Police Officer Is Shot and Critically Wounded in Queens
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A New York City police officer in plain clothes was shot in the face and critically wounded on Saturday in Queens after driving up in an unmarked car to question a man on the street, officials said.
The officer, Brian Moore, 25, was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where he was listed in critical but stable condition, the police commissioner, William J. Bratton, said at a news conference at the hospital late Saturday as Officer Moore remained in surgery.
Mayor Bill de Blasio called the shooting an “unconscionable act of violence” and “a reminder of the dangers that all of our officers face every single day.”
Officer Moore was shot around 6:15 p.m. on 212th Street in Queens Village, said the police. He and Erik Jansen, both anti-crime officers, were in a car with Officer Moore at the wheel near 104th Avenue when they approached a man who was “walking and adjusting an object in his waistband” and began speaking with him, Mr. Bratton said.
Almost immediately, officials said, the suspect fired at the plainclothes officers before they could step from the car or return fire. Witnesses described hearing at least two shots, according to the chief of detectives, Robert K. Boyce. The wounded officer was rushed to the hospital by other officers.
By late Saturday, Demetrius Blackwell, 35, had been taken into custody at a house near the shooting after an intensive 90-minute search, Mr. Bratton said. “He resides on that block,” Mr. Bratton said, but was located in a home that was not his own.
Mr. Bratton described Mr. Blackwell as a man with a history of arrests — including robbery and criminal possession of a weapon — and that he had served time in prison.
Mr. Bratton said that officers had been seeking Mr. Blackwell, who lives a block away from the site of the shooting, on 104th Avenue, to speak with him in connection with a crime, though whether he was a suspect or a witness was not immediately clear..
But it was “activity he engaged in” that drew the attention of the officers on Saturday, Mr. Bratton said, specifically the object in the waistband.
Officer Moore appeared to have been shot in the left cheek and the bullet went out the right side of his head, toward the back of the head, a law enforcement official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the fast-moving events. The wound, then, could be what is known as an “in-and-out,” the official said, meaning it might have missed critical organs, his survival a matter of inches.
Dr. Eli Kleinman, the supervising chief surgeon of the Police Department, said at the news conference that quick work by the first responding patrol car and a team of neurosurgeons had helped them confront a “life-threatening situation.”
After the shooting, officers could be seen going through the garbage outside the white-paneled home with red steps where Mr. Blackwell lives. As of late Saturday, the gun used in the shooting had not been found.A cousin of Mr. Blackwell’s who lives near him but who declined to give her name said in a brief telephone interview late Saturday that she was just learning about the shooting: “I am just finding all this stuff out myself. I don’t know anything. All I can do is pray right now.”
For officers across the city, word of the Queens shooting spread rapidly, with many fearing the worst had again occurred. The shooting immediately evoked the December killing of two officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, who had been targeted for their uniforms and shot dead as they sat in their patrol car in Brooklyn. The gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, posted on social media of his desire to kill police officers before coming to New York from Maryland; he killed himself shortly after.
Saturday’s shooting also came at a moment of nationwide tension between police officers and minority communities as protesters again took to the streets over the killing of Freddie Gray, an unarmed black man in Baltimore who died in police custody.
Demonstrations erupted anew across the country, including in New York City, as Mr. Gray’s name was added to the litany of names — Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice — that were shouted at demonstrations over police killings in recent months. But the account of Saturday’s shooting suggested that the officer had been wounded in the course of doing police work, not the result of a gunman bent on shooting officers, as Mr. Brinsley had been. Anti-crime officers, who address more serious crime conditions in a police precinct than ordinary 911 calls, wear plain clothes and patrol in unmarked cars.
Through Saturday evening, officers across the city traded text messages by cellphones from their foot posts and squad cars. The shooting — a burst of gunfire; officers in their car — had elements of the ambush killing in December.
But the circumstances were more similar to those in the Bronx in January, when two plainclothes officers were shot by a suspect they had been pursuing in connection with an armed robbery. Both officers survived.
Around the scene of the shooting, helicopters circled at sunset. After dark, roads remained closed. “Right now everything’s just blocked off,” said Frank Caffey, who lives on Hollis Avenue in Queens and said he heard gunshots earlier in the evening. The neighborhood of unattached houses and fenced-in yards where Saturday’s shooting took place had struggled with crime, residents said. “This area is kind of bad dealing with that,” said Mr. Caffey.
