to members of a terrorist network was arrested and beaten repeatedly. Another man said he had been forced to strip, punched in the spine until he fainted, put in front of an air-conditioner while cold water was poured on him and kicked in the stomach until he vomited. His crime? His father had worked for Saddam Hussein.

These accounts are tragically familiar. The names and dates change, but the basic pattern is the same, including the fact that this bestiality produced little or no useful intelligence. The Bush administration decided to go outside the law to deal with prisoners, and soldiers carried out that policy. Those who committed these atrocities deserve the punishment they are getting, but virtually all high-ranking soldiers have escaped unscathed. And not a single policy maker has been called to account.

Col. Thomas Pappas, the former intelligence chief at Abu Ghraib, testified at the dog handler's trial that the use of dogs had grown out of conversations he had had with military jailers from Guantánamo Bay led by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had been sent to Iraq to instruct soldiers there in the interrogation techniques refined at Gitmo under Mr. Rumsfeld's torture-is-legal policy. Colonel Pappas said General Miller had explained how to use the "Arab fear of dogs" to set up interrogations.

What of General Miller? He invoked his right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying, and Time magazine reported this week that he was exonerated by an Army whitewash. Apparently he was not responsible for the actions of soldiers operating under rules he put in place.

About the only high-ranking officer whose career has suffered over Abu Ghraib is Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was the commander in Iraq at the time. General Sanchez should certainly take responsibility, but he was also a victim of administration blunders.

General Sanchez was vaulted inappropriately from head of the First Armored Division to overall commander because Mr. Bush declared "mission accomplished": the war's over. He was then denied the staff, soldiers and equipment he needed to deal with the insurgency that quickly broke out and produced thousands of prisoners.

Mr. Bush has refused to hold himself or any of his top political appointees accountable for those catastrophic errors. Indeed, he has promoted many of them. And this is not an isolated problem. It's just one example, among many, of how this president's men run no risk of being blamed for anything that happens, not matter how egregious.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/opinion/23thu1.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

Get On The Floor, Get On The Floor, NOW!

Death Raises Concern At Police Tactics

Some say police units increasingly resemble military teams

The recent killing of an unarmed Virginia doctor has raised concerns about what some say is an explosion in the use of military-style police Swat teams in the United States.

Armed with assault rifles, stun grenades - even armoured personnel carriers - units once used only in highly volatile situations are increasingly being deployed on more routine police missions.

Dr Salvatore Culosi Jr had come out of his townhouse to meet an undercover policeman when he was shot through the chest by a Special Weapons and Tactics force.

It was about 2135 on a chilly January evening. The 37-year-old optometrist was unarmed, he had no history of violence and displayed no threatening behaviour.

But he had been under investigation for illegal gambling and in line with a local police policy on "organised crime" raids, the heavily armed team was there to serve a search warrant.

Dr Salvatore Culosi was unarmed when he was accidentally shot.

As officers approached with their weapons drawn, tragedy struck. A handgun was accidentally discharged, fatally wounding Dr Culosi.

Two months on, investigations into the incident are still continuing, a delay which Dr Culosi's family says is compounding the "horror and burden of it all".

Salvatore Culosi Sr, the dead man's father, told the BBC: "I never knew him to carry so much as a pocket knife so it bewilders me how a detective could spend three months investigating my son and not know he is a pussy cat.

"If anything comes out of this it must be that another family does not experience this pain and anguish for absolutely no reason.

"Policy needs to change so these kinds of accidents never occur again."

'Excessive force'

Professor Peter Kraska, an expert on police militarisation from Eastern Kentucky University, says that in the 1980s there were about 3,000 Swat team deployments annually across the US, but says now there are at least 40,000 per year.

What we find is that when Swat teams go out, shootings go down

John Gnagey
National Tactical Officers Association

"I have no problem with using these paramilitary style squads to go after known violent, armed criminals, but it is an extreme tactic to use against other sorts of suspects," he said.

Dr Kraska believes there has been an explosion of units in smaller towns and cities, where training and operational standards may not be as high as large cities - a growth he attributes to "the hysteria" of the country's war on drugs.

"I get several calls a month from people asking about local incidents - wrong address raids, excessive use of force, wrongful shootings - this stuff is happening all the time," he adds.

Every wrongful death of a civilian, or criminal killing of a police officer, fuels the complex and emotive argument over the way the United States is policed.

Those who reject criticism of the use of Swat teams argue that the presence of the units actually prevents violence through the credible threat of overwhelming force.

John Gnagey, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, told the BBC: "What we find is that when Swat teams go out, shootings go down.

"We don't see it as escalating anything. We see it as reducing violence."

The NTOA rejects Dr Kraska's figures and says the actual number of deployments is far lower, but says there is a need for national training standards.

