Friday, April 1, 2011

Ex-cops go to prison in post-Katrina killing

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Calling the crimes inexcusable and barbaric, a judge sentenced two former New Orleans police officers to prison Thursday for their roles in the shooting death of an unarmed man whose body was later set on fire in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Former New Orleans Police officer Greg McRae walks into Federal Court in New Orleans Thursday, March 31, 2011, for sentencing for his involvement in the death of Henry Glover. The judge said he didn't believe former officer David Warren's testimony that Henry Glover, 31, posed a threat when he came to a strip mall less than a week after the August 2005 storm. Warren shot Glover to death and ex-officer Gregory McRae later burned his body in a car near a police station. (AP Photo/The Times-Picayune, Eliot Kamenitz)

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, right, and FBI Special Agent in Charge for New Orleans Dave Welker, leave Federal Court ahead of family members of Henry Glover, after the sentencing of two former New Orleans police oficers in the shooting death and burning of his body in New Orleans, Thursday, March 31, 2011. Former officer David Warren was sentenced to more than 25 years for shooting Glover without justification after Hurricane Katrina, and his ex-colleague Gregory McRae was given just over 17 years for burning the body. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Edna Glover, second left, mother of Henry Glover, leaves Federal Court holding his photo, after the sentencing of two former New Orleans police oficers in his shooting death and burning of his body in New Orleans, Thursday, March 31, 2011. Former officer David Warren was sentenced to more than 25 years for shooting Glover without justification after Hurricane Katrina, and his ex-colleague Gregory McRae was given just over 17 years for burning the body. Right is Corey Glover, cousin of Henry, and background right is Patrice Glover, sister of Henry. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten speaks outside Federal Court after the sentencing of two former New Orleans police oficers in the shooting death and burning of Henry Glover's body in New Orleans, Thursday, March 31, 2011. Former officer David Warren was sentenced to more than 25 years for shooting Glover without justification after Hurricane Katrina, and his ex-colleague Gregory McRae was given just over 17 years for burning the body. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

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The 25-plus years David Warren received for shooting 31-year-old Henry Glover to death was the stiffest punishment so far in the Justice Department's investigations of post-Katrina police misconduct. Ex-officer Gregory McRae was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for burning Glover's body after he was gunned down.

U.S. District Judge Lance Africk rejected the notion that the cases would deter officers in the future from staying after a storm to protect the public. When Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005, many officers fled the city, leaving the police department with depleted forces. The National Guard was eventually dispatched to help prevent looting and control much of the city.

Warren said he thought Glover had a gun and posed a threat when he shot him outside a police substation at a strip mall. The judge called his testimony absurd.

"Henry Glover was not at the strip mall to commit suicide. He was there to retrieve some baby clothing," Africk said. "You killed a man. Despite your tendentious arguments to the contrary, it was no mistake."

Prosecutors said Glover wasn't armed when Warren shot him in the back. A good Samaritan drove Glover's body to a police compound at a school. McRae commandeered the vehicle and set it on fire nearby.

"Your conduct was barbaric," Africk told McRae. "The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina was made uglier by your disturbing actions. ... At a time when more was expected of you, you failed miserably."

Lawyers for the men argued they deserved some leniency, partly because of the horrific conditions and chaos following the hurricane.

"I'm not saying what Mr. McRae did was right," said his attorney, Frank DeSalvo. "It was foolish (but) there's no way he anticipated the pain and suffering it would cause another man's family."

McRae could have received 50 years and Warren faced up to life in prison. Both faced mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years in prison.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said the judge's sentences fell within the guidelines, but he couldn't elaborate. Africk also ordered Warren to pay Glover's family $7,642 for funeral expenses.

Edna Glover, Henry's mother, said after the hearing that she was satisfied with the punishments.

"I forgive these men because if I don't forgive them Jesus won't forgive me," she told the judge.

Rebecca Glover, Henry's aunt, said she had expected Warren and McRae to get stiffer sentences.

"It's a joke and I'm very, very upset about it," she said.

Warren and his attorney declined to address the judge before sentencing. Turning to face the courtroom gallery, McRae apologized to Glover and Warren's families.

