August, 2006 News (continued)
What’s Left Unsaid
KATHRYN HARRISON
13 Aug 2006 12:00 am
At the age of 16, Annie Rogers stopped speaking. “I realized,” she explains in her new book, “that whatever I might say could be misconstrued and used to create a version of ‘reality’ that would be unrecognizable, a kind of voice-over of my truths I could not bear.” Given her apprehension, silence was a sane response — the only response possible for a girl who understood herself as having been called by the archangel Michael to end human suffering by translating “the voices of angels for the world.”
Rogers recovered; she spoke; she grew up and became a Harvard University professor and a clinical psychologist who treated abused and abandoned children, fulfilling the vocation that, when she was a teenager, landed her in a mental institution. She no longer felt the responsibility to convey messages from heaven and had replaced the archangel with another divinity of sorts, someone with a different ecstatic following — Jacques Lacan — but ending human suffering remained her purpose. “The Unsayable: The Hidden Language of Trauma” is an account of Rogers’s successes, as well as her frustrations, in helping girls, herself included, hear the stories of their pasts and discover the truths of their essential selves, truths that surface no matter how forcefully they are repressed. A basic principle of psychoanalysis, Rogers, who now teaches at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, reminds us, is that a powerful, even controlling part of each person, the unconscious, “insists on knowing the truth, even if the truth is a shocking and costly retrospective.”
ON TRIAL: FAMILY COURT
MARTHA BELLISLE
13 Aug 2006 12:00 am
The shooting of a judge handling the contentious divorce of a woman murdered that same morning is shining a spotlight on the region's family court system and on the judge.
Some praise Washoe District Family Court Judge Chuck Weller as a new judge doing a thankless, stressful and dangerous job in a highly emotional arena. The sniper-style shooting of Weller as he stood in his third-floor chambers has traumatized the community, they say, and hurts the independence of judges by creating fear and intimidation.
Others, including blog writers, say the family court needs an overhaul. Many say judges are not accountable and the system offers no remedies for people who feel they've been wronged.
The worst predator
John Larson
12 Aug 2006 5:18 pm
For generations parents have warned their children about “the stranger”: Don’t take candy, accept a ride, or even talk to somebody you don’t know.
But what if that somebody is a family friend? Somebody parents know and trust?
Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller, a suspected child molester, made a point of befriending parents to gain access to their children. When he was arrested last year in San Jose, Calif. last year, police found ledgers and diaries detailing thousands of sexual assaults against children.
But if so many crimes had taken place, how did Schwartzmiller, through the years, avoid arrest and prosecution?
John Larson has reconstructed the trail of the man who could be the worst child molester ever to be taken into custody.
It reads like a script to a horror movie, and it begins in Alaska and switches to Idaho, California, Oregon, and Washington.
But it is no movie. It is the horrifying, true story of a man police believe is the worst sexual predator of our time.
5 Arrested In National Mall Robberies, Assaults
12 Aug 2006 1:41 pm
U.S. Park Police have arrested five people who they say were involved in a series of armed robberies and sex assaults on the National Mall.
U.S. Attorney Kenneth Wainstein said the five suspects committed five armed robberies on the Mall in May and July. Some of the incidents also included sexual assaults, including the rape of a 17-year-old woman, authorities said.
Police Search For Suspect In I-65 Rape
Connie Leonard
12 Aug 2006 7:29 am
It's a driver's worst nightmare. First, to break down on the side of the road. Then to be attacked by someone who's pretending to be a Good Samaritan. Kentucky State Police say that's exactly what happened on northbound I-65 Thursday night near Horse Cave when a woman who had a flat was raped by a man who offered to change her tire.
Holder tells WAVE 3 News that after changing the tire, the man pulled her to his vehicle and assaulted her.
Police say after the woman was raped, she went into a truck stop off the Horse Cave exit asking for help.
