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Blog and Media roundup-Saturday, Feb.14,2009; News Roundup
Topic Started: Feb 14 2009, 07:52 AM (257 Views)
~J~ is in Wonderland
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~J~ is in Wonderland
http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-1097050.cfm?

City seeks tenant bus site that it's vacating


DURHAM -- City Manager Tom Bonfield wants his staff to find a tenant for the Durham Area Transit Authority's existing transfer point on the downtown loop instead of letting it go vacant once a new bus station opens on Feb. 23.

Bonfield has asked the police department to consider basing some downtown patrol officers at the facility, and asked the Parks and Recreation Department whether it'd be interested in moving a piece of the station to another site.

The manager said he's worried the old transfer point will become a magnet for vandals and vagrants once DATA shifts operations to the new Durham Station a few yards away on West Chapel Hill Street.

"I don't think it's a good idea for either the pavilion or the stand to stay empty," he said," adding that he's asked "a lot of people" for opinions about the facility's proper use.

Those queries included one to Downtown Durham Inc., whose leader responded by noting that the long-term fate of the transfer point is tied to whatever city leaders eventually decide to do about the downtown loop.

Engineers are studying the loop's future and are scheduled to report their preliminary findings soon, said Bill Kalkhof, DDI's president.

His group and other downtown business interests favor reworking the loop to restore two-way traffic. The necessary street work would likely occupy at least part of the land around the transfer point.

Depending on how much of the site is left, the remainder could become parking, green space or maybe the site of a new building, Kalkhof said.

But for now, "we've always felt a good use would be [to help house] a police presence in the heart of downtown," he said Friday.

As for the possibility of the site's eventual redevelopment, Kalkhof in a Thursday e-mail urged Bonfield to get in touch with officials from Greenfire Development and the West Village partnership to see if they'd be interested in the property.

West Village is just to the west of the transfer point. Greenfire is interested in redeveloping the South Bank property across the loop to the east.

Asked why the city officials should contact only those developers, Kalkhof said the site's geography could limit the city's choices.

"The challenge is how big a parcel that's going to be once you use a fair portion for squaring off the loop," he said. "If it's a sizeable piece that warrants a singular new development, then it's appropriate that the city should do a [request for proposals]. If it's not, the best value for the taxpayer is going to be to roll it into either of those two developments."

Bonfield, however, said that if and when the day comes that the city parts with the site, it would likely solicit proposals from any interested developer.

He also noted that for now, "there's no money" to rework the loop.

The manager conceded that his interest in finding a short-term use for the site was a bit personal, as he lives nearby.

Looking at the transfer point, "I think, 'Hmm, now that the bus station is moving, I wonder if anyone's thinking about what's going to happen with it?' ' he said. "And so far as I can tell, it hadn't been thought about yet."
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~J~ is in Wonderland
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~J~ is in Wonderland
http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-1096981.cfm


Duke 'Gotcha Patrols' aim to thwart thieves


An employee at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business reported the theft of a cloth bag and two library books from an office cubicle on Monday.

The same day, another employee at Duke South Clinics reported the theft of a laptop from his unlocked office.

Also on that day, a student at Perkins Library told campus police that he left his iPod with earphones in the library and when he returned, the items were gone.

In a perfect world, students and employees on college campuses could leave their belongings unattended without worrying about them being stolen.

But the world is far from perfect, and items left unattended frequently turn up missing.

The folks who reported the above thefts no doubt wish now that they had taken greater care to lock up or not leave their valuables in place where they could be swiped. But in the absence of having done so, they probably would have preferred an "at risk" comment card from Duke police officers conducting surprise inspection for the campus police's "Gotcha" program.

The program, which began in 2007 at the university in an effort to curb thefts, has recently been expanded to include Duke Hospital North. The idea is to get people to change their behavior and pay more attention to where they put their belongings.

"Gotcha Patrols" walk around public spaces at the university and when they spot unattended valuables, they leave comment cards letting the owner know that their items could have been easily taken.

Maj. Gloria Graham, a spokeswoman for Duke Police, said that extending the patrols to the Medical Center was not so much a response to an increase in thefts. She said it was simply a good idea because it was working well in other large public spaces such as the Bryan Center and Perkins Library.

