Daily Archives: March 12, 2017

Lancaster Police Lt. Everett Moody on Thursday shows off the hidden compartment police found in a vehicle after an recent arrest. The compartment was in the center console. SENTINEL & ENTERPRISE PHOTOS/JOHN LOVE

LANCASTER -- On the surface, it looked like any other Pontiac G6. Inside the car, CD cases and articles of clothing were strewn about, animal hair from an unknown pet clung to the carpet, a child's doll sat forgotten on the back seat.

But there was something else among the clutter that immediately caught Lancaster police Sgt. Patrick Mortimer's attention.

The black sticky glue leaking from the car's center console was the first clue.

"I saw that, and I knew right away that it wasn't from something factory installed," said Mortimer. "The other officer I was with thought I was crazy, but I kept telling him that I knew there was something in there."

After finding a motor hidden deep within the car's dashboard, the officers were able to activate an aftermarket option. Turning on that hidden motor caused the lower half of center console to suddenly swing out from beneath the radio, revealing a hidden compartment containing $7,000 in cash.

What began as a fairly routine vehicle stop and felony warrant arrest became the Lancaster Police Department's first encounter with an electronically controlled secret compartment in a suspect's car.

As the opioid epidemic has carried on, the technology drug sellers and smugglers have used to make their living has continued to evolve. As a result, departments throughout the state are getting their officers trained to spot the hidden compartments or "drug hides" that are continuously found in the vehicles of suspects.

"This was very professionally done.

Just two days before officers in Lancaster made their discovery, police in Nashua, found a similar electronic compartment inside the car of a Lawrence man who was hiding roughly 130 grams of cocaine.

A closeup of the console area. SENTINEL & ENTERPRISE PHOTOS/JOHN LOVE

And 10 days earlier, police in Ipswich arrested a Boston man after finding large quantities of cocaine and fentanyl in the hidden compartments of his car.

"It almost seems like the more law enforcement learns, the more the criminals learn," said James Bazzinotti, whose company PACE New England offers the training course used by officers in Lancaster. "Everything the officers are learning now, the criminal element learned a few years ago. ... We're always a little bit behind."

Over the course of the training, Bazzinotti said officers learn all the clues to finding drug hides that range from the low-tech oil cans with false bottoms to the professionally installed electronic systems that cost more than the cars they're installed in.

Though extra spaces, or voids, can be found inside of any vehicle, and are frequently used by lower-level drug sellers, more complex ways of hiding illicit substances continue to be developed.

In many cases, compartments aren't opened by simply flipping a switch but by initiating a sequence of settings within the car, Bazzinotti explained. A single button on a dashboard might open a secret compartment, but the car might have to be in neutral, the heat might have to be dialed to a specific setting, and a single seat belt might have to be buckled in before that button can actually work.

"It's usually an owner-operator type of mechanic who does this kind of work," Bazzinotti said. "They might work on cars but supplement their income by doing this."

There's no law in Massachusetts against having a hidden compartment in your car, and no law against installing them either. However, mechanics can be arrested on a conspiracy charge if it can be proven that they knew what the hidden compartment was going to be used for, Bazzinotti said.

States like Ohio, California, Georgia, Illinois and Oregon have adopted prohibitions on vehicle compartments and attempts to pass similar legislation have been made in Massachusetts as well.

In 2008, a bill was submitted to the state Legislature that would have made it illegal to own or install a hidden compartment in a vehicle, though it never made it to the House floor.

Fitchburg Mayor Stephen DiNatale, who had sponsored the petition while serving as a state representative of the 3rd Worcester District, said he was inspired to file the bill after hearing about the prevalence of hidden compartments from local law enforcement officials.

"From what they showed me, it was pretty elaborate devices and modifications that were being made to these vehicles," DiNatale said. "These detectives have to go through a great deal of effort and work to find these things and yet there's no requisite penalty for having them."

He also explained that the bill had failed to gain any traction among other legislators largely because some felt its inclusion of vehicles such as aircrafts or boats was too broad.

"They didn't want the legislation to be so far-reaching that it would affect law-abiding citizens," DiNatale said.

The bill was refiled by current Fitchburg state Rep. Stephan Hay in January.

There is no way of measuring how many of these secret compartments are actually found and how many go unnoticed, but Mortimer estimates that a large majority of them go undetected.

However, the officers in Lancaster are undeterred.

"When you find one of these things it gets really exciting because it's not every day that you find one of these," he said. "Now everybody in the department wants to get trained."

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Hidden war on drugs - Sentinel & Enterprise

Rebuffing an outcry over the previous execution of 18 deathrow inmates, most of whom were drug convicts, President Joko Jokowi Widodo has instructed officers in relevant agencies to hunt, arrest and crush smalland big-time drug dealers.

If it [a shoot-on-sight policy] was allowed by law then I would order the National Police and the BNN [National Narcotics Agency] chief to do so, but luckily it is not, President Jokowi said in a speech to mark the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking last year.

Jokowis words appear to have inspired members of law enforcement agencies to get tough on drug traffickers.