The man state police are looking for in connection with this rape is a white male with short gray hair, in his late 30's or early 40s, around 5'11 to 6 feet tall. He was wearing a tan button up shirt and blue jeans and was last seen driving a gold Chevrolet king cab truck.
Police say the best piece of advice is always carry a cell phone, even if you can't afford the service, keep one charged in the car because you still will be able to dial 911.
Anyone with information in the case is asked to call Kentucky State Police at 1-800-222-5555 and ask for the Bowling Green Post.
Judge affirms his oversight
Associated Press
12 Aug 2006 12:16 am
A federal judge has refused the state's request to end his supervision of the Wyoming Department of Corrections and the state penitentiary in Rawlins.
U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer entered an order this week saying staff failures to document conflicts among inmates amount to ongoing violations of inmates' rights to reasonable protection.
A year of lost freedom: $6,000
Chicago Tribune
12 Aug 2006 12:00 am
How do you put a price on a year of freedom? Illinois puts the value at $6,000. That's how much the state
compensated Michael Evans for each of the 27 years he spent imprisoned for a crime DNA evidence showed he didn't
commit.
Evans left prison in 2003 and received little more than a hug from his family. No money. No training. No job
placement. No therapy. No apology.
It took two more years and a governor's pardon before the state coughed up $162,000 to compensate Evans for his lost
life. Evans has distributed most of that sum to family members and others who helped win his release.
On Tuesday, Evans lost a $60 million civil lawsuit he brought against 10 former Chicago police officers he accused
of conspiring to manipulate evidence and coerce an eyewitness in his criminal trial. So $162,000 is likely to be all
he'll get for his ... inconvenience.
Illinois needn't compound one shame--falsely imprisoning an individual--with another, failing to offer fair
compensation to him. It's time to change the state's compensation law.
Online prey: Cops check up on kids’ Web behavior
JOHN ZAREMBA
12 Aug 2006 12:00 am
The South Shore police team that has nabbed 30 men charged as Internet predators now is after another target: they are talking to children online to see how safely - or how dangerously - the kids are acting.
‘‘The key is, obviously, how many are willing to meet a stranger?’’ said Marshfield police detective Steven Marcolini, a member of the High Tech Evidence Analysis Team. ‘‘It’s not to build criminal cases. It’s just to change behavior.’’
What the team members have done until now is log onto Internet chat rooms and represent themselves as a child, usually a girl 13 or 14 years old. Older men start an exchange of messages, and the officers respond. The police don’t bring up sex, but some of the men do, and that has led to arrests.
With what they’re doing now, the officers won’t be propositioning the teenagers; that would be illegal. ‘‘I don’t want to be one of the guys on the stand,’’ Marcolini said.
Instead, he said, the online conversations will remain general, but police will observe what kinds of information the children volunteer about themselves.
State rethinks abuse education
CHARLOTTE TUBBS
12 Aug 2006 12:00 am
A state legislative task force is looking into a Minnesota program that trains college students in how to handle cases of child abuse before they become nurses, teachers or other professionals who would encounter such cases.
The department plans to inventory current academic programs that address child abuse and spread awareness for the need to train psychology, social work, criminal justice, nursing and education students on the issue. “This is an issue that we simply must address with some urgency in the higher education community,” said Beene, who attended the task force meeting with more than a dozen officials from two- and four-year colleges and universities.
The task force is hosting a series of national experts to research ways to improve Arkansas’ system of handling child abuse. The group plans to introduce legislation and a possible funding request during the 2007 legislative session.
Help for the Hardest Part of Prison: Staying Out
ERIK ECKHOLM
12 Aug 2006 12:00 am
In April, Debra Harris took her 15-year-old son along for what she thought was a final visit to her parole officer. Instead, because of a “dirty urine” test two weeks before, proof of her relapse to crack use, state troopers led her straight back to prison for three more months.
Troopers then drove Ms. Harris’s son to the rented home on the south side of Providence where her boyfriend was suddenly left to tend to three of her children. Ms. Harris had forgotten to pay the gas bill, so service was cut and they lived through her sentence without a stove, surviving on fast food and microwave items.
