Cell phone technology aids search parties

(click image for video) By Andy Jenks - bio | email Posted by Terry Alexander – email CHESTERFIELD, VA (WWBT) – Investigators traced a signal from Ricky’s cell phone, which led search parties to the dark, wooded area where Ricky suffered fatal injuries. As July Fourth celebrations got underway Saturday – family and friends had little idea what had become of 31-year-old Ricky Viar. The popular motorcyclist and barber had seemingly disappeared two nights earlier. “Everybody loved Ricky. When Ricky didn’t show up for work Friday, that’s not like him,” said David Self, Ricky’s friend and former roommate. It wasn’t until authorities traced the signal from Ricky’s cell phone – that they made the final, sad discovery. Police are reluctant to talk about their tactics but private investigators like Emiel Fisher say using everyday technology to find people is not uncommon. “Parents use it for tracking their children. You can use it for tracking your employees to see if they’re where they’re should be,” said Fisher. Most cell phones often send out a signal whether they’re in use or not. In this case, it appears that Ricky’s phone was picked up by a tower near his apparent motorcycle crash that ended deep in a wooded area, not visible from the highway. Authorities traced the phone and pinpointed Ricky’s approximate location. Still, Fisher believes – investigators were fortunate. “If they’ve been missing and it rains, water has a definite negative effect on cell phones, so it kills the signal and you’re back to square one,” Fisher said. Fisher says the authorities’ use of the technology is subject to differing laws, depending on jurisdiction. Those who knew Ricky Viar – now come to terms, with reality. “I just know, he was an awesome guy and he’ll always be remembered around here, definitely,” David said. Investigators usually need court orders to trace cell phone signals, which Fisher says are often disabled only by taking out a card that’s located beneath the battery. Funeral arrangements for Ricky Viar are incomplete.

Obama won’t rule out releasing detainees in US

WASHINGTON (AP) — A White House spokesman says the Obama administration hasn’t decided whether or not to release Guantanamo Bay detainees in the United States.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama has made clear “we’re not going to make any decision about transfer or release that threatens the security of this country.”

Asked if that meant he was ruling out releasing any detainees in the United States, Gibbs said: “I’m not ruling it in or ruling it out.”

A tentative plan to release some Guantanamo detainees in the United States drew fierce opposition from Republicans and many Democrats in Congress, forcing the Obama administration to shelve the plan to bring some Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs to Virginia. The Uighur detainees at Guantanamo were found not to be enemy combatants by the Pentagon, but few nations have been willing to accept them, out of fear of angering China.

This past week, four of the 17 Uighurs being held at Guantanamo were sent to Bermuda, and the Pacific islands nation of Palau said it would accept others.

Gibbs told reporters progress has been made this week in the administration’s goal of closing the detention center in Cuba by early next year.

Seven detainees have been shipped out of Guantanamo so far this week.

First Guantanamo detainee brought to U.S.

By DEVLIN BARRETT Associated Press Writer, Published: June 9, 2009

WASHINGTON — U.S. authorities have brought the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to the United States, flying him into New York to face trial for bombing U.S. embassies, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the case, said Ahmed Ghailani arrived in the early morning hours Tuesday, to be held in U.S. law enforcement custody until his trial in federal court in lower Manhattan.

Ghailani’s trial will be an important test case for the Obama administration’s plan to close the detention center at Guantanamo in seven months and bring some of the suspects to trial.

Ghailani was indicted in 1998 for the al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attacks which killed more than 224 people.

U.S. officials charge Ghailani began his terrorist career on a bicycle delivering bomb parts and rose through the al-Qaida ranks to become a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden.

Ghailani, a Tanzanian, was in his twenties when prosecutors say he helped terrorists build one of the bombs that destroyed U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998.

He left Africa just before the bombings, according to investigators.

After the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings at U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Ghailani worked for al-Qaida as a document forger, trainer at a terror camp and bodyguard to bin Laden, according to military prosecutors.

He was categorized as a high-value detainee by U.S. authorities after he was captured in Pakistan in 2004 and was transferred to the detention center at the U.S. naval base in Cuba two years later.

Since his capture, Ghailani has denied knowing the TNT and oxygen tanks he delivered would be used to make a bomb. He also denied buying a vehicle used in one of the attacks, saying he could not drive.

Now, the Obama administration is trying to put him into the U.S. criminal justice system, despite claims by Republican critics that doing so would endanger American lives. Some lawmakers have opposed bringing any Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for trial, even in heavily guarded settings.

Last month, President Barack Obama said that preventing Ghailani from coming to U.S. soil “would prevent his trial and conviction. And after over a decade, it is time to finally see that justice is served, and that is what we intend to do.“

Relatives of those killed in the embassy attacks have supported the decision to bring Ghailani to the U.S. for trial. Many of those relatives say that since the 2001 terror attacks, the earlier victims of al-Qaida have been forgotten.