"The medical center is a pretty big public place," Graham said. "The light bulb went off one day and we said we should be doing it over there as well."

Graham said "Gotcha" worked wonders on the first floor on which it was implemented.

"On the first floor we piloted, we started doing inspections and saw theft completely erased in that area," Graham said.

In a news release, Duke reported 487 larcenies in 2007 and 607 in 2008 -- an increase of roughly 25 percent.

Graham said theft is one of the biggest problems campus police face at Duke and elsewhere because of all of the expensive electronic devises students bring to school. She said iPods, laptops and GPS devices are among the items that are frequently stolen.

"We always struggle with theft," Graham said. "We put so many of our efforts in to property crimes."

Brad Schlitz, a Duke Police security manager who oversees security at the medical center, said in a news release that one way students and staff can prevent thefts is to simply become more protective of personal property. He also suggested that employees limit the items they bring to work to a driver's license, keys and pocket money.

Duke officials also want staff and students to take advantage of the Campus Police Department's free engraving services because an engraving makes it easier to return stolen items to the owner. Having the serial number of expensive items is also helpful, officials said.

"If it's recorded, we can not only return your item to you, we can hold the person who has it accountable," Graham said.
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~J~ is in Wonderland
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~J~ is in Wonderland
http://www.newsobserver.com/917/story/1405570.html

Blackwater is now Xe. Just Xe.
Blackwater rebrands itself



The era of Blackwater is over.

The Eastern North Carolina-based private security company had exemplified the problems of using private soldiers in combat zones. Now, after losing its contract to guard U.S. diplomats in Iraq, it is changing its name.

Company officials announced Friday that the group of businesses formerly called Blackwater Worldwide will now be known as "Xe," pronounced like the letter Z.

The company provided no information on how it chose the name.

The attempt to rebrand itself comes as six former employees face manslaughter charges for a shooting that killed 17 civilians in Baghdad. The company has also faced intense scrutiny since four of its employees were massacred and two of them hung from a bridge in Fallujah in 2004.

In January, the Iraqi government denied Blackwater a license to operate there, and its workers are expected to leave the country this spring.

Company spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the new name reflects a new focus.

After earning more than $1 billion in federal contracts from the Bush administration, mostly for providing security to U.S. diplomats in Iraq, she said the company will no longer pursue new security contracts. She said it will now work mostly on training law enforcement officers and military troops in such areas as weapons handling and hostage rescue.

"This company will continue to provide personnel protective services for high-threat environments when needed by the U.S. government," Blackwater president Gary Jackson said in a memo to employees, "but its primary mission will be operating our training facilities around the world, including the flagship campus in North Carolina."

The company runs what is believed to be the world's largest privately owned firearms training facility. Its headquarters is in the northeastern North Carolina town of Moyock, and it has smaller sites in Illinois and San Diego.

Aside from its Iraq work, the company also guards U.S. diplomats in Afghanistan. However, some members of Congress -- including Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- have called for the company to be fired.

Blackwater's chief executive, Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL, founded the company in 1997 in a remote, swampy area of the state. It operated in relative obscurity until the Fallujah massacre in 2004. Images of the ambush were flashed around the world after a mob dragged the bodies of the contractors through the streets and hung two charred corpses from a bridge.

The incident set off a battle that left 36 U.S. military members and 600 Iraqi civilians dead. A congressional inquiry found that the for-profit company used unarmored vehicles to save money and cut essential personnel from the mission.

'So corrupt'

Kathryn Helvenston-Wettengel, whose son Scott Helvenston was one of the Blackwater employees killed in the massacre, said Friday that the name change made sense.

"I'm not surprised at all," she said "They've become so corrupt, I don't think they could get a contract under Blackwater's name. So, good luck."

Hers is among four families suing Blackwater, alleging that the company failed to provide armored vehicles, machine guns, proper maps or the full complement of six guards outlined in the company's contract.

In addition to that incident, Blackwater has been involved in nearly 200 shooting incidents in Iraq. In 2007, company contractors were accused of killing 17 innocent civilians in Baghdad. Six former employees have been charged with manslaughter.