Such jolting events are part of the fabric of life in South Providence, as some women and many more men cycle repeatedly through the state’s prisons. As the country confronts record and recurring incarcerations, the search for solutions is focusing increasingly on neighborhoods like it, fragile places in nearly every city where the churning of people through prison is intensely concentrated.
Now a countertrend is gathering force, part of an unfolding transformation in the way the criminal justice system deals with repeat offenders. After punishment has been meted out and time has been served, political leaders, police officers, corrections officials, churches and community groups are working together to offer so-called re-entry programs, many modest in scope but remarkable nonetheless.
Girl, 13, reports sexual assault
MARGARET BAKER
12 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Police spent Friday searching for a suspect in the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl at the Cambridge Park Apartments on Shortcut Road, according to Pascagoula Police Lt. Paul Leonard.
The girl reported the incident, telling police that she was sexually assaulted some time Thursday. She told police that her attacker was a black man, about 6 feet fall and 200 pounds. He was wearing black clothing.
Leonard said the teen was taken to Singing River Hospital, where she underwent a rape examination.
A woman's fight
RAQUEL RUTLEDGE
12 Aug 2006 12:00 am
As the fastest growing population of veterans, women often return from war with different problems and less support.
More than 1,500 women have returned from Iraq or Afghanistan and sought some type of help from veterans hospitals in Wisconsin, northern Illinois and Iron Mountain, Mich., ranking the region third-highest in the country. Milwaukee's Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center alone has seen more than 200 women since March 2003.
"Women are the fastest growing veteran population in the nation," said Gundel Metz, coordinator for female veterans' issues with the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs.
Some deal with problems that parallel those of their male counterparts. They've lost limbs, eyesight and hearing. They have digestive disorders, nightmares, anger and relationship problems.
But female veterans returning from war face ailments and traumas of other sorts.
More than 400 military women working in Iraq, Afghanistan and the region have reported they were victims of sexual assault from 2003 through May, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.
Soldier surrenders a year after walking away from base
MIKE BARBER
12 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Army Sgt. Ricky Clousing, who joined the Army inspired to serve his country after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, was an interrogator in Iraq 18 months ago.
A year ago, after returning with the 82nd Airborne Division to Fort Bragg, N.C., he walked away from the military and disappeared.
Friday, outside the anti-war Veterans for Peace national convention at the University of Washington, Clousing, 24, of Sumner announced that he would surrender to authorities at Fort Lewis as a war resister.
In front of mock crosses and tombstones representing U.S. dead in Iraq, Clousing began, "My name is Ricky Clousing. I am a sergeant in the U.S. Army ... I stand here before you today before I surrender myself to military custody, which was always my intention.
"I was with an infantry unit that kicked in doors to mosques and houses," Clousing said. "Being with tactical infantry exposed me to the brutality of war," he said, including what he said was the baseless incarceration of Iraqis by U.S. forces and a U.S. soldier's killing of an innocent Iraq man.
Most haunting, he said, was seeing an innocent Iraqi get killed.
Clousing alleges that he saw a young Iraqi man shot after straying into an area Clousing was helping other troops secure following a roadside bombing.
"He was in a vehicle driving 15 mph," Clousing said. "He was obviously terrified at seeing U.S. troops with guns drawn." A soldier behind him opened fire without warning, killing the man.
"I reported it to my superiors. ... I was told I did not know the reality of war and this kind of thing happens," Clousing said.
Ex-guard sentenced to prison
Oliver Mackson
12 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Bruce Etheridge just didn't get it, a prosecutor said yesterday.
Orange County Court Judge Karen Riley agreed, re-sentencing the former Minisink High School security guard to state prison for statutory rape for violating probation. The judge also denounced the conduct of Etheridge's lawyer.