Yet the president faces pressure from across the political spectrum on his plan to close the detention center. Democrats have said they want to see the president’s plan for closing the base before approving money to finance it, and Republicans are fighting to keep Guantanamo open.

The decision to try Ghailani in New York also revives a long-dormant case charging bin Laden and top al-Qaida leadership with plotting the embassy attacks that killed more than 200 people and injured thousands, including many who were blinded by shards of flying glass. The attacks prompted then-President Bill Clinton to launch cruise missile attacks two weeks later on bin Laden’s Afghan camps.

Four other men have been tried and convicted in the New York courthouse for their roles in the embassy attacks. All were sentenced to life in prison.

——————————- MY RESPONSE ———————————–

Why, if he committed the crimes in Kenya and Tanzania are we trying him in the United States.  We could provide support and also let the FBI provide evidence and whatever else they may do, but a change of venue was not warranted.  The Justice Department will end up spending alot of time and money and end up losing the case.  His lawyers will make demands on the legal system that have nothing to do with his case and  tie up the courts for years.  This is a no brainer, he is fine where he is, let him rot.  Bringing the virus into the house is not the way to cure it.

Suspect in abortion doctor death warns of violence

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - The man charged with murdering a high-profile abortion doctor claimed from his jail cell that similar violence was planned around the nation for as long as the procedure remained legal, a threat that comes days after a federal investigation launched into his possible accomplices.

A Justice Department spokesman said the threat was being taken seriously and additional protection had been ordered for abortion clinics last week. But a leader of the anti-abortion movement derided the accused shooter as “a fruit and a lunatic.”

Scott Roeder called The Associated Press from the Sedgwick County jail, where he’s being held on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault in the shooting of Dr. George Tiller one week ago.

“I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal,” Roeder said. He would not elaborate.

Tiller’s clinic in Wichita was among only a few in the U.S. that perform third-trimester abortions. He was shot while serving as an usher at the Lutheran church he attended.

The Justice Department opened an investigation Friday to see if the gunman who killed Tiller had accomplices. The DOJ said its Civil Rights Division and the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas will investigate whether the killing violated a 1994 law creating criminal penalties for violent or damaging conduct toward abortion providers and their patients. 

An attorney for the Tiller family, Dan Monnat, said he wasn’t sure they should be dignifying Roeder’s actions and threats with a response “every time he makes a hare-brained phone call.”

“I am hopeful that state and federal authorities, including Homeland Security, will give Mr. Roeder and his information a deserving response,” Monnat said, declining to elaborate.

Nancy Keenan president of NARAL-Pro-Choice America, said Roeder’s comments “continue to escalate that kind of activity, that kind of violence. Quite honestly, I think it’s imperative for anti-choice groups to tone down that rhetoric and keep the more extreme elements in their movement form copying Scott Roeder.”

A funeral was held Saturday for Tiller. Most anti-abortion groups avoided the service, having denounced Tiller’s shooting.

Troy Newman, president of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, read about Roeder’s statement and e-mailed The Associated Press, saying: “This guy is a fruit and a lunatic.”

Roeder, a 51-year-old abortion opponent, was arrested a few hours after the shooting just outside Kansas City.

He told the AP he refused to talk to investigators when he was arrested, and has made no statements to police since then.

“I just told them I needed to talk to my lawyer,” Roeder said.

In two separate calls to AP on Sunday morning, Roeder was far more talkative about his treatment at the Sedgwick County jail, complaining about “deplorable conditions in solitary” where he was kept during his first three days there.

Sedgwick County Sheriff Robert Hinshaw said that Roeder is receiving appropriate medical treatment.

“It is after all a jail, but a modern state-of-the-art facility with professional staff,” Hinshaw said. “While Mr. Roeder may not care for being in the Sedgwick County jail, all of our conditions and policies are designed to provide safety and security for all inmates, staff and public at large.”

Roeder said it was freezing in his cell. “I started having a bad cough. I thought I was going to have pneumonia,” he said.

He said he called AP because he wanted to emphasize the conditions in the jail so that in the future suspects would not have to endure the same conditions.

Roeder also said he wanted the public to know he has been denied phone privileges for the past two days, and needed his sleep apnea machine.

Asked if he shot Tiller, Roeder replied that he could not comment about that and said he needed to clear everything with his lawyer.

Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a written statement Sunday that “we take this matter seriously, which is why the Attorney General ordered increased protection of appropriate people and facilities last week.”

Tiller’s clinic had been a target of regular demonstrations by abortion opponents. Most were peaceful, but his clinic was bombed in 1986 and he was shot in both arms in 1993. In 1991, a 45-day “Summer of Mercy” campaign organized by Operation Rescue drew thousands of abortion opponents to Wichita, and there were more than 2,700 arrests.