"I never intended to impede justice, obstruct justice," he said.

Warren, 48, told jurors at the trial late last year that he opened fire because he feared for his life. Warren was guarding a police substation at the strip mall when he said Glover and a friend pulled up in a stolen truck and started running toward a gate that would have given them access to the building.

Warren testified that the men ignored his commands to stop and that he thought he saw a gun in Glover's hand before he fired one shot at him from a second-floor balcony.

His partner that day, Officer Linda Howard, testified Glover and Calloway weren't armed and didn't pose a threat.

Trial testimony showed that Glover and his friend were driving a truck stolen from a nearby business and had gone to the mall to retrieve a looted suitcase, but prosecutors said they were using the stolen items out of desperation so they could evacuate.

"Henry Glover was gunned down because you believed he was a looter," Africk told Warren.

McRae, 49, admitted he drove Glover's body from the makeshift police compound to a nearby Mississippi River levee in the good Samaritan's car and set it on fire. McRae said he burned the vehicle because he was weary of seeing rotting corpses after the storm. Another officer, however, testified he saw McRae laughing after he set the fire.

Jurors also convicted former Lt. Travis McCabe of writing a false report on the shooting. His sentencing has been postponed while his lawyers seek a new trial based on what they say is newly discovered evidence.

The jury cleared Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann of charges he burned Glover's body and beat one of the men who brought the dying Glover to the police compound in search of help after the Sept. 2, 2005, shooting. Robert Italiano, a retired police lieutenant, was acquitted of charges he submitted a false report on the shooting and lied to the FBI.

A total of 20 current or former New Orleans police officers were charged last year in a series of Justice Department civil rights investigations. The probe of Glover's death was the first of those cases to be tried.

Next week, two officers are scheduled to be tried on charges stemming from the July 2005 beating death of a 48-year-old man. And a trial is scheduled to start in June for five current or former officers charged in deadly bridge shootings and an alleged plot to make the shootings appear justified.

Police shot and killed two people and wounded four others on the Danziger Bridge less than a week after Katrina. Five other former officers already have pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up of the shootings. One received eight years in prison and the other three.

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March 31, 2011 06:32 PM EDT

PRico sees increase in blacks, American Indians

By DANICA COTO

The Associated Press

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The number of Puerto Ricans identifying themselves solely as black or American Indian jumped about 50 percent in the last decade, according to new census figures that have surprised experts and islanders alike.

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The increase suggests a sense of racial identity may be growing among the various ethnic groups that have long been viewed as a blurred racial mosaic on the U.S. territory, although experts say it is too soon to say what caused the shift.

"It truly breaks with a historic pattern," said Jorge Duany, an anthropology professor at the University of Puerto Rico.

The growth in those calling themselves black or American Indian reduced the population share of Puerto Ricans who identify themselves solely as white. That group dropped nearly 8 percentage points to about 76 percent of the island's 3.7 million people.

More than 461,000 islanders identified themselves solely as black, a 52 percent increase, while nearly 20,000 said they were solely American Indian, an almost 49 percent increase.

Experts said several factors could have influenced the rise in the number of people who identify themselves as black.

Duany said the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president might have influenced some to call themselves black as the high-profile leader dispelled negative stereotypes about their race.

The jump in numbers of blacks also coincided with a push to highlight Puerto Rico's black population, with the Department of Education offering for the first time a high school book that deals solely with their history.

In addition, there was a grassroots effort to target dark-skinned Puerto Ricans through social media websites including Facebook that urged them to identify themselves as "Afro-Puerto Rican" in the 2010 census.

It was an option that appealed to Barbara Abadia-Rexach, a 30-year-old sociology and anthropology professor at the University of Puerto Rico.

On the 2000 census form, she and several relatives had reluctantly identified themselves as black or African-American.

"I don't identify with that although we are black Puerto Ricans," she said. "But it is a formal structure, and we have to live with it."

The island's population is a fusion of races where phrases such as "coffee with milk" abound to identify various varieties of skin color.

"There is no authentic or pure race," Abadia-Rexach said. "We are all mixed."