Iraqi officials said that record of violence was behind their decision last month to deny Blackwater's permit.

Tyrrell, the company spokeswoman, said the name change has been part of a gradual process of redefining the company.

"Of course, the past is a factor in all decisions made by the company," she said. "We're changing the name because we're taking the company to a place where we think it is no longer described by the name Blackwater."
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genny6348
Genny6348
'Public Interest' Lawyers Say Leave the Homeless to Rot

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky in the news:

Quote:
 
The dean of California's newest law school is suing this seaside community over its treatment of the homeless. The suit should serve as a warning to the business establishment of Orange County, Calif., -- which has poured over $24 million into the still-unopened University of California, Irvine law school -- that it is creating a litigation monster that will endanger the county's fabled quality of life.

The law school will open its doors this fall. Part of its core mission is to train students in "public interest" law (or what its press materials now refer to as "instilling public service values"). The term "public interest" law is a masterstroke of misrepresentation, since its practitioners usually subvert the broad public interest, arrived at democratically, in favor of judge-created rights conferred on favored victim groups. The aim is judicially mandated government social services, strict new environmental regulations, and compromised public safety.

This dispute is a perfect example. Two days before Christmas last year, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the law firm of Irell & Manella filed a complaint in federal court charging Laguna Beach police and city officials with a deliberate campaign of abuse against the homeless. Shrill, occasionally ungrammatical, and devoid of factual support for its sweeping accusations, the complaint could only have been written by someone who hasn't observed this city's police-homeless interactions, or who is blinded by ideology.
Edited by genny6348, Feb 14 2009, 11:11 AM.
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abb
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http://www.newsobserver.com/news/orange/story/1405779.html


Published: Feb 14, 2009 10:25 AM
Modified: Feb 14, 2009 10:24 AM
Demario Atwater is charged with the murder of UNC student body president Eve Carson.
N&O file photo

Details of Eve Carson shooting revealed
By Anne Blythe, Staff Writer Comment on this story
GREENSBORO — Demario Atwater, one of two suspects charged with murdering Eve Carson, stepped closely up to the UNC-Chapel Hill student body president after she had been struck by four small-caliber bullets and fired a shotgun blast through her hand and into her brain, federal prosecutors revealed in court documents filed late Friday.

The details are included in the federal prosecutors' notice of their plans to seek the death penalty in their federal carjacking and kidnnapping case against the 22-year-old suspect.

Atwater, 22, also has been charged with first-degree murder in state courts, and Orange County District Attorney Jim Woodall is likewise seeking the death penalty in that case.

Laurence Alvin Lovette, 18, also is charged with first--degree murder in the case. Because of his age, he does not face the death penalty; he was 17 in March 2008, when Carson was found shot to death in Chapel Hill, about a mile from the UNC campus.

In their document Friday, prosecutors accused Atwater of enlisting the aid of a juvenile in committing the crimes they have charged, but Lovette was not named. They also accused Atwater of dismantling and disposing the weapons used in the incident.

Federal prosecutors brought charges against Atwater in October, nearly six months after the state charges. They have have accused him of carjacking, weapons and kidnapping charges that could bring the death penalty if done in the commission of a homicide.

In mid-January, several days before the transfer of presidential power, Michael B. Mukasey, the outgoing U.S. attorney general, issued his decision to seek the death penalty in the federal charges against Atwater. Later last month, a federal grand jury indicted Atwater on the federal kidnapping charge, claiming he used automated teller machines, telephones and interstate and public roads in the commission of the offense.

The grand jury’s revised indictment, entered in federal court on Jan. 30, also lists some of the aggravating factors that prosecutors plan to use in their push for the death penalty. The homicide was committed in such an “especially heinous, cruel and depraved manner” that it “involved torture and serious physical abuse to the victim.,” the indictment says.

The document filed Friday mentions the torture, but does not elaborate. Investigators have said that Atwater and Lovette kidnapped Carson early in the morning of March 5 and forced her to withdraw $1,400 from automated teller machines before they shot her with a .25-caliber handgun and a sawed-off shotgun.