Jim Cross, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, did not immediately comment Sunday on Roeder’s statement.

Shootout kills 16 gunmen, 2 soldiers in Acapulco

ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) – It was a shootout straight from Hollywood in the former playground of its biggest stars: Masked and heavily armed Mexican soldiers battled outlaws holed up in a hillside mansion in a four-hour shootout that had tourists cowering in hotels nearby.Roughly 3,000 shots flew, and 50 grenades exploded during the raucous gunbattle late Saturday that killed 16 gunmen and two soldiers. Nine other people were wounded, including three bystanders.

More than a dozen Mexican tourists were evacuated from a neighboring hotel strip frozen in the 1950s, when Elizabeth Taylor held one of her many weddings in Acapulco and John Wayne and “Tarzan” star Johnny Weissmuller threw lavish parties at Los Flamingos Hotel less than 100 yards (meters) from where gunfire broke out.

Cindy Pelaquin and Michelle Johnson, both of Boston, were watching the famous Acapulco cliff divers less than a mile away. They saw the military roadblocks but heard nothing.

“We were just lucky I suppose,” said Johnson, a Boston nurse.

One neighbor said it sounded like fireworks. But a Mexican tourist, whose group had just arrived from the Mexico City area, immediately recognized the sound of gunshots and dove under a hotel bed.

The battle erupted after soldiers received a tip that a group of armed men were gathered at a gated house in a seedy section of Acapulco where working-class homes bleed into 1950s mansions. One hotel across from the street from the shootout offers three-hour stays for 30 pesos, roughly $2.25.

Several gunmen tried to flee but crashed their car into a military Hummer that was blocking the gate. At one point, more armed men with grenades arrived to reinforce the men in the house, but they died in the shooting, said an army colonel, who led the operation and spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Inside, soldiers found four men bound and shirtless who claimed they were Guerrero state police officers and were being held hostage. They confiscated 47 guns, grenades and ammunition, as well as several cars, including a Mercedes Benz.

Military officials said they are still investigating who the gunmen are. But given the weapons stash, large home and late-model cars, it looked like the normal trappings for drug cartels. No drugs were found.

Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located, has long suffered from drug violence from cartels fighting for turf.

The Beltran Leyva cartel, in particular, has a strong presence in Acapulco. Last month, soldiers arrested a suspected cartel lieutenant as he stepped off a private plane in the northern city of Monterrey on his way back from Acapulco, where he said he’d met with cartel leader Arturo Beltran Leyva at a baptism party.

The premier resort town for America’s rich and famous in the ’50s and ’60s, Acapulco suffered a decline as traffic and urban sprawl took over the palm-swept ambiance. It was reborn in the 1980s as a popular resort for Mexicans, and the working class now flock to the old hotel zone, where they can buy a two-night stay and transportation for as little as $50.

U.S. tourists also have returned during the past several years following construction of the new “Diamond Zone” strip of five-star hotels—on the other side of town from Saturday’s violence. Acapulco now ranks with Cancun as one of Mexico’s most-visited resort cities.

While tourism is usually low this time of year, the start of the hurricane season in the Pacific, numbers are worse than usual after a swine-flu outbreak in late April that pushed hotel occupancy in Mexico to half its normal rate and prompted the cancellation of many flights and cruise ship visits.

Hotel Los Flamingos, a pink building perched on a cliff where waiters climb trees to pull down coconuts for drinks, had few guests and only two rooms with foreign visitors, according to hotel workers who insisted they had not heard the shooting the night before.

Tourism is Mexico’s third-largest source of legal foreign income, after oil and remittances.

“At the resorts they basically tell you not to venture out,” Johnson said.

“It’s pretty shocking. It’s really sad. This a huge problem,” added Pelaquin, an insurance analyst whose friends already thought her trip to Mexico was risky because of swine flu. “Mexicans grow the drugs and send them to the U.S. where Americans buy them so we can’t blame it just on this country.”

Five people inside the house were detained, the Defense Department said in a statement.

Those including the four who claimed to be police hostages. Soldiers did not know the hostages were inside when the shootout began, and the colonel said their claims to be police would be investigated.

“We found them like this, handcuffed, and they say they were kidnapped. So if they were kidnapped, as they say, then we rescued them,” said the colonel, who gave reporters a tour of the house in a ski mask to protect his identity.

President Felipe Calderon has deployed more than 45,000 soldiers across Mexico to battle drug violence. More than 10,800 people have died since the offensive began in December 2006.

Although foreign tourists very rarely get caught in the violence, shootouts and kidnappings have become more frequent in resort areas such as Acapulco and Cancun. In 2007, a couple from Canada was wounded when someone fired into a hotel lobby in Acapulco.

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Associated Press reporters Julie Watson and Greg Bull contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS that the mansion was hillside, instead of cliffside. CLARIFIES that four bound men claimed to be police officers and their story being investigated). )