Puerto Ricans are known as "boricuas," a name derived from the Taino Indian word for the island's indigenous people who were colonized by the Spaniards.

One possible reason for the increase in Puerto Ricans who identify themselves as American Indian is that the U.S. Census Bureau allowed responders to write down their tribe.

That was enough to get Naniki Reyes Ocasio to check the American Indian designation.

In previous censuses, the 63-year-old member of the United Confederation of Taino People refrained from picking that category. She didn't identify with being an American Indian since it did not include the word "Caribbean" in its description.

With the change, she traveled around with other Taino confederation members to show people how to complete the form and teach them about the new option.

"We can rewrite ourselves within history," she said. "I used to check 'Other' because there was nowhere else I could place myself."

___

March 31, 2011 06:31 PM EDT

Obama's Exceptionalism

By ROGER COHEN

Published: March 31, 2011

LONDON — Near Carthage, in Tunisia, there’s an American cemetery where 2,841 military dead rest, victims of the North African campaign in World War II. Among them is a young man from Stillwater, Minnesota, named Robert Lund. He was 25 when he was killed on March 29, 1943. A long time ago, I would sit on a porch in the pretty town of Stillwater and wonder at the gale that could lift a young man from the middle of a placid continent to death on a faraway shore.

America is a restless nation. It was built by taking in the people of the world and so it cannot turn its back on the world. Decades after he was killed, Lund’s death still haunted the family of my first wife. With the return of the resonant datelines of the “Desert War” against Hitler — Tobruk, Benghazi, Tripoli — and the return of U.S. forces to Libya, I’ve been thinking about Lund and American power.

The limits of that power confronted President Barack Obama. He was always a realist onto whom idealism was thrust. He adheres, by instinct and experience, to the middle ground. Taking office in a nation drained by war, he found arguments aplenty to bolster his inclination for ending conflicts.

American exceptionalism — the notion of the United States as a transformative moral beacon to the world — made him uneasy. Atlanticism, the fruit of the war that took Lund’s life, had little emotional hold on a man not yet 30 when the Cold War ended. The disappearing jobs of the home front were his domain.

And yet, and yet, this cautious president, who has been subtly talking down American power — with reason — has involved the nation in a new conflict in Libya, one in which his own defense secretary holds that the United States has no “vital interest.” He has joined a long line of U.S. leaders in discovering the moral imperative indivisible from the American idea.

There were many good reasons for staying out of Libya. A chief strength of the Arab Spring is that it was homegrown. The Levant’s suspicion of the West is bottomless. Obama needs no tutoring in colonialism. Its lessons were bred into him. But could he, the nation’s first African-American president, have sat passive as the forces of Muammar el-Qaddafi delivered a massacre in Benghazi on the North African shore?

Maybe there wouldn’t have been a massacre, just another modest Qaddafi bloodbath. Qaddafi is not Hitler, not even Saddam. But his nature is murderous. And so I say Obama was right to draw a line in the Libyan sand.

I was against a Libyan no-fly zone, having seen its uselessness in Bosnia. My condition for going in was ruthlessness. The one unforgivable thing would have been to involve America in looking virtuous from the sky. I think Obama has met, with bombs, that initial standard; and done so with a strong United Nations mandate reflecting his diplomacy of repair these past years. (The U.N., as its former Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld noted, “Was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell.”)

But now what? There was an Allied offensive during the North African campaign called “Operation Brevity.” It had mixed results, but I’d borrow the name. Speed in ousting Qaddafi, the objective from which Western leaders cannot retreat, is essential. We all know what happens if this Mad Max war festers: The coalition fractures, jihadists seep into a failed state of porous borders, mission creep begins.

Qaddafi can go three ways: through military defeat, the least likely given the chaotic rebel traffic-jam on the coastal highway; through a negotiated departure, a long shot despite Turkey’s efforts; or though his inner circle deserting him, the most promising avenue.

Moussa Koussa, the foreign minister, has just fled to London. He’s the biggest prize yet from an intense U.S. and British effort to turn top aides. “We’re doing a ton in that regard, golden parachutes etc.,” one person involved told me.