BNN chief Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso may have taken cues not only from Jokowi, but also Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

Dutertes war on drugs, which has been condemned by human rights groups for violating human rights, has killed over 8,000 people, including more than 2,500 who died in shoot-outs during raids, since the campaign started eight months ago.

A man of controversy himself, Budi has frequently told BNN personnel not to hesitate to shoot drug traffickers, dealers and users who resist arrest. He once went further by saying the lives of drug dealers were worthless, which made media headlines last year.

To put his words into actions, the BNN has procured highly lethal weapons, imported from Germany, Russia, the United States and the Czech Republic. Budi claimed that one of the four new firearm types could penetrate a reinforced wall in a single shot.

As [drug mafias] are now using weapons, we will also use weapons to counter them. If they fight back [during arrest] we will not hesitate to shoot them. If they are killed [because they fight back], its their own fault, Budi said in a recent interview.

The National Police have also joined the fray, with police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian instructing personnel to use deadly force against suspected drug dealers if they resist arrest during raids.

Tito, however, has made it clear that officers can only fire when suspects use weapons or pose a threat to officers and other people during their arrest, as instructed by the Criminal Code and standard operating procedures (SOP) in the form of a National Police chief regulation (Perkap).

Rights groups, which are closely watching Jokowis stepped-up war on drugs, have been alarmed by the rising casualties.

The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) has revealed that the number of alleged drug dealers shot dead in raids is increasing.

Data from Kontras, which was collected through media monitoring only, revealed that since January 2016, 32 suspected drug dealers were reportedly shot dead in raids, both by police personnel following orders from the BNN and by officers working on regular operations.

The actual figure could be higher because this is only the data we compiled through media monitoring. We dont talk about arbitrary shootings that were not covered or reported to human rights watchdogs, Kontras deputy coordinator Puri Kencana Putri told The Jakarta Post.

Data from Kontras also revealed that August last year was the deadliest month on record, with nine fatalities reported by the media. While the period between Jan. 22 and Dec. 31 saw 14 deaths, the first three months of 2017 had over half that number of casualties.

Since Jan. 6, 18 suspected dealers have been shot dead in raids.

Both the BNN and the National Polices Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) narcotics division declined to elaborate on the death toll from drug raids when the Post requested further details.

(Read also:BNN Central Java foils drug smuggling from Germany)

The BNNs eradication department head, Insp. Gen. Arman Depari, acknowledged that the number of suspected drug traders shot dead for resisting arrest was likely to have increased in recent years.

The Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR), which also monitors the issue, said there could be a link between the application of capital punishment and the increasing number of fatalities in raids.

Drug dealers know that the maximum sentence for them is the death penalty. Psychologically, they will put up a stronger fight because they know if they are arrested, they could be executed, ICJR executive director Supriyadi Widodo Eddyono told the Post.

Read more from the original source:

Indonesia's war on drugs takes deadly turn - Jakarta Post

As Washington continues to wade through health care and immigration legislation, theres another battle on the horizon, with those in favor of marijuana legalization demanding answers from the administration on where it stands.

At times, Trumps position has shifted, though, as of late, hes claimed to be in favor of medical marijuana, stopping short of endorsing the full legalization of the drug or revealing whether hell interfere with state rights to do so. Meanwhile, newly installed Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been crystal clear about his own stance, infamously stating, Good people dont smoke marijuana

Now, Massachusetts and Maine, the latest states to legalize the drug, are left in limbo. Whereas the Obama administration had remained largely hands-off, allowing states to make their own laws regarding marijuana legalization and reducing sentences for a number of small drug offenses, under Sessions, the Justice Department may be poised to reverse that trend.

Last month, White House press secretary Sean Spicer alluded to such, telling reporters, I do believe that youll see greater enforcement. Theres a big difference between the medical use and recreational use, which is something the Department of Justice will be further looking into.

Since declaring drug abuse as enemy No. 1, the United States has doggedly pursued the failed War on Drug crusade, often at the expense of its own citizens. Coined in June 1971,the Nixon administration struck hard, increasing federal drug agencies and implementing harsh tactics that included mandatory sentencing. By 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy would admit that the global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.

They added, Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem and that the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won.

But, of course, we already knew that.

Even more disheartening, much of the drug war was by design, as revealed by John Ehrlichman, former Nixon domestic-policy chief and a key figure during the Watergate scandal. Ehrlichman admitted in a 1994 interview that, The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people.

He added, You understand what Im saying? We knew we couldnt make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but, by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.

The damage was devastating to the Black community. By disproportionately targeting Blacks and other minorities, prison rates exploded, each administration playing its own role. This includes President Clintonwho, despite being immensely popular, was directly responsible for increasing the prison population by over 673,000 during his presidency. Of that injustice, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker told ABCs This Week with George Stephanopoulos, We now have more African-Americans under criminal supervision than all the slaves back in the 1850s.

A study by the Justice Policy Institute revealed, Under President Bill Clinton, the number of prisoners under federal jurisdiction doubled and grew more than it did under the previous 12 years of Republican rule.