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Police Officer Is Shot in Queens
New York Times A New York City police officer was shot and critically wounded on Saturday afternoon in Queens, officials said. The officer, whose name was not immediately released, was taken to Jamaica Hospital where he was listed in critical but stable condition, ... NYPD officer reportedly shot in the head, in critical conditionFox News Police: Officer shot, rushed to hospital in NYCUSA TODAY NYPD Cop in Critical Condition After Shooting; Suspect in CustodyABC News all 23 news articles » |
Russian Ballerina Maya Plisetskaya Dies at 89by webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Renowned Russian Maya Plisetskaya, one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century, died Saturday in Germany of an apparent heart attack. She was 89. Russia’s official Tass news agency quoted Bolshoi director Vladimir Urin as saying “the doctors tried everything, but there was nothing they could do.” He spoke after conferring with Plisetskaya’s husband, acclaimed Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin, in Munich. Known as a supreme technical and dramatic performer, Plisetskaya was...
- Two TU-95 'Bear' H Russian bombers reportedly flew into the U.S. air defense zone near Alaska last week
- The intrusion is the first of 2015, but officials say there will be more
- The intent of the intrusion is unclear, but officials view it as a sign of deteriorating ties between Moscow and the West
Published: 17:56 EST, 2 May 2015 | Updated: 21:34 EST, 2 May 2015
Two nuclear-capable Russian bombers flew into the U.S. air defense zone near Alaska last week, defense officials say.
Officials say the two TU-95 'Bear' H bombers flew into the zone on April 22, an incident likely signaling the start of Russia's aviation training cycle, according to Fox News. But defense officials familiar with the incident say no U.S. interceptor jets were dispatched to shadow the bombers.
A North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) spokesman declined to confirm the intrusion to the Washington Times, but confirmed that no U.S. interceptor jets were dispatched.
The incident was the first Russian bomber incursion of a U.S. defense zone this year and, Free Beacon reports that officials are expecting more.
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Intrusion: Two Tu-95 'Bear' H Russian bombers flew into the U.S. air defense zone near Alaska last week
Last year, U.S. fighter jets intercepted Russian aircraft at least six times, the Beacon reports. Intruding Russian aircraft were detected 10 times.
Three weeks ago, Russia intercepted a U.S. reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea, according to UPI, a move Pentagon officials called 'unprofessional' and 'unsafe.'
Some analysts say the intrusions are mere sabre-rattling by Moscow. In fact, a NORAD spokesman recently told reporters that Russia is developing its military -- making it more capable than the former Soviet Union, according to Fox.
Though officials say the intrusion most likely signals the beginning of Russia's training cycle, the definite intent of the Russian flights is unclear, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Similar Russian flights have occurred in Europe, frustrating leaders in Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, and others.
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Training: Officials say the incident likely signals the start of Russia's long-range aviation training cycle
U.S. officials see the flights -- with the bombers failing to emit identifying signals -- as a sign of the worsening ties between Moscow and the West as a result of U.S. support of the Ukraine.
'They're obviously messaging us,' Air Force Col. Frank Flores, who is in charge of 14 radar stations along the Alaskan coast, told the Times of the Russian flights.
'We still don't know their intent.
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Ildefonso Ortiz
Cops across the nation are frustrated by the media largely ignoring police officers killed in the line of duty, while sensationalizing the death of suspects shot by the police.
“I felt this around the country, there is a frustration around the nation… A lot of cops get shot and killed each year, and that doesn’t get a lot of media coverage,” said James Comey, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, during a news event attended by Breitbart Texas.
Comey traveled to this border city to meet with local law enforcement officials, as well as his own agents in charge of task forces that tackle public corruption and drug cartel activity.
“One of their frustrations is with that they feel we have a lot of good people risking their lives and they feel that is not part of the national conversation,” the FBI director said of the police chiefs he spoke with. “Well, look, I’m keen to make that part of the national conversation. I want to make sure we have a balanced discussion.”
One of the topics that the FBI director discussed with law-enforcement heads was the heated subject of how race affects police work. One of the biggest obstacles to a healthy discussion on the matter is an outdated data processing system, which leaves out vital statistics that could help paint a clearer picture of how race impacts crime and law enforcement, he said.