The tone of the Qaddafi entourage keeps changing: first panicked, then ebullient tirades, now plaintiff. That’s encouraging. Do whatever it takes. This regime reeks of ricketiness. Talks with Libya in recent years mean top Western officials have relations with the core people who must, like Koussa, be turned. Abdullah Al-Sanousi is one prime target.

Obama, having embraced in extremis the radical idea that “the United States of America is different,” having taken a shot at nations that “may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries” (the rising powers — Brazil, Russia, India, China — all abstained on the Libya vote) must now deliver on his honed interpretation of American exceptionalism.

As it happens, his deputy national security adviser, Denis McDonough, is also from Stillwater. That’s a coincidence, but a link exists: The United States is strongest when it aligns its values and interests and is not itself when it turns its back on the meaning of Lund’s sacrifice. Americans understand that. Which is why the moral imperative is not only indivisible from the American idea, it’s indivisible from re-election.

You can follow Roger Cohen on Twitter at twitter.com/nytimescohen .

Obama strikes the right note

From the crucible of the Arab Awakening, U.S. President Barack Obama is forging an “Obama doctrine” guiding the use of American military power in a troubled world. It’s no easy sell. Some regard his intervention in Libya’s civil war as opportunistic, driven more by pragmatism than principle. Others fault him for getting too deeply involved, or too little. It’s all a bit harsh.

While Obama undeniably is a pragmatist, he appears to have been guided by more than mererealpolitik in taking on Moammar Gadhafi’s war machine. The markers Obama laid down in his national address this week is proof of that. If a new U.S. doctrine is taking shape, it is one the wider world can buy into. That matters to Canadians, now that our own Lt.-Gen. Charles Bouchard commands the allied campaign.

Off the top, Obama prudently acknowledged that “America cannot use our military wherever repression occurs.” At the same time he said he “refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.” He doesn’t want another Rwanda on his watch.

In truth, Gadhafi could not be ignored. He was gearing up to inflict “violence on a horrific scale,” as Obama pointed out. Moreover, the U.S. had “a unique ability” to avert a slaughter, even without putting troops on the ground. The UN Security Council, dusting off its own responsibility-to-protect doctrine, provided “an international mandate” to protect civilians, though not to force regime change. The U.S., while leading the attack, was backed up by a “broad coalition” including France, Britain and Canada. Libya’s natural Arab allies were onside. Libyans themselves issued a “plea for help.”

Collectively, these criteria fulfill many of the conditions for a “just war,” as understood by philosophers through the ages. The U.S. was acting in a just cause to prevent a worse evil, under a lawful mandate, as a last resort, with probability of success.

This approach differs sharply from that of George W. Bush, whose national security strategy was unapologetically unilateralist, UN-indifferent, and aggressively pre-emptive. Ultimately it led to the U.S. invasion in Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein on the bogus pretext that he had weapons of mass destruction, without a lawful UN mandate and without the support of Canada and some other close allies. It was a fiasco from which the U.S. has yet to fully recover. And unlike Bill Clinton, who turned a blind eye to Rwanda’s genocide, Obama could not bring himself to look the other way.

Having sketched out his approach to using military force, Obama still faces tough decisions in Libya and elsewhere. Should the U.S. recognize the rebels? Arm them? What if Gadhafi hangs on? Will Obama let Libyans fight it out, come what may? And is the U.S. prepared to act if another despot – in Yemen, Sudan, Ivory Coast, Syria — threatens mass slaughter? There are no easy answers.

Even so, Obama is on firm ground acting on a strong UN mandate, in a good cause, and forging a multilateral coalition that is willing to share the burden. If the “Obama doctrine” is a work in progress, it is tilting in the right direction.

