HomelandSecurityLeader.com

From FBI Release 

On television and the silver screen, serial killers are usually white males and dysfunctional loners who really want to get caught. Or, they’re super-intelligent monsters who frustrate law enforcement at every turn.

According to a new publication from our National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime—entitled Serial Murder: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators—serial killers are much different in real life.

The report contains the collective insights of a group of experts from the law enforcement, academic, and mental health professions who took part in a symposium on serial murder. The symposium’s focus was actually two-fold: to bridge the gap between fact and fiction and to build up our collective body of knowledge to generate a more effective investigative response.

Here’s why that is so important: Serial killings are rare, probably less than one percent of all murders. They do, however, receive a lot of attention in the news and on screen—and much of the information out there is wrong. Yet, the public, the media, and even sometimes law enforcement professionals who have limited experience with serial murder, often believe what they read and hear. And this misinformation can hinder investigations.

According to the experts, there is no common thread tying serial killers together—no single cause, no single motive, no single profile. But there are some common “best practices” that they recommend for investigations:

For example:

* Strong leadership throughout the chain of command that can withstand the external pressure sometimes brought to bear on serial murder cases by politicians, the victims’ families, and the media;
* Task forces that bring together agencies from the different jurisdictions to effectively combine expertise, resources, and information;
* An automated case management system like the FBI’s Rapid Start that organizes and collates lead information so investigators don’t get overwhelmed;
* A team of crime analysts who can help investigators develop timelines of murders and backgrounds on suspects, highlight similar case elements, etc. (note: if your agency doesn’t have such a team, ask for help from a neighboring jurisdiction or from our National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime);
* Consistent forensic services, which in the best case scenario means that the same crime scene team goes to each scene and the same crime lab processes all the evidence (but if that’s not possible, then enhanced communication between the teams and the labs is a must to ensure consistency); and
* A strong media plan that successfully straddles the line between giving out relevant information to the media and not compromising the investigation—while helping to raise public awareness about the killings.

As for serial killer myths, our group of experts had this to say about a few of them:

1) Serial killers are not all dysfunctional loners: some have had wives and kids and full-time jobs and have been very active in their community or church or both.

2) Serial killers are not all white males: the racial diversification of serial killers generally mirrors the overall U.S. population.

3) Serial killers do not want to get caught: over time, as they kill without being discovered, they get careless during their crimes.

So much for the stereotypes!

Read Full Report…

From PoliceMag.com, by Richard Valdemar 

Gang members had been planning an attack on the police and the public for months. The Rodney King verdict was just an excuse.

Los Angeles’ dynamics radically changed for the worse, on the evening of Wednesday April 29, 1992. It began when major rioting broke out following the acquittal of four LAPD police officers accused of beating Rodney King. But the trouble had been brewing in L.A. for many years.

Most of the media would attribute the causes of the riots to the same old politically correct BS: lack of jobs, racial profiling, and years of police abuse. However, during that time I was a sergeant working the LASD Special Investigations Bureau (SPI) and I was privileged to read and review all the police intelligence reports of that period. So I have a very different opinion.

For several months prior to the riots, intelligence reports rolled across my desk about activity in the Jordan Downs, Imperial Courts, and Nickerson Gardens Housing Projects. Drug dealers were financing meetings of gang members from rival gangs, and these meetings were being arbitrated by OGs (veteran gang members) or the Fruit of Islam, Black Muslim security units.

Full Story… 

From Al Jazeera

One person has died and at least 30 others have been injured by a series of small bombs planted in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi.

The six devices went off within an hour of each other on Monday evening in different locations of the port city in Sindh province.

A provincial police officer said bomb disposal teams had been sent to determine the nature of the devices.

Full Story…

From Washington Post  By Ellen Nakashima

In the six-and-a-half years that the U.S. government has been fingerprinting insurgents, detainees and ordinary people in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa, hundreds have turned out to share an unexpected background, FBI and military officials said. They have criminal arrest records in the United States.

There was the suspected militant fleeing Somalia who had been arrested on a drug charge in New Jersey. And the man stopped at a checkpoint in Tikrit who claimed to be a dirt farmer but had 11 felony charges in the United States, including assault with a deadly weapon.