The FBI director’s comments come as national attention is focused on the situation in Maryland, where accusations of police brutality have led to rioting and chaos.
Comey said Texas police chiefs “shared their frustration with me over the tendency of our culture across the U.S. to focus on a particular incident, which they worry sometimes obscures the view of law enforcement at large – not just the good work of law enforcement, but the dangers they face.”
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Former FBI agent Robert Fitzpatrick has long cast himself as a whistle-blower who urged superiors to drop James “Whitey” Bulger as an informant in the 1980s, only to be ignored as corrupt agents protected the murderous gangster.
It’s a portrayal he offered while testifying for the families of Bulger’s victims in wrongful death suits against the government, during court hearings delving into FBI corruption, in a book about his life, and as a defense witness at Bulger’s 2013 racketeering trial.
In a stunning development Thursday in the never-ending Bulger saga, the 75-year-old Fitzpatrick was recast as a villain as prosecutors unsealed a 12-count indictment accusing him of perjury and obstruction of justice while misleading jurors in an effort to bolster Bulger’s defense.
The indictment alleges that since 1998, Fitzpatrick, who was second in command of the FBI’s Boston office in the 1980s, “falsely held himself out as a whistle-blower who tried to end the FBI’s relationship with Bulger.” He’s accused of lying in an effort to aid Bulger’s defense, and misstating his accomplishments as an agent to enhance his credibility.
The indictment also alleges Fitzpatrick lied when he said he had found the rifle used to kill the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the day he was assassinated in 1968, and when he said he had arrested then-New England Mafia underboss Gennaro “Jerry” Angiulo in 1983.
Fitzpatrick, of Charlestown, R.I., was led into federal court in Boston in shackles Thursday. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, was released on a $50,000 unsecured bond, and declined to comment as he left the courthouse with his wife.
His attorney, Robert Goldstein, said, “Mr. Fitzpatrick adamantly maintains his innocence, and looks forward to challenging the government’s allegations in a courtroom as soon as possible.”
The indictment shocked some relatives of Bulger’s victims who had sat through the eight-week trial that culminated with his conviction for participating in 11 murders while running a sprawling criminal enterprise from the 1970s to the 1990s. Bulger is serving two consecutive life sentences at a federal penitentiary in Florida.
“I can’t believe it,” said Patricia Donahue, whose husband was killed by Bulger in 1982. “Everybody thought he was the one doing the right thing, and he ends up being indicted.”
Donahue said she believes Fitzpatrick should be held accountable if he lied, but questioned the timing of the charges now, and wondered why other FBI agents have eluded charges despite allegations that they took payoffs from Bulger, leaked information that got people killed, and provided explosives to the gangster.
“It seems to me they only pick certain agents to go after,” she said.
Fitzpatrick is the third former FBI agent to face charges related to Bulger. John J. Connolly Jr. was convicted of federal racketeering in Boston, and of murder in Florida. H. Paul Rico was indicted for allegedly assisting Bulger in the 1981 murder of Tulsa businessman Roger Wheeler, but died before the case went to trial.
Connolly’s FBI supervisor, John Morris, who pocketed bribes from Bulger and leaked information to him, was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for his cooperation.
Assistant US Attorney Fred Wyshak, part of the team that prosecuted Bulger, said Thursday, “Much of the misconduct that has occurred as a result of the FBI’s relationship with James Bulger was not prosecutable due to the . . . statutes of limitations.”
As for Fitzpatrick’s indictment, Wyshak said the allegations against him “occurred in 2013 in federal court, and were clearly prosecutable within the statute of limitations.”
Bulger’s lawyer, Hank Brennan, who is appealing his client’s conviction, called Fitzpatrick’s indictment shameful, and said he believes the former agent is being targeted for having the audacity to challenge the version of facts presented by the government.
“It doesn’t matter if a witness lies, steals, or murders, if you are a soldier of the federal government they will wrap their arms around you and embrace you,” he said. “If you defy them, they will crush you.”
Brennan said he believes Fitzpatrick was truthful, and his indictment will send a chilling message to anyone who testifies against the government.