It wasn't just the porn that a probation officer found earlier this year on Etheridge's home computer in Warwick, downloaded from sites with names like "Amateur Teen Dreams."
It was other items, like the photo of his underage victim that also showed up Etheridge's computer.
Thomson faces more charges
Joe Nelson
12 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Suspected serial killer John Wayne Thomson can now add carjacking and robbery to his list of alleged criminal offenses.
County prosecutors on Friday amended the criminal complaint against the 46-year-old Washington native to include one count of carjacking, two counts of attempted carjacking and second-degree robbery, on top of the murder and auto theft. He also faces two prior strikes for rape convictions in Washington.
But in order for Thomson to be tried as a three-striker in California for the prior rape convictions, Washington's legal definition of rape must be consistent with that of California's, said Vic Stull, a supervising deputy district attorney.
Thomson is charged with slaying 55-year-old Lucerne Valley resident and Beaumont business owner Charles Hedlund in the Cajon Pass sometime between July 31 and Aug. 3. Hedlund had been stabbed multiple times with a short-bladed knife and then robbed of a large sum of cash.
It has not been determined if prosecutors will push for a special allegation of murder committed in a particularly depraved or heinous manner, which could make Thomson eligible for the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Stull said it is likely, and a decision may even come before Thomson's preliminary hearing, where a judge would rule whether prosecutors have enough evidence to proceed to trial.
"This one borders on torture," said Stull. "Factually it's just very brutal, and the allegation would be that it was so brutal it would fit within the special circumstance."
Videotape admissible in rape case
Amanda Kerr
12 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Just weeks before his trial, Kermit Anthony Gray on Friday tried to have incriminating statements suppressed that he made during a videotaped interview with police.
Gray's attorney, Patrick Kelley, argued that the statements were inadmissible as evidence because they were made after Gray invoked his right to an attorney. Neither Kelley nor prosecutors disclosed publicly what Gray told police.
AT THE FRINGE: David M. Korn’s ‘This Won’t Take Long'
James Howard
11 Aug 2006 7:00 am
It was late spring when I first met David Korn, and what I remember about that afternoon is the passion with which he spoke about his “current project.” I wasn’t even sure what it was, but I knew that anyone that had THAT MUCH passion for a project certainly deserved to have it seen. Well, here we are a few months later, and that passion has paid off. That project is This Won’t Take Long, a drama that has been selected as an entry in The 10th Annual New York International Fringe Festival.
Korn explains the impetus for the play. "A few years ago, I read an article in the New York Times about Earl Washington, Jr., a forty year-old black man who’d been in prison for seventeen years after being convicted of the rape and murder of a young mother. The Innocence Project had just had the sentence overturned, based on new DNA evidence. Washington had been manipulated into confessing to the crime by overzealous detectives. Washington has an I.Q. of about 69, which made it difficult for him to fully comprehend just what was happening to him. He knew nothing of the crime, but eagerly regurgitated information the detectives had unknowingly supplied during questioning. This struck me as a perfect situation for a timely and dramatic play.
This Won’t Take Long is more about the nature of being questioned about a crime than the issue of guilt or innocence. Is Henry trying too hard to help? Is he telling them what they want to hear? If so, does it necessarily mean that he knows nothing of the crime? Henry may indeed be guilty, or he may not even know the girl. If the police are manipulating him, are they aware of it? These cases are all too common, and DNA evidence is now proving over and over how these "open and shut" verdicts were actually terrible miscarriages of justice." Naturally, his research did not end there. “I read a scholarly article in the Hofstra University Law Review by a professor who consulted on the case. I was also able to obtain Earl's actually written confession. But these cases are all too common, and there are a lot of accounts of them,” says the playwright.
So, now the play is being produced and performances begin shortly. To generate interest, Korn and web designer Josh Singer have collaborated on an informative, easily navigated, and constantly evolving website, www.thiswonttakelong.net. There, playgoers will find show times and dates, directions to the theatre and a link to purchase tickets.
