Newspaper Page Text
6A Friday, December 28, 2018
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
NATION
CALIFORNIA
Sheriff: Officer’s killer in US illegally
BY OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO - A gunman
suspected of killing a Northern Cal
ifornia police officer who pulled
him over to investigate if he was
driving drunk is in the country ille
gally, authorities said Thursday.
Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam
Christianson said detectives identi
fied the suspect in the slaying of Cpl.
Ronil Singh of the small-town New
man Police Department but didn’t
release his name. The attacker
is still on the loose, and he said
authorities searching for a second
day believe he’s still in the area and
is armed and dangerous.
“This suspect ... is in
our country illegally. He
doesn’t belong here. He is
a criminal,” Christianson
said at a news conference.
Authorities are looking
for a man seen in surveil
lance photos at a conve
nience store shortly before
Singh was killed Wednesday. Offi
cials pleaded for help from the
public and said they were follow
ing up on several leads.
“The sheriff’s office will spare
no expense in hunting down this
criminal,” said Christianson.
Christianson said Singh, a
33-year-old native of Fiji
with an infant son, stopped
the attacker as part of a
DUI investigation and that
the officer fired back to
try to defend himself.
Singh was shot minutes
after radioing that he was
pulling over a gray pickup
truck that had no license
plate in Newman, a town of about
10,000 people some 100 miles
southeast of San Francisco. Singh
died at a hospital.
A ground and air search began
for the heavyset man pictured
at the store with short, dark hair
and wearing a silver chain, jeans,
dark T-shirt and a dark jacket with
white Ecko brand patches on the
shoulders.
A truck believed to have been
the one stopped by Singh was
later found in a garage in a mobile
home park about 4 miles from the
shooting, where law enforcement
officers were serving a search war
rant, The Modesto Bee reported.
Investigators were examining the
vehicle, police said.
Singh joined the Newman police
force in 2011. Earlier in his career,
Ronil Singh worked as a deputy
with the Merced County Sheriff’s
Department.
“He was living the American
dream,” said Stanislaus County
sheriff’s Deputy Royjinder Singh,
who is not related to the slain offi
cer but knew him. “He loved camp
ing, loved hunting, loved fishing,
loved his family.”
On his Facebook page, Ronil
Singh posted pictures on Christmas
Eve from a deep-sea fishing trip
that produced a big haul of crabs
and fish. His profile picture shows
him smiling as he stands at a patrol
car with a dog — the same photo
graph of the officer released by the
Sheriff’s Department.
Ronil Singh is survived by his
wife, Anamika, and a 5-month-old
son, authorities said.
Singh
Despite #MeToo, rape cases still
confound police with investigations
JEFF BAENEN I Associated Press
Sexual assault survivor Sam Gaspardo displays her “HOLD ON” and “to infinity” tattoos on her right arm Dec. 18 in
Minneapolis. The “HOLD ON” tattoo is in her mother’s handwriting. It’s to remind Sam to hold on when she’s struggling.
Case clearance rate’ fell in 2017 to lowest point since at least 1960s
‘It can make
a person so
angry. Are
women
supposed to
start wearing
body
cameras
when they’re
alone in a room with somebody?’
Sam Gaspardo
BY JIM MUSTIAN
AND MICHAEL R. SISAK
Associated Press
NEW YORK - The
#MeToo movement is
empowering victims of
sexual assault to speak up
like never before, but what
should be a watershed
moment for holding assail
ants accountable has coin
cided with a troubling trend:
Police departments in the
U.S. are becoming less and
less likely to successfully
close rape investigations.
The so-called “clearance
rate” for rape cases fell last
year to its lowest point since
at least the 1960s, accord
ing to FBI data provided to
The Associated Press. That
nadir may be driven, at least
in part, by a greater willing
ness by police to correctly
classify rape cases and leave
them open even when there
is little hope of solving them.