An NTOA study of 759 Swat team deployments across the US, found half were for warrant service and a third for incidents where suspects had barricaded themselves in a building - 50 were for hostage situations.

When criminology professor David Klinger looked at 12 years of data on Swat teams in 1998, he also found the most common reason for calling out teams was serving warrants, but that the units used deadly force during warrant service only 0.4% of the time.

Recruitment video

Last year the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) commissioned music video director JC Barros to make them a 10-minute film - To Protect and Serve - that would "get young men and women excited" about a career with the force.

The problem is that when you talk about the war on this and the war on that, and police officers see themselves as soldiers, then the civilian becomes the enemy

Dr Peter Kraska
Eastern Kentucky University

More action film than recruitment video, it follows two LAPD officers who - in one day - capture a robbery suspect, are first on the scene when a gun-toting man takes a woman hostage, mediate a fight, and help to find a young kidnap victim.

Along the way they are supported by colleagues from bike patrol, K-9 dog teams, air support and, of course, the Swat team.

But Dr Kraska sees such initiatives as reflecting a changing culture of police work.

"These elite units are highly culturally appealing to certain sections of the police community. They like it, they enjoy it," he says.

"The chance to strap on a vest, grab a semi-automatic weapon and go out on a mission is for some people an exciting reason to join - even if policing as a profession can - and should - be boring for much of the time.

"The problem is that when you talk about the war on this and the war on that, and police officers see themselves as soldiers, then the civilian becomes the enemy."

Matthew Davis
BBC News, Washington
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4803570.stm

Court-stripping

The President and the Courts

Since the Republican majority has decided to allow President Bush to usurp Congress's role in matters of national security, the battle to save the constitutional balance of powers moves to the judiciary. A critical test of judicial independence will come this month, when the Supreme Court hears arguments in a case that has become a focus of Mr. Bush's imperial vision of the presidency.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni national accused of having been a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, has been detained since 2002 in Guantánamo Bay. He filed suit to challenge the legitimacy of the military commission that upheld his designation as an "unlawful enemy combatant" — a term Mr. Bush invented after 9/11 to deny the protections of the Geneva Conventions, international statutes or United States law to certain prisoners.

Mr. Hamdan argued, rightly, that the commissions are not legitimate because prisoners are routinely barred from seeing evidence, much less confronting their accusers or having access to real legal representation. But his case has now become a much larger battle over the principle of habeas corpus, which is embedded in the Constitution and says that a prisoner cannot be denied the right to challenge his detention. Mr. Bush's decision after 9/11 that he had the power to put prisoners beyond the reach of the law at his choosing was the first attempt to suspend habeas corpus on American territory since the Civil War.

The Supreme Court two years ago emphatically rejected the president's claim that its jurisdiction did not extend to Guantánamo. Seeking to reverse that ruling, the White House in December helped push through a special amendment as part of the deal that also saw Mr. Bush sign a watered-down ban on torture of military detainees. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat, stripped Guantánamo detainees of the normal rights of judicial review. It also designated a single appellate court to conduct a limited review of decisions by the military commissions, and left "enemy combatants" held without a trial in a seemingly inescapable legal black hole.

As soon as Mr. Bush signed this law, he declared that the administration was going to apply it to all pending cases, about 160 or so, and the solicitor general told the Supreme Court it no longer had a right to hear Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. This is court-stripping — the attempt by another branch of government to prevent the court from deciding a particular issue. The White House tried to justify this outrageous tampering with the judiciary by ignoring the new law's actual language and legislative history to argue that the new legislation took away the power of the courts to hear not just future cases but also cases already filed and accepted for review. The Supreme Court responded by adding the jurisdictional objection to the list of issues it will consider when the case is heard on March 28.

At a minimum, we hope the court will rule that Congress and the president may not deny the justices the power to review pending cases. But it should also reject the defective military commissions, as well as the idea of denying access to the courts for future valid claims brought by Guantánamo detainees, including claims of torture.

If Congress wants to take the extreme step of suspending the Supreme Court's jurisdiction over habeas corpus, especially pending appeals, it must say so in unmistakable terms, which it has not done. Both the text and the legislative history of the Graham-Levin amendment demonstrate an intention to avoid touching pending cases. Moreover, the Constitution itself requires an "invasion" or a "rebellion" as a prerequisite for suspension of habeas corpus. It's hardly likely that the founding fathers intended to give Congress the right to eliminate judicial review during an ongoing international struggle against terrorism that may well go on for generations.

The retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor observed in a recent speech that the framers created three separate and equal branches of government because they knew that preserving liberty requires that no single branch or person can amass unchecked power. According to NPR's Nina Totenberg, who heard the speech, Justice O'Connor cited Republican court-stripping efforts as an example of dangerous overreaching. "It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship," Justice O'Connor said, "but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."