He noted former governor William Weld testified in 1998 that while he was the US attorney in Boston, Fitzpatrick told him he feared for the safety of Brian Halloran, who was cooperating against Bulger and was denied placement in the government’s witness protection program. Later, Halloran and Michael Donahue, who was giving him a ride home, were gunned down by Bulger.
Fitzpatrick was called to the witness stand by Bulger’s defense lawyers to describe corruption in the FBI, and to try to undermine evidence that Bulger had been an FBI informant.
The defense contended that Bulger was never an informant, and that Connolly fabricated his informant file to cover up their corrupt relationship.
Fitzpatrick said he was sent to meet Bulger in 1981 to assess whether he should remain an informant, and Bulger told him he was not an informant, that he paid others for information.
The indictment alleges that Fitzpatrick’s account of the conversation was a lie, and that he lied about advocating to drop Bulger as an informant.
He’s also accused of lying in testifying that he had been assigned to the FBI’s Boston office in 1980 to stop leaks that compromised investigations; the indictment states it was a routine transfer, with no special role.
Assistant US Attorney Zachary Hafer said in court that the six perjury counts carry a five-year maximum sentence; the six obstruction counts have a maximum term of 10 years.
Fitzpatrick, who coauthored a book, “Betrayal, Whitey Bulger and the FBI Agent Who Fought to Bring Him Down,” faced withering cross-examination during Bulger’s 2013 trial.
Former Massachusetts State Police colonel Thomas Foley, who had spearheaded the Bulger investigation in the 1990s, said Fitzpatrick failed to do anything to stop Bulger when he had the chance, and his testimony “was making a mockery of the whole process.”
Shelley Murphy can be reached at shmurphy@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @shelleymurph.
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NORTHAMPTON COUNTY, N.C. (WAVY) — More than a dozen current and former law enforcement officers from Virginia and North Carolina were in federal custody Thursday, accused of protecting drug shipments and cash.
What the suspects thought was a large drug-trafficking operation was actually an undercover FBI investigation, prosecutors said at a press conference Thursday.
Operation Rockfish was a large-scale undercover investigation into law enforcement corruption — two years in the making. The result happened Thursday morning: 15 people from Virginia and North Carolina were arrested and charged in a 54-count federal indictment.
“They are alleged to have knowingly conspired to move and transport multiple kilogram weights of cocaine and heroin throughout the Interstate 95 corridor, here in North Carolina to National Harbor, Md., and also the state of South Carolina,” said Thomas Walker, US Attorney from the Eastern District of North Carolina.
Among those charged were five current and two former deputies with the Northampton County (N.C.) Sheriff’s Office, three correctional officers from the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, two correctional officers from the Virginia Department of Corrections, one Windsor City, N.C. police officer, one Northampton County (N.C.) 911 dispatcher, and one other person not in law enforcement.
“When officers violate the trust that the public has instilled in them, it tears at the very core of what holds a community together,” Walker said.
Prosecutors said one group of suspects was arrested at Northampton County Regional Airport.
“It was from that location that they believed they would be transporting multiple kilograms of illegal narcotics to a warehouse in Rocky Mount, N.C. A second group of defendants were arrested at a warehouse in Rocky Mount, N.C.,” Walker said.
Some of the suspects are accused of attempted extortion, money laundering, bribery, and using guns in connection with drug trafficking. According to one of the bribery counts in the indictment, a sheriff’s deputy accepted a Rolex watch from undercover agents.
“When an officer with a gun and a badge conducts himself or herself in the same way that a street drug dealer does, everyone suffers,” said Raymond Husler, acting chief of the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section.
Sheriff Wes Tripp, of Halifax County, N.C., said his deputies forwarded information they had on corruption to the FBI at the beginning of the investigation. Investigators said they used “sham” drugs that suspects thought were real for this operation, and none of them reached the streets.
The Windsor, N.C. police officer charged in the case was suspended without pay, according to Police Chief James Lane. Northampton County Sheriff Jack Smith said he would make a decision soon about his deputies.
WAVY News left messages with the Virginia Department of Corrections and the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, but did not get a response Thursday.
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BY: Bill Gertz
Computer hackers linked to the Chinese government used two Chinese telecom companies and the Baidu search engine to mount mass data disruption attacks on American websites involved in circumventing Beijing’s censors.