But experts say it also
reflects the fact that not
enough resources are being
devoted to investigating sex
ual assault at a time when
more victims are entrusting
police with their harrowing
experiences.
“This is the second-most
serious crime in the FBI’s
crime index,” said Carol
Tracy, executive director of
the Women’s Law Project in
Philadelphia, “and it simply
doesn’t get the necessary
resources from police.”
Police successfully closed
just 32 percent of rape inves
tigations nationwide in 2017,
according to the data, rank
ing it second only to robbery
as the least-solved violent
crime. That statistic is down
from about 62 percent in
1964, despite advances such
as DNA testing.
The FBI provided The AP
with a dataset of rape statis
tics dating back to the early
1960s — a table that includes
more complete data than
the snapshot the bureau
releases each fall.
The grim report card has
prompted debate among
criminal justice experts,
with some attributing the
falling clearance rate to
an antiquated approach to
investigations.
“You’d figure with all the
new technology — and the
fact that the overwhelming
majority of victims of sexual
assault know their attacker
— the clearance rates would
be a lot higher,” said Joseph
Giacalone, a former New
York City police sergeant
who teaches at the John Jay
College of Criminal Justice.
“It’s almost as if forensics
and DNA has let us down,”
he said.
Experts agree that sexual
assault is one of the most
confounding crimes police
confront. Many investiga
tions lack corroborating
witnesses and physical evi
dence. A significant chunk
of complaints are reported
months or years after the
fact. Researchers believe
only a third of rapes are
reported at all.
Historically, some detec
tives also discouraged
women from pursuing tough-
to-prove charges against boy
friends, husbands or close
acquaintances. The declin
ing clearance rate could
mean that investigators in
some places are finally clas
sifying rape investigations
properly, said Kim Lonsway,
research director at End
Violence Against Women
International.
Rather than hastily
“clearing” certain tough-to-
solve cases, she said, some
police departments have
begun “suspending” them,
meaning they remain open
indefinitely. That leaves
open the possibility there
could someday be an arrest.
“This may be an indica
tor of some positive things,”
Lonsway said.
The FBI’s clearance num
bers provide an incomplete
picture of how often rapists
are brought to justice. That’s
because they also include
“exceptional clearances,”
where police close an inves
tigation without charging
anyone, for reasons beyond
the department’s control.
That could be because a vic
tim stopped cooperating or
the suspect died or is incar
cerated in another state,
among other reasons.
The figures do not spec
ify the percentage of rape
cases that are exception
ally cleared compared with
those resulting in arrests, but
state data can fill out the pic
ture in some places.
In Detroit, for instance,
police investigated 664
reported rapes last year
but made just 44 arrests,
according to Michigan data.
Another 15 cases were closed
for other reasons. That would
give Detroit a clearance rate
of 8.9 percent, even though
only 6.6 percent of reported
rapes resulted in an arrest.
Sam Gaspardo said when
she reported in 2011 that she
had been sexually assaulted,
police in Woodbury, Min
nesota, lacked a sense of
urgency.
Investigators in the St.
Paul suburb expressed
frustration that she delayed
reporting the attack for
more than a year and
couldn’t recall the precise
date. One time, when she
phoned to follow up her
case, she was put on hold
indefinitely.
“To me, it felt like it was
invalidated,” Gaspardo
said. “I was just completely
dismissed.”
Woodbury Police Cmdr.
Steve Wills acknowledged
Gaspardo’s complaint fell
through the cracks and was
not investigated for years,
something he called “a sys
tem failure.”
“Obviously, we own that,”
Wills said.
Wills said authorities have
“no reason not to believe”
Gaspardo but decided a
few weeks ago they could
not prove her alleged
attacker had forced her into
intercourse.
He acknowledged police
would have been in a far bet
ter position to investigate the
case had they begun looking
into the matter immediately.
“It can make a person so
angry,” Gaspardo said. “Are
women supposed to start
wearing body cameras when
they’re alone in a room with
somebody?”