The president seems to forget that and Congress clearly will not remind him. The nation cannot afford for the Supreme Court to forget as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/opinion/20mon1.html?_r=1&th=&oref=login&emc=th&pagewanted=print

Juvenile Boot Camp Murderers

Expert: Beating Is What Killed Boy

The mother of a 14-year-old boy who was beaten and kicked in a Panama City juvenile boot camp said Tuesday she wants justice now that a second autopsy showed that he did not die from a blood disorder as a medical examiner initially ruled.

A noted pathologist who observed Monday's 12-hour autopsy on behalf of the family said it was clear that Martin Lee Anderson did not die from sickle cell trait, as the medical examiner in Bay County had determined, or any other natural causes.

Prosecutors confirmed that assertion by Dr. Michael Baden, but declined to comment further on the case except to say it will be "months" before the investigation is complete.

"My opinion is that he died because of what you see in the videotape," said Baden, referring to a surveillance video showing the guards kicking and punching Anderson's limp body shortly after he arrived at the Bay County Sheriff's Office boot camp Jan. 5. He died at a hospital early the next day.

Anderson's mother, Gina Jones, said she wants to see action now.

"I'm just glad the truth is out," she said. "But I already knew what the truth was. Now the truth is out, and I want justice. I want the guards and the nurse to be arrested."

His father, Robert Anderson, said the new findings gave him some solace.

"I feel at ease," he said. "Maybe my son can get his rest now and get some justice."

The body was returned to Panama City from Tampa late Friday and Anderson was reburied following a brief ceremony attended by dozens friends and family members, Sen. Tony Hill, D-Jacksonville, and Florida NAACP State Conference President Adori Obi Nweze.

Hill said that the Florida Conference of Black State Legislators is scheduled to meet with Gov. Jeb Bush next week and that the Anderson case will be at the top of their agenda.

He repeated calls for the arrests of nine boot camp guards videotaped hitting, kicking and dragging Anderson and for the arrest of the camp nurse who watched the 30-minute ordeal but did not intervene.

The sheriff's office has said the guards were trying to get Anderson to participate after he became uncooperative.

"We will continue to mount whatever legal strategies that we can do from the legislative perspective," he said. "Throughout our 60-day session in Tallahassee, we will stay focused and we will not let this die. We will bring some type of justice for this young man who we are here to day to put back in the ground."

Baden said it will be several weeks before Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Vernard Adams can determine the exact cause of death because tissue samples must be analyzed and other evidence considered.

Widely considered to be one of the nation's top forensic pathologists, Baden noted that he had investigated thousands of deaths of people in custody over the past 30 years and not one was caused by sickle cell trait.

Dr. Charles Siebert, medical examiner for the district that includes Bay County, had ruled that Anderson died of sickle cell trait, a usually benign blood disorder many blacks have, rather than the beating.

After questions arose, Ober was appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush to investigate the case, which led to the second autopsy by Adams. Ober said no one from his office will talk about the autopsy until the investigation is complete.

Siebert also was present at the second autopsy, Baden said. Siebert's office said Tuesday he will not comment until the investigation in Tampa is complete. A spokeswoman for the Bay County Sheriff's Office, which operated the boot camp, also declined to comment.

"I think (Siebert) made a mistake," Baden said.

Appearing on NBC's "Today" show, Jones said she thinks the guards targeted her son because he had long hair.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Tallahassee and the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division also have opened an investigation into Anderson's death. No guards have been arrested or fired. The camp has been closed.

Civil rights leaders who rallied to support Anderson's parents said they hoped the case would lead to reforms.

"He was a microcosm of many young Andersons sitting in boot camps and detention centers across the state of Florida, said Sevell C. Brown, state president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Anderson entered the camp for a probation violation for trespassing at a school after he and his cousins were charged with stealing their grandmother's car from a church parking lot.

Rev. Russell Wright of Panama City's Full Gospel Methodist Church led Tuesday evening's burial services. Wright said he was hopeful the second autopsy would lead to arrests of those responsible for Anderson's death and answer the questions of many in his congregation.

Pointing to a group of young teens gathered at the small neighborhood cemetery, Wright said that Anderson's death has been especially difficult for the youth in the community.

"People say children don't comprehend death, but I think it's overwhelming for them and now they are having to relive it by coming out here again," he said.

Later, about 350 Panama City residents gathered for candlelight prayer vigil outside the boot camp and sang "We shall overcome."

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006203150336&source=email

Archbishop of Canterbury Speaks Out Against Guantanamo Bay Detention

Sends the Wrong Message to Tyrants Elsewhere in the World

The Church of England's most senior clergyman has today joined criticism of the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, warning that it's set a dangerous precedent.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, says the United States' disregard of international law sends the wrong message to tyrants elsewhere in the world, as Toni Hassan reports.