Atwater is in federal custody, but no decision has been made on whether the state or federal case would be tried first.
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mike in houston
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Lawyer gives inside look at Duke lacrosse case

By Jim McNally | Statesville R&L
Published: February 14, 2009

In 2006, the so-called Duke lacrosse rape case seemed poised to be the spark of a class uprising in Durham and throughout North Carolina.

While calling it the case of the century may have been a reach, there were few people in the state and nation who were not familiar with at least the bare bones of the case.

On Friday afternoon, about 50 area lawyers — including a few prosecutors and judges — learned some of the more profound details of the case from an attorney who represented one of the three Duke University students who were accused of raping a Durham exotic dancer, Crystal Gail Mangum, in March 2006.

Jim Cooney, who now travels the country giving his two-hour seminar on the case, was in Statesville at the request of Valerie Chambers, membership coordinator of the Greater Statesville Chamber of Commerce.

Chambers said she had passing familiarity with the case and, after a conversation with a Statesville attorney, tracked down Cooney and persuaded him to bring his seminar to Iredell County.

Cooney calls his presentation, "The Anatomy of a Hoax" and goes through a very intricate but understandable outline of how Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong ignored some evidence, attempted to suppress other evidence and ignored obvious streams of investigation.

snip

http://www2.statesville.com/content/2009/feb/14/lawyer-gives-inside-look-duke-lacrosse-case/news-local/
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Lodge Pro 345
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mike in houston
Feb 14 2009, 03:58 PM
Lawyer gives inside look at Duke lacrosse case

By Jim McNally | Statesville R&L
Published: February 14, 2009

In 2006, the so-called Duke lacrosse rape case seemed poised to be the spark of a class uprising in Durham and throughout North Carolina.

While calling it the case of the century may have been a reach, there were few people in the state and nation who were not familiar with at least the bare bones of the case.

On Friday afternoon, about 50 area lawyers — including a few prosecutors and judges — learned some of the more profound details of the case from an attorney who represented one of the three Duke University students who were accused of raping a Durham exotic dancer, Crystal Gail Mangum, in March 2006.

Jim Cooney, who now travels the country giving his two-hour seminar on the case, was in Statesville at the request of Valerie Chambers, membership coordinator of the Greater Statesville Chamber of Commerce.

Chambers said she had passing familiarity with the case and, after a conversation with a Statesville attorney, tracked down Cooney and persuaded him to bring his seminar to Iredell County.

Cooney calls his presentation, "The Anatomy of a Hoax" and goes through a very intricate but understandable outline of how Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong ignored some evidence, attempted to suppress other evidence and ignored obvious streams of investigation.

snip

http://www2.statesville.com/content/2009/feb/14/lawyer-gives-inside-look-duke-lacrosse-case/news-local/
.
I love it!

MIKE IN HOUSTON - This needs its own thread!

Thanks!

:plan:
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Kerri P.
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http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/4539564/
Fire damages Duke students' apartments
Posted: Today at 1:38 p.m.
Updated: Today at 3:32 p.m.

Durham, N.C. — Fire damaged an apartment on Duke University’s Central Campus early Saturday. No one was inside at the time, and no injuries were reported, Duke police said.

A security officer on patrol heard a loud noise about 9:25 a.m. and noticed smoke coming from 2015 Yearby Ave., Apt. G, said Maj. Gloria Graham of Duke Police. The security officer contacted Duke police, who searched the apartment and found no one inside. They evacuated residents in adjoining apartments.

Durham firefighters put out the fire and contained it to the apartment. Two adjoining apartments had some smoke damage.

Preliminary findings show that an extension cord inside a bedroom caused the fire, Graham said.

The students who lived in the apartment will be relocated, and Duke officials will assist them in replacing their essential belongings, said Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs.
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Kerri P.
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http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/4540124/
CAT bus wrecks in downtown Raleigh
Posted: 18 minutes ago

Raleigh, N.C. — A Capital Area Transit bus was involved in a wreck Saturday afternoon on Capital Boulevard in downtown Raleigh.

Police say the CAT bus and other vehicle collided near the Greywood Drive intersection just before 4 p.m.

About 40 people were on the bus. One bus passenger suffered minor injuries.

Police say the driver of the vehicle was charged with failure to yield. The driver’s name was not released.
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