police

El Salvador gets ‘tough’ amid worsening crime

Posted by February 7, 2012

President Mauricio Funes has appointed career military personnel to head the police and national security.? Many fear a return to failed policies of the past, writes guest blogger Hanna Stone.

? A version of this post ran on the author’s site, Insightcrime.com. The views expressed are the author’s own.

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El Salvador?s government says it is taking a radical stance on crime, using the military to police the country’s most violent areas and now appointing military men to top security posts. But the changes sound more like a return to the failed ?iron fist? policies of the past.

In November, Mauricio Funes — the first president elected under the banner of guerrilla group-turned-political party FMLN since the civil war ended in 1992 — named David Munguia Payes, a retired general and former defense minister, as security minister. On January 23, Funes selected Francisco Ramon Salinas Rivers as head of the police (PNC) (in Spanish), a former army general who had handed in his resignation just days before.

Since he took power two and a half years ago, Funes has also expanded the army by some 57 percent to more than 17,000 people, and has periodically deployed the military onto El Salvador?s streets to share policing duties.

The trend began prior to Funes’ term. As El Faro reports (in Spanish), the defense budget has risen 32 percent in the last 10 years. And Funes is also following a region-wide pattern. Former General Otto Perez was elected Guatemala’s president last year, while Honduras? President Porfirio Lobo has given policing powers to the armed forces in Honduras.

But putting ex-military men at the head of both the police and the security cabinet struck opponents as a dangerous move to militarize the country?s security. And in a stinging rebuke over the Munguia appointment, members of Funes’ own FMLN party said it appeared to be ?a decision that was made somewhere in the U.S. capital.?

Funes? justification for the move is simple: The country?s deteriorating security situation requires a “more forceful” approach (in Spanish). His work to strengthen the armed forces seems to be inspired by the desire to take, and to be seen taking, decisive action.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/NRxTWqSRrL8/El-Salvador-gets-tough-amid-worsening-crime

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Colorado men held in connection with missing teacher case (Reuters)

Posted by January 17, 2012

(Reuters) ? Two Colorado men were being held in a North Dakota jail on Sunday on kidnapping charges in connection with the disappearance of a Montana teacher, authorities said.

Lester Vann Waters, 47, and Michael Keith Spell, 22, of Parachute, Colorado, were detained after a tip to a hotline set up by authorities, police said. They are charged with aggravated kidnapping.

The pair was being held in a county jail about 45 minutes away from Sidney, Montana, where high school math instructor Sherry Arnold disappeared more than a week ago near her home.

The town’s mayor and Arnold’s husband said her body has not been recovered, but police have said they believe she is dead.

The 43-year-old Arnold was last seen on January 7 setting off for a predawn run. Her husband reported her missing when she did not return home.

Searchers found one of her running shoes on the outskirts of the town, which has undergone rapid growth amid a regional oil and gas boom.

“To the best of my knowledge, no body has been recovered,” Sidney Mayor Bret Smelser told Reuters late on Saturday. “We don’t know where the body is at this point.”

Arnold’s husband, Gary Arnold, said he was grateful for the work of the FBI and police in the case and told Reuters he believes police “may know where she is.”

“While this did not turn out the way we all had hoped, at least we are moving toward a resolution and an answer,” he said. “We have the gift of being able to say farewell to Sher, and we are thanking God.”

Waters and Spell will be extradited to Montana from the Williams County Law Enforcement Center, where they were being held, said Williams County Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Thompson.

Arnold, a coordinator of federal programs for the same public school system in Sidney that employed his wife, expressed gratitude to those who helped him and his family.

“We thank the searchers, the people who fed us, the people who cared, the people who loved Sher. We want to thank them for the love they showed us,” he said.

The mayor of Sidney, a 5,000-population town on the upper Missouri River, said stepped-up oil and gas production from hydraulic fracturing has brought more people and economic activity as well as crime to the town.

He said firearms sales and permits to carry concealed handguns were on the rise, Smelser said.

“Before this, we always presumed we were safe and felt secure,” he said.

(Edited by Karen Brooks and Ellen Wulfhorst)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120115/us_nm/us_teacher_montana

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