TONI HASSAN: When Rowan Williams speaks he carries the voices of not just those within the Church of England, but those within the 70 million strong world wide Anglican communion - the loose federation that he heads.

In a BBC interview conducted during his current visit to war-ravaged Sudan, Archbishop Williams took the opportunity to strongly criticise the US Government's detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

He says the camp goes against existing legal norms by creating a new category of custody, with prisoners held without proper legal assistance and without being found guilty of specific crimes.

The end result is not a win in any war America wages against its enemies. Instead, he says the camp may even help enemies or tyrants elsewhere in the world.

ROWAN WILLIAMS: Any message given that any state can just override some of these basic habeas corpus type provisions is going to be very welcome to tyrants elsewhere in the world, now and in the future.

Once again, words have consequences, policies have consequences. What, in 10 years' time, are people going to be able to say about a system that tolerates this?

TONI HASSAN: Reverend Rowan Williams says the base in eastern Cuba is an "extraordinary legal anomaly".

His comments are remarkably similar to those made by British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a speech to the British House of Commons just last week.

Mr Blair said then, as he's said before, that the camp is a legal anomaly. The difference is that Mr Blair, who supported America's invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, has qualified his remarks. Mr Blair added that the US had justifiably opened the detention camp in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed.

Nonetheless, both want the naval base shut down, and as soon as possible, with the prompt adjudication of cases involving current detainees.

Britain had nine of its citizens detained at Guantanamo Bay; all were released in recent years.

The fate of Australia's only remaining detainee, accused terrorist David Hicks, still remains uncertain.

Last week Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said the 30-year-old is being kept at Guantanamo Bay as a trophy prisoner because it's too embarrassing for the US to have the camp full of only Middle Eastern suspects.

While pressure mounts on the Bush administration to close down Guantanamo Bay, US authorities have repeatedly insisted that detainees are treated humanely and that the camp remains a strategic intelligence resource.

ELEANOR HALL: Toni Hassan reporting.

This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1584947.htm

© 2006 Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Report Finds Few Protections for Pregnant Prisoners

Women Prisoners Largely Unsafe From Rape, Mistreatment

Prison officials regularly order the shackling of pregnant inmates – even while the prisoner is giving birth, according to a recently released report on state and federal corrections policies governing women inmates.

The study, conducted by the United States arm of Amnesty International and released last Wednesday, also found that the state and federal prison systems lack proper procedures and laws to protect women inmates from sexual assault by jail staff.

According to Amnesty's survey, 41 states and the federal corrections system permit the use of restraints on pregnant women and 23 states, plus the Federal Bureau of Prisons, allow women to be restrained during labor. Eight states have no official written policy on the practice, Amnesty said, and just two states – Illinois and California – have specific laws limiting the restraint of pregnant women.

Sunday, the New York Times reported that one Arkansas inmate who had her legs shackled during childbirth against her wishes, and against the wishes of attending medical staff, is suing the state over the practice. Her captors removed the restraints only during delivery, the paper reported.

Several states are considering ending the practice of using restraints on pregnant and birthing women. According to the Associated Press, Wisconsin Department of Corrections Secretary Matt Frank directed his staff to put an end to the practice in January.

Amnesty cited a series of news reports documenting instances of pregnant-inmate shackling in Wisconsin, including an incident last fall in which corrections officers took a woman to the hospital in restraints and had her pregnancy forcibly induced.

Protections for pregnant prisoners are not the only safeguards absent from US prison systems. Few states have laws protecting any female inmates from sexual predation by jailers, the report found. Vermont has no law against such acts, known to officialdom as "custodial sexual misconduct," but considered rape by women's advocates Six other states do not directly address the issue, Amnesty found: Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey and Utah.

And while many states do have laws and polices governing such relations, most fail to adequately take into account the inherent difference in power such "relationships" have rendering "consensual" sex between inmates and jailers impossible in the eyes of Amnesty.

In both Nevada and Delaware, for example, an inmate involved in sexual activity with a prison guard or other worker faces criminal charges unless she can prove the person raped her. Laws in both states call for guards and officers to be punished for sexual acts with prisoners regardless of consent.

Arizona law is even more draconian toward inmates, providing for criminal punishment even if the sex was not consensual, according to Amnesty. In a footnote to the report, Amnesty said correction of this is of "paramount importance." Arizona does punish officers and guards for the action as well, the report noted.

"When a woman can be held criminally liable for sex with a guard, or when a guard can claim consent as a defense, it demonstrates a horrible misuse of power," Amnesty USA Executive Director William F. Schulz said in a statement accompanying the report's release. "Furthermore, restraining a woman in the throes of labor endangers her and the child she is carrying. All correctional facilities should review their legislation and policies to ensure that they are protecting women inmates."

by Brendan Coyne Mar. 6
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2895/printmode/true