Shooting an Elephant: Why GoDaddy's CEO Was Wrong

Posted by Bryan Walsh Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 6:36 pm

We all shoot vacation videos, but most of us choose to keep them to ourselves — or, at worst, share them with our Facebook friends. Bob Parsons, CEO of the Internet-hosting firm GoDaddy.com, which you know from its lame Super Bowl ads and absolutely nothing else — likes bigger exposure. Parsons recently posted a video of his trip to Zimbabwe, where he shot an elephant. See below:

Now, there are so many things wrong with this video that it's hard to know where to start. First: Is it really appropriate to score a scene of hungry villagers tearing apart a dead elephant to the tune of AC/DC's "Hells Bells"? And I can't be the only one who found it creepy that Parsons outfitted nearly everyone in the area with bright orange GoDaddy baseball caps. Not to mention the fact that this all took place in Zimbabwe, a broken country oppressed by the tyrannical Robert Mugabe, where 64% of the population lives under the poverty line and nearly 100% live in fear. This is one step up from taking a spring break in North Korea.
(More on TIME.com: See pictures of 10 species near extinction.)
But of course the biggest criticism comes from animal-rights advocates who view Parsons' video — which shows him shooting and killing an elephant, then standing proudly over its corpse — as, well, showing poor taste. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) singled out Parsons for particular abuse:

I am writing to present you with PETA's first-ever scummiest CEO of the year award (your certificate is on the way). You deserve the award for your egregious disregard for the life of the elephant you shot and killed for your personal enjoyment. Such behavior only shows a poverty of understanding and a deep insecurity, perhaps in your own masculinity. Nonlethal methods are available to protect crops from elephants left hungry because of their disappearing habitat.

Parsons defended himself on his blog, arguing that his target was a "problem elephant" that had been destroying the crops of a nearby village:

I stand by my decision to help African villagers. I believe elephant management is beneficial. I have the support of the people who really matter in this situation, the families of Zimbabwe — people who need help to survive. I have the support of tribal leaders and the government.

Parsons isn't totally wrong — there is such a thing as "problem elephants," and human-elephant conflict is a real issue that needs to be dealt with in parts of Africa. From the World Wildlife Fund (WWF):

Not only are elephants being squeezed into smaller and smaller areas, but farmers plant crops that elephants like to eat. As a result, elephants frequently raid and destroy crops. They can be very dangerous too.
While many people in the West regard elephants with affection and admiration, the animals often inspire fear and anger in those who share their land.
Elephants eat up to 450kg of food per day. They are messy eaters, uprooting and scattering as much as is eaten. A single elephant makes light work of a hectare of crops in a very short time.

But that doesn't mean the best way to deal with this conflict is for rich foreigners like Parsons to make like Hemingway. There are sensible, nonlethal solutions, including using chili- or tobacco-based deterrents to keep elephants out of farmers' fields, or the simple method of growing crops that elephants don't like. WWF has more in this issue brief.
(More on TIME.com: See how to save the world's endangered species.)
It's worth remembering that people bear at least as much responsibility as elephants do for any conflict, as the continuing growth of the human population puts more and more pressure on elephants. The African elephant is hardly thriving — the International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists it as vulnerable. It's been a long time since shooting an elephant could be considered fashionable.

Concerns over economics and social justice as black people 'fall further behind whites'

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Black people are faring slightly worse than whites in the U.S. compared to last year - with economics and social justice being the main sources of concern, a report says.

The National Urban League says the drop is down to a decline in its economics index driven by housing and wealth - and a fall in the health index driven by children's health.

The 101-year-old civil rights group is concerned about growing gaps in loan access, wealth and children's health for black people compared to whites.

Gap: Black people are faring slightly worse than whites in the U.S. on 2010, with main concerns over loan access, wealth and children's health (file picture)

The 2011 Equality Index is 71.5 per cent, down from last year’s revised figure of 72.1 per cent, according to the group’s annual report, The State of Black America.

An equality index of less than 100 per cent suggests black people are doing worse than whites. Economics is at 56.9 per cent and social justice comes in at 58 per cent.

More...

The polarised race map of America: Census shows Midwest emptying out as growing minority groups cluster on opposite sides of the country

But the health index is at 75 per cent and education rates 78.9 per cent, with the report suggesting African-Americans are at a crossroads following progress since 1964.

Researchers have seen growing equality in rates of unemployment, uninsured and incarceration - as well the prisoners to arrests ratio, since the index launched in 2005.

The index has shown growing inequality in poverty, school enrolment, educational attainment and home ownership, but median household income has not changed.