At just 12 percent of the U.S. population, African-American men are now 13 times more likely to be sent to prison for drug charges than their white counterparts. And, despite using illegal substances at roughly the same rate, studies show that African-Americans are still apt to receive longer sentences. Human Rights Watch says, The disparities are particularly tragic in individual states where Black men are sent to federal prison on drug charges at 57 times greater than White men.

As Ava DuVernays critically acclaimed 13th illustrates, though the 13th amendment formally abolished slavery and indentured servitude, the U.S. has continued to profit from free labor, now supplied via mass incarceration. By enacting stiff penalties for minor drug offenses, the United States prison population has soared, boosted by millions of Black and brown bodies.

Its a reality that entrepreneur Wanda James, widely credited as the first African-American to own a dispensary in Colorado, knows all too well. After being jailed for weed possession, her own brother was sentenced to 10 years in prison and forced to pick cotton in Texas.

It was then that James first likened the prison industry to a repackaged version of slavery, later explaining to Official Black Wall Street, Well, the whole Black and Latino thing is mind-boggling and to understand whats happening, you have to understand the prison system and the prison industrial complex. America was built on slave labor. It always has been.

She added to High Times, To have a Black man picking cotton seemed ridiculous. Where I went to school the University of Colorado my friends and I would sit out on the front stoop of the dorm and smoke weed. Cops would walk by and be like, Hey, put that away. Wed put it away, and I had never known that people were actually arrested for pot. I always thought it was a ticket.

Using her brothers story as inspiration, James opened a dispensary in Denver, joining just one percent of Black entrepreneurs in the cannabis industry. But with a shift in administration, she and others like her may now face roadblocks of their own, thanks in part to Sessions staunch anti-legalization ideology.

Making it clear that he will not bend, Sessions recently told reporters, I dont think America is going to be a better place when people of all ages, and particularly young people, are smoking pot. I believe its an unhealthy practice and current levels of THC in marijuana are very high compared to what they were a few years ago and were seeing real violence around that.

He added, States, they can pass the laws they choose. I would just say it does remain a violation of federal law to distribute marijuana throughout any place in the United States, whether a state legalizes it or not.

With neighboring states, including Nebraska, currently waging their own war against Colorados marijuana boom and with Sessions at the helm, it may become even harder for African-American entrepreneurs like James to prosper in the industry.

In truth, America does have a drug problem, but its not weed. Rather, its the opioid and heroin epidemic currently ravishing the nations heartland, suburbs and elsewhere. Much like marijuana was used as a scapegoat during Nixons time, under the Trump administration, it may once again become a catalyst for funneling more Black and brown bodies into private prisons across the nation.

Excerpt from:

Is AG Jeff Sessions Quietly Waging a Second 'War on Drugs'? - Atlanta Black Star

Among the first things that the Congress chief ministerial candidate in Punjab, Amarinder Singh, has promised to do after he assumes power is to tackle the drug menace by choking the supply of such intoxicants in four weeks. Anybody involved in the drug scourge will be dealt in accordance with law, howsoever powerful he may be. I have said within four weeks we will tackle this drugs problem," Singh told a crowded press conference in Chandigarh on Saturday. The increasing number of drug-abuse cases has been one of the poll planks of both the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The parties alleged that the drug menace and cases of drug abuse had seen a huge increase during the Akali regime under its patronage.

That apart, incidents of sacrilege, which hit several parts of the state, would also be investigated, he said.

Singh said his party had committed itself to providing good governance, besides focusing on health and education.

The Congress manifesto included the waiver of farm loans, a promise the new government will find tough to keep.

A farm debt waiver will have massive financial implications, particularly for an agrarian state like Punjab, and it will impact financial discipline, but given that in the last two years there has been a drought in North India, the new state government should consider such a relief but should keep it limited to small and marginal farmers, that is those who own less than two hectares, PK Joshi, South Asia director, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), told Business Standard.

Sanjeeb Mukherjee

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Punjab poll promises: War on drugs, farm loan waiver - Business Standard

A promise that the governments renewed war on illegal drugs would be different from its forerunner appeared to be not true at all as 14 alleged drug dealers had been killed six days after the restart of the campaign.

Aside from the 14 suspects, some 467 others were arrested from March 6 to March 12 based on data from the Philippine National Police (PNP).

PNP Director General Ronald dela Rosa himself had told the media that the relaunch of the anti-illegal drugs campaign would be less bloody.

The first drug drive assigned to the PNP and the National Bureau of Investigation was stopped by President Rodrigo Duterte after some police officers of the two agencies were linked to the abduction and killing of South Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo last October 18.

Jee was killed inside Camp Crame, the PNPs main headquarters, in Quezon City despite the kidnappers managing to get P5 million in ransom from Jees wife last October 31.

The PNP leadership is yet to ascertain who got the P5 million.

Duterte ordered the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency under Director General Isidro Lapena to lead the new drug war of the government.

NELSON S. BADILLA

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14 killed in PNP's renewed war on drugs - The Manila Times Online - The Manila Times