According to a confidential FBI Flash alert sent to U.S. companies on Thursday, investigators determined with high confidence that since the middle of March Internet traffic entering China was used in a data-denial attack against two websites involved in defeating Chinese-based web censorship. The traffic was “manipulated to create cyber attacks directed at U.S.-based websites,” the notice said.
“Analysis by the U.S. government indicated that Internet traffic which originated outside China, was intercepted and modified to make unsuspecting users send repeated requests to U.S.-based websites,” the report said.
“The malicious activity occurred on China’s backbone Internet infrastructure, and temporarily disrupted all operations on the U.S.-based websites,” the notice said.
Investigators analyzing the attacks discovered that malicious software was injected into the web browsers of unsuspecting computer users “as traffic transited China Unicom or China Telecom networks and at the same points in these routes that censor traffic for the Chinese government.”
China Unicom and China Telecom are both state-owned telecommunications companies under control of the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry.
The involvement of the two companies is an indication of Chinese government involvement in the hacking technique known as a “man-in-the-middle” cyber attack, the FBI said.
“The location of the [man-in-the-middle] system on backbone networks operating censorship equipment indicates that the [man-in-the-middle] attack could not have occurred without some level of cooperation by the administrators of these systems,” the FBI said.
The diversion of Internet traffic was part of a sophisticated but common method of cyber attack known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) strike—the use of networked, hijacked computers to flood websites with data requests that overwhelm the sites and disrupt or shut down their operations.
The alert did not identify the U.S. websites hit in the cyber attack.
However, the Wall Street Journal reported March 29 that a software company involved in helping Chinese users evade Beijing’s censorship was attacked in a DDoS attack linked to China. The San Francisco-based coding website called GitHub, Inc. was targeted and security analysts said the company was picked because of its involvement in circumventing Chinese web censors.
Security analysts identified the Chinese search engine involved in the attacks, that began March 26, as Baidu, a key part of the effort to direct mass digital strikes at two GitHub-hosted web pages. GitHub was facilitating access to Internet pages blocked by the Chinese government, including one operated by <a href="http://Greatfire.org" rel="nofollow">Greatfire.org</a>, and the New York Times’ Chinese language website.
Baidu, considered to be a Chinese version of Google, is widely used by some of China’s several hundred million Internet users. The company denied involvement in the DDoS attacks in March, theJournal reported.
According to the FBI alert, the March DDoS attacks involved what cyber security experts call a “man in the middle” attack where hackers inject malicious software in the form of a doctored Javascript—software used to control web browsers—into large numbers of computer users’ web browsers.
The malware allowed the cyber attackers to take control of large numbers of computers for the DDoS attacks.
Man-in-the-middle attacks allow remote hackers to interrupt and exploit communications between computer servers and clients—the basic communication exchange used on the Internet for such activities as sending email or viewing websites.
According to the FBI alert, the hackers in the March attack targeted computer users who browsed Chinese websites and then randomly hijacked a percentage of legitimate software requests before those communications could reach the Chinese server. The hackers then returned a malicious Javascript to the user.
“The malicious Javascript would direct the unsuspecting user’s browsers to make repeated requests to targeted U.S.-based websites,” the FBI said.
An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment on the alert.
The FBI urged American companies and computer users to use sophisticated security measures, such as transport layer security and other public key encryption, to protect traffic that passes through unsecure networks, like those in China.
The security techniques also should be updated to ensure that the most recent, secure versions are used.
Additional mitigation efforts can be obtained by American companies from the FBI’s Cywatch program at <a href="mailto:cywatch@ic.fbi.gov">cywatch@ic.fbi.gov</a>. The FBI also urged anyone affected by the attacks to contact one of the FBI’s field offices.
Disclosure of the Chinese government hacking comes as the Pentagon this week released a new cyber strategy.
A report on the strategy identified China as among four adversaries that have invested significantly in cyber warfare capabilities that “target the U.S. homeland and damage U.S. interests.”
“Russia and China have developed advanced cyber capabilities and strategies,” the report said.
“China steals intellectual property from global businesses to benefit Chinese companies and undercut U.S. competitiveness.”
Defense Secretary Ash Carter said during a speech in California on April 23 that the cyber threat from nations like China and Russia “is increasing in severity and sophistication.”