Many police sex assault
units have heavy work
loads and insufficient staff
ing, said Kevin Strom, the
director of RTI Interna
tional’s Center for Policing
Research & Investigative
Science, a research center
based in North Carolina.
“I think that has a major
impact in terms of influ
encing the ability of law
enforcement to successfully
clear these cases,” he said.
The clearance rate in rape
cases dropped steadily in the
1960s, plateaued at nearly 50
percent through most of the
70s, 80s and 90s, then began
a steady yearly decline that
persisted through last year,
according to the statistics
collected by the FBI.
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Boston Marathon
bomber’s lawyers
want death
sentence tossed
BY ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
Associated Press
BOSTON — Attorneys for Boston Marathon bomber
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told a federal appeals court Thurs
day that his convictions or death sentence should be
tossed because the judge refused to move the case out of
the city where the bombs exploded, making it impossible
for him to get a fair trial.
In a 500-page brief filed in the 1st U.S. District Court
of Appeals, Tsarnaev’s legal team outlined a host of
other problems with his 2015 trial, including issues with
jurors, certain testimony from surviving victims and the
defense’s inability to tell jurors about links between Tsar
naev’s brother and an unsolved triple killing in 2011.
The lawyers argued the trial court’s “first fundamen
tal error” was denying the defense’s repeated requests
to move the case out of a city that was “traumatized by
the bombings, ordered to shelter in place during the man
hunt, saturated by prejudicial publicity and united in the
Boston Strong movement.”
“Tsarnaev stood accused of notorious crimes. The
bombings were the subject of constant and widespread
publicity, which included coverage of matters that would
never be admitted at trial,” the lawyers wrote. “Virtu
ally every single prospective juror was familiar with that
publicity, had been personally affected by the crimes
and their aftermath, and thus had formed negative,
entrenched preconceptions about Tsarnaev’s guilt and
the appropriate sentence,” they said.
Tsarnaev was sentenced to death just over two years
after he and his brother set off two shrapnel-packed,
pressure-cooker bombs near the Boston Marathon’s fin
ish line on April 15,2013, killing three people and wound
ing more than 260.
He was convicted of all 30 charges against him, includ
ing conspiracy and use of weapon of mass destruction,
after a months-long trial in which his attorneys admit
ted he and his older brother carried out the attack. The
defense had sought to portray Tsarnaev as an impression
able teenager who was lured by his brother into partici
pating in the deadly plot.
Tsarnaev, now 25, is behind bars at the supermax
prison in Florence, Colorado. His 26-year-old brother,
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died in a gunbattle with police a few
days after the bombing.
Male Disney worker
claims harassment
by female supervisor
ORLANDO, Fla. — A middle-aged male former labor
analyst at Disney Cruise Line claims his younger female
manager created a hostile work environment by bullying
him about his age, bragging about sleeping with married
men in the office and passing him over for promotions,
according to a federal lawsuit.
Anthony McHugh claims in the lawsuit filed last
month that his former female manager discriminated
against him because of his sex and age, a scenario legal
experts say is rare given the genders of the employee and
supervisor.
The unidentified female supervisor called McHugh a
“stuffy old fart” in front of staff, moved his office to a
windowless space, wouldn’t provide him with an iPhone
or tablet like she did for staff younger than 40 and passed
him over for promotions even though he says he was
more senior and qualified, the lawsuit said.
Disney Cruise Line said in a statement that the claims
in the lawsuit are without merit and “we will respond to
them in court.” The Florida-headquartered cruise line
is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Co. and operates four
ships.
McHugh’s attorney, John Zielinksi, said they wouldn’t
comment for the time as the lawsuit is being litigated. The
lawsuit doesn’t say how old the supervisor or McHugh
were, other than McHugh was older than 40 and the man
ager was younger than 40. Zielinski didn’t respond to an
email asking his client’s age.
Associated Press
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