The records suggest that potential enemies abroad know a great deal about the United States because many of them have lived here, officials said. The matches also reflect the power of sharing data across agencies and even countries, data that links an identity to a distinguishing human characteristic such as a fingerprint.

Full Story 

From IHT.com, by Scott Shane
In a makeshift prison in the north of Poland, Al Qaeda’s engineer of mass murder faced off against his Central Intelligence Agency interrogator. It was 18 months after the 9/11 attacks, and the invasion of Iraq was giving Muslim extremists new motives for havoc. If anyone knew about the next plot, it was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

The interrogator, Deuce Martinez, a soft-spoken analyst who spoke no Arabic, had turned down a CIA offer to be trained in waterboarding. He chose to leave the infliction of pain and panic to others, the gung-ho paramilitary types whom the more cerebral interrogators called “knuckledraggers.”

Martinez came in after the rough stuff, the ultimate good cop with the classic skills: an unimposing presence, inexhaustible patience and a willingness to listen to the gripes and musings of a pitiless killer in rambling, imperfect English. He achieved a rapport with Mohammed that astonished his fellow CIA officers.

Full Story…

From The New York Times, by Michael Falcone

At the first meeting of his national security working group, Barack Obama once again sought to link John McCain’s approach to foreign policy to what he called “the failed policies of the Bush administration.”

Mr. Obama ticked off a series of challenges, including the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, poverty, climate change and genocide.

“Nearly all these threats have grown over the last eight years because of the policies of George Bush, which I believe have left us less safe and less respected in the world,” Mr. Obama said, according to a pool report of the meeting. “There’s going to be a clear choice in this election: John McCain wants to continue the Bush-Cheney foreign policy. I want to turn the page.”

Full Story and list of Obama National Security Team members… 

From Air Marshall Alert, by Amy Davis

A Houston news channel reports on a rash of cases where Federal Air Marshals are facing criminal charges for DUIs and other crimes.

Full Report…

Today, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security announced House passage of seven critical homeland security bills.

Chairman Thompson issued the following statement regarding the legislation:

“The passage of these bills is critical to increasing our Nation’s homeland security.  The broad range of these measures varies from aviation security to detection and prevention of nuclear bombs and IEDs,” said Thompson.  “I look forward to working with the Senate to include these measures in a House-Senate Conference on the Department of Homeland Security Authorization this year.”

The following measures passed today:

H.R. 4179 – The Fair, Accurate, Secure and Timely Redress Act of 2008 (FAST Redress Act of 2008)
•    Sponsored by Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY), this bill establishes a timely and fair redress process for individuals who have been misidentified against terrorist watch lists and improves information sharing within DHS.

H.R. 5982 – The Biometric Enhancement for Airport-Risk Reduction Act of 2008 (BEAR Act of 2008)
•    Sponsored by Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), this bill requires TSA to conduct a study on how airports can adopt biometric identification systems for airport workers.

H.R. 5909 – The Catching Operational Vulnerabilities by Ensuring Random Testing Act of 2008 (COVERT Act of 2008)
•    Sponsored by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), this bill prohibits the advance notice of covert testing to airport security screeners and ensures testing integrity.

H.Res.1150
•    Sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), this resolution expresses that TSA should enhance security to our Nation’s rail and mass transit lines.

H.R. 4749 – National Bombing Prevention Act of 2008
•    Sponsored by Rep. Peter T. King (R-NY), this bill establishes an office for enhancing Federal coordination of efforts to deter, detect, prevent, protect against, and respond to terrorist explosive attacks.

H.R. 1333 – The Civil Air Patrol Homeland Security Support Act of 2007
•    Sponsored by Rep. Charles W. Dent (R-PA), this bill requires the Government Accountability Office to assess the capabilities of the Civil Air Patrol to partner with the Department of Homeland Security.

H.R. 2631 – The Nuclear Forensics and Attribution Act
•    Sponsored by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-CA), this bill would support international and domestic efforts to create a nuclear forensics capability to determine the sources of nuclear and “dirty” bombs.