In Beijing, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Sr. Col. Geng Yansheng, criticized the new Pentagon strategy’s reference to the Chinese cyber threat.
“We are firmly opposed to the groundless accusations against China made in the report,” Geng said. “China has been gravely threatened by hacker attacks and is firmly opposed to all kinds of hacking activities in the cyber space.”
“We are opposed to cyber warfare in any form and cyber arms race, and we hope the cyber space will not be turned into another battlefield,” he added. “We urge the U.S., which has strong cyber capabilities, to play an exemplary role and do more for enhancing cyber security, promoting common security and mutual trust in cyber space, rather than seeking absolute security for itself.”
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FERGUSON • In the days following a Department of Justice report accusing Ferguson’s police and municipal court of widespread abuses, the city made a series of conciliatory moves. Three employees involved in racist emails were forced out. The city manager stepped down. So did the police chief and municipal judge.
Less than a month later, on March 27, a City Council that’s been grappling with declining revenues voted unanimously in a closed meeting to hire one of the nation’s most distinguished and highest-paid trial lawyers to navigate what could be a prolonged and expensive reform process.
His name is Dan K. Webb.
The city of Ferguson is paying him $1,335 an hour.
Over the past 40 years, Webb has been both prosecutor and defense attorney in various high-profile cases. His work in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago resulted in the convictions of public officials and police officers. He prosecuted former National Security Adviser John Poindexter during the Iran-Contra scandal.
Webb’s private clients have included tobacco giant Philip Morris, Microsoft and the New York Stock Exchange. He also has defended some of Illinois’ more notable politicians, including former Gov. George Ryan, as well as one of the nation’s most notorious sheriff’s departments.
Last week, Webb, 69, was in Vienna representing Ukranian business mogul Dmitry V. Firtash in an extradition hearing. The U.S. charged Firtash with bribing officials in India for titanium mining licenses.
Jeff Small, a city spokesman, said city officials would not comment beyond the one-paragraph statement released last month announcing Webb’s hiring.
“He’s an outstanding trial attorney, but this is not a trial,” said Sam Walker, professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, an expert on the Justice Department’s negotiations. “It looks like they don’t know what they are doing, and they’re gearing up for a fight.”
Webb disagreed, calling that interpretation of his hiring “naive.”
“Yes, I try a lot of cases, but that’s not why I was hired,” he said. “The city wanted somebody who could try the case if necessary if they had to. But they don’t want to do that, and it’s clear to me that the Department of Justice doesn’t want to do that … I have resolved a lot of cases in my time.”
Webb’s fee will be in addition to expenses and the fees for any lawyers or paralegals in his firm who may work on the case, according to an engagement letter between the city and Webb’s firm Winston & Strawn.
Webb’s hourly rate is nearly double the highest billing rate in Missouri in 2014, which, according to Missouri Lawyers Weekly, was $700 an hour.
The city fought to keep the engagement letter secret. For two weeks, it refused to release a copy of the letter to the Post-Dispatch, arguing that it was privileged communication that could reveal the city’s litigation strategy. After the Post-Dispatch argued that it was illegal to keep the document secret under the state’s open records law, the city council voted in a closed meeting Thursday night to release it. Still, the city did not turn over the letter, which was partially redacted, until just before 5 p.m. Friday.
Webb will play a key role in working with the Justice Department, which spent seven months investigating Ferguson’s police department and municipal court after the death of Michael Brown. The department concluded that the police shooting of Brown was justified, but said the city had tolerated a culture of police brutality while pressuring the police chief and court officials to increase traffic enforcement and fees without regard to public safety.
Now it’s up to the two sides to negotiate an agreement for reforming the police department and municipal court. Then, if the process plays out as it has elsewhere, the city will pay for a federal monitor to ensure that Ferguson keeps its promises.
In other places, the process has taken years and has cost police departments across the country millions.
Ferguson is already reeling from financial setbacks, and has had to dip into its reserves.
DEBATE LED TO LAW
Webb grew up in Bushnell, Ill., a community of roughly 3,000 people 170 miles north of St. Louis. His father worked as a grocer and mail carrier. Webb, who now lives in the Chicago suburb of Burr Ridge, said about half the city were Cubs fans, while the other half rooted for the Cardinals.
