LAPD's 'magic number' of 10,000 officers losing some luster

In 1989, then-Los Angeles Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky unveiled an audacious plan to boost the city police force by more than 25% to 10,000 officers.

He couldn't have imagined that city leaders would chase that goal for nearly a quarter of a century until, at the start of this year, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced that he had pushed the LAPD over the long-elusive benchmark.

The two candidates vying to replace Villaraigosa in the May 21 election — City Controller Wendy Greuel and Councilman Eric Garcetti — have embraced the mayor's achievement, crediting the LAPD buildup in large measure for the city's lowest crime rates since the 1950s. Indeed, Greuel has committed to enlarging the police force an additional 20%, if the city treasury grows.

But increasingly, voices on the periphery of the mayoral campaign argue that rising police costs — up 36% to more than $2 billion over the last eight years, more than twice the rate of growth in such discretionary spending overall — raises two critical questions: Has the expansion been crucial to making Los Angeles safer? Has the relentless pursuit of more officers come at too great a cost to paramedic response times, paving streets and other basic services?

Among those raising such concerns are former police chief and current Councilman Bernard C. Parks, Councilman Paul Koretz, former first deputy mayor and businessman Austin Beutner, the police officers' union and, in a small irony, