Plight of recent murder victims spurs Peoria pastor into action PEORIA - What struck the Rev. Tim Criss hardest about the eight women Larry Bright killed over 15 months was the similarities of their problems. As police began to discover women's bodies dumped or buried by Bright in 2003 and 2004, one of the first links was that most of them led lives of prostitution. That's not what Criss found so striking. "We did some research with the family and once we got a chance to know some of them, we found out that with many of the ladies, their common denominator was not prostitution. Prostitution was a means to which they were able to finance their drug addiction. That was the key issue," he said. [continues 457 words]
Drug War Has Been Harder On Blacks, Says Clarence Page Twenty years have passed since the cocaine-induced death of basketball wizard Len Bias touched off a war on drugs. His legacy, in the odd way that politics play out, is harsher penalties for crack cocaine, which is not quite the same drug that Mr. Bias used. On June 19, 1986, two nights after the Boston Celtics selected him as the No. 2 pick in the NBA draft, Mr. Bias died of a cocaine overdose. He was 22 and appeared to be destined for greatness. [continues 670 words]
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico -- Mexico's top three candidates for president agree on several things, but their biggest rhetorical overlap could be on the need to combat the drug traffickers who in recent years have turned this city into a battleground. Similar ideas for restoring order are in the platforms of candidates Felipe Calderon of the National Action Party, or PAN, and Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Both call for the creation of a unified federal police force and a central intelligence-sharing clearinghouse. [continues 681 words]
Vancouver's not the only city fighting street crime. We can learn from other Canadian cities: Winnipeg's West End is a modern-day Wild West. The inner-city area's struggled with drugs and gangs, while the city itself is the murder and gang capital of Canada, with the highest per-capita homicide rate (nearly five per 100,000) of nine major cities, 2004 Statistics Canada data shows. In October 2005, a tragic death shocked citizens into demanding change. A 17-year-old bystander was caught in a shoot-out between the Mad Cowz and African Mafia gangs fighting for crack territory. In response, police launched Operation Clean Sweep and from November 2005 to March 2006, made 658 arrests, seized 68 weapons and mounds of drugs. The effort got the University of Winnipeg thinking. [continues 122 words]
Mine is an Apple PowerBook laptop computer, company issue, a sleek and elegant writing machine in metallic silver. In the wrong hands -- smash-and-grab hands -- such a thing is worth a few days of cocaine rapture or crystal-meth oblivion. Last Friday, I left my laptop on the front seat of my car, in its case, on an inner-city street. This week, I learned just how lucky I was. Edmonton Police Chief Mike Boyd invited people from government, business and the media to participate in a day-long community crime congress on an issue, theft from autos, that at first blush seems beneath contemplation. [continues 661 words]
New U.S. Attorney Erik Peterson knew the question was coming, but laughed and plunged into an answer. Yes, he's in a rock band with two other prosecutors. But no, he's not quitting his day job. Peterson, 36, who is settling into his first weeks as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin after 7 years as Iowa County's district attorney, moonlights as the drummer for a '70s and '80s cover band called Alibi, which he said plays a lot of benefit gigs. His band mates include Brad Schimel, assistant district attorney in Waukesha County, and Randy Schneider, assistant district attorney in Racine County. Their lead singer is Heather Zander, community development director for the city of Brillion. [continues 995 words]
Marijuana, an illegal drug, enjoys a peculiar status in British Columbia, where its consumption is regarded as relatively harmless, even socially acceptable. But a new report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime should shock us out of our sense of complacency over its potential hazards. According to Antonio Maria Costa, head of the Vienna-based agency, "the harmful characteristics of cannabis are no longer that different from those of other plant-based drugs such as cocaine and heroin." [continues 146 words]
Perspective/ Harm Reduction Rather than focus on the whipping that Congressional Democrats took on the pro-war resolution in Washington, let us go instead upstate to Albany and look at a Democrat who fought back when set upon by the right-wing attack dogs. David Soares, the Albany district attorney, attracted attention when he became the first law enforcement official in decades to win an election by charging that his opponent was too tough on crime. He ran against the Rockefeller drug laws. The incumbent, an old-line Albany Democrat, Paul Clyne, had a reputation as a tough DA. But he lost in the primary to a coalition of blacks, gays, reformers, and the Working Families Party. At 35, Soares, a former junior member of the DA's office, was given no chance of winning, but he carried the primary with a whooping 62 percent of the vote. [continues 924 words]