“I was a St. Louis Cardinals fan,” he said. “I still am to this day.”
After watching Webb in a high school debate, a guidance counselor gave Webb biographies of two celebrated trial lawyers: Clarence Darrow and Earl Rogers.
“He read those two books and decided to be a lawyer,” said Charles Kocoras, a federal judge who wrote a book about Webb, “May It Please the Court.”
Webb graduated from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 1970 and went to work as federal prosecutor under James R. Thompson, then the U.S. Attorney in Chicago. Within a few years, he was thrust into the spotlight when he prosecuted Cook County’s longtime clerk in a bribery scandal and 24 police officers, including a police captain, for shaking down bar owners.
He left the U.S. Attorney’s office in 1976 to set up a law firm. After Thompson was elected governor, Webb was tapped to head up the state’s Department of Law Enforcement. But he missed the courtroom and soon returned to private practice.
During President Ronald Reagan’s first term, he was recruited to serve as U.S. Attorney in Chicago. In that role, he oversaw one of the FBI’s most significant undercover investigations ever: “Operation Greylord,” that resulted in the indictments of 17 judges, 48 lawyers, eight police officers, 10 deputy sheriffs, eight court officials and one state legislator, nearly all of whom were convicted.
A few years later, the late Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel investigating the Iran-Contra affair chose Webb to try the Poindexter case. In 1990, Poindexter was convicted of conspiring to mislead Congress, obstructing congressional inquiries and making false statements. The conviction was later overturned on appeal.
Through the years, Webb represented large corporate clients. A 2004 profile in the New York Times said Webb “epitomizes the rise of a new breed of superlawyers.”
‘If God decided to make a trial lawyer, he would have made Dan,” Kocoras said. “He makes quick judgments that are unerringly accurate.”
In 2012, he served as a special prosecutor in the death of David Koschman, who died after a drunken confrontation in 2004 with the nephew of former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Koschman’s mother won the appointment of a special prosecutor after a series of stories in the Chicago Sun-Times alleged a police cover-up.
Webb convened a grand jury that indicted Daley’s nephew, Richard “R.J.” Vanecko, for involuntary manslaughter. Vanecko pleaded guilty, served 60 days in jail and remains on probation until July 2016.
Webb charged Cook County a reduced rate of $250 an hour for his work, according to the Sun-Times.
“When we learned that the court was going to appoint him to handle the investigation, that was the first point at which we felt there would be an investigation and that it would not be toothless and it would be fair and also aggressive,” said Locke Bowman, executive director of Northwestern University’s Roderick Mac-Arthur Justice Center who represented Koschman’s mother.
HIRED IN ARIZONA
But it was Webb’s involvement in Maricopa County, Ariz., which is the subject of a Justice Department investigation, that attracted the attention of Ferguson, Webb said. The DOJ alleged that the Sheriff’s Office and Sheriff Joseph Arpaio engaged in discriminatory and otherwise unconstitutional law enforcement actions against Latinos.
In 2012, the DOJ filed a civil lawsuit in federal court against Maricopa County, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and Arpaio. In a press release, the DOJ wrote: “negotiations were unsuccessful, primarily because the county and Arpaio refused to agree to any independent oversight by a monitor.”
“They have been the most belligerent” of the communities in negotiations with DOJ, said Walker, the professor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
Before Webb was hired, Ferguson officials met with the consulting firm Greenwood & Streicher LLC, which the city of Albuquerque hired last year to negotiate its consent decree. Partners Scott Greenwood and Tom Streicher are former adversaries. Greenwood was an attorney for the ACLU and Streicher was the police chief in Cincinnati during a consent decree process. The hourly fee for Greenwood and Streicher is $350, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
None of the council members who voted to hire Webb returned phone calls from the Post-Dispatch.
The costs may become an issue in Ferguson, where city officials are already worrying about bankruptcy.
Brian Fletcher, a council member who was elected in April, after Webb was hired, said Ferguson has lost sales tax revenue from businesses destroyed in the riots last year, collected less in court fines and fees, paid officers more in overtime and had higher-than-normal legal bills.
He said that the city is facing a $2 million to $3 million deficit for the fiscal year that ends on June 30, and will likely face a similar deficit next year.
That’s without the cost of implementing any reforms or paying Webb’s legal bill.
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