Diagram 1: This graph shows the Equality Index in 2010 (revised figure) and 2011

Diagram 2: This graph compares different index measurements in 2005 and 2011

The group is also concerned about states trying to improperly attempt to stem the political clout of African-Americans as they move into historically white districts.

City mayors such as New York and Detroit's have complained large pockets of their residents were missed in the 2010 census, which has concerned the group's leader.

‘We have to give consideration as to whether there is an undercount,’ Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, said.

‘We will be closely watching to see if there is an effort by states to dilute the impact of the black suburban vote.’

The report urges President Obama and Congress to increase federal aid for jobs in the nation's hardest-hit communities, which include many minority groups.

Working: The group is worried about growing gaps in children's health for blacks compared to whites, but education figures are better than the average index

EQUALITY INDEX: Key figures of how blacks compare to whites

Overall: 71.5 per cent
Economics: 56.9 per cent
Social justice: 58 per cent
Health index: 75 per cent
Education: 78.9 per cent

The index in 2010 measured Hispanics for the first time - and the 2011 index finds them faring better than last year in the U.S., at 76.8 per cent compared to 76.6 per cent.

This rise was down to better health and social justice - but it was offset by falls in economics and education, with concerns over loan access and college enrollment.

Latest census figures show the African-Americans population increased over the last decade to 37.7 million and is the third largest racial and ethnic group in the U.S.

Study: Recession Hit Working-Class And Black Families The Hardest

Working class and African Americans families suffered disproportionately in the Great Recession, says a new study by economists at the progressive-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

According to the report, the distribution of wealth in America after the official end of the recession in 2009 was the most unequal it's ever been. The wealthiest 1 percent of U.S. households claimed a net worth that was 225 times greater than that of the median household, which fell to $62,000 in 2009 from $71,900 in 1983 (in 2009 dollars). The wealth of the richest one percent of households, meanwhile, doubled over that 26-year period.

During the recession, which officially lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, EPI estimates that the richest fifth of Americans lost 16 percent of their wealth, compared with a 25 percent decline in net worth for the bottom four-fifths of U.S. households. At the end of 2009, the wealthiest fifth of Americans held 87.2 percent of the country's total wealth -- up 2.2 percentage points from 2007 due to larger drops in wealth by those at the bottom.

"The recovery has proceeded on two tracks," the report says. "[O]ne for typical families and workers, who continue to struggle against high rates of unemployment and continued foreclosures, and another track for the investor class and the wealthy, who have enjoyed significant gains in the stock market and benefited from record corporate profits."

For African Americans, the damage was significantly worse: while a quarter of U.S. households held zero or negative net worth at the end of the recession, approximately 40 percent of black households landed in that category. The study found that the median net worth of black households was only $2,200 in 2009--the lowest in history--compared to a $97,900 median for white households. And average black wealth declined by 37 percent from 2007 to 2009, while white wealth declined by 28 percent during the same period.

Josh Bivens, an EPI economist, said the fact that lower-income Americans and black households hold a majority of their wealth in the form of housing accounts for the disparity.

"Housing wealth is more equally distributed than other kinds of wealth, like stock market wealth, and this recession was accompanied by a massive burst in housing prices," he said, "so it hit families the hardest who had a higher proportion of their in wealth in housing. Wealthier families were able to recover as the stock market clawed its way back in 2009, but the housing prices are continuing to fall."

That helps explain why the 400 richest people in America collectively possess a greater net worththan the poorest 50 percent of all households combined.

The wealth gap is likely to widen in the next few years as housing prices continue to fall, Bivens said, and lawmakers should consider the larger ramifications of the crisis as they debate cutting programs like Social Security.

"We have this cohort of Baby Boomers about to retire who just had their predominant form of wealth erased, and we're gonna talk about cutting Social Security?" he said. "You can't have that policy discussion and not talk about what the bursting housing bubble has done to hurt near-retirees."

A household's wealth is measured by the difference between its total assets, such as bank accounts, real estate, stock holdings, and its total liabilities, such as mortgages and credit card debts.

Click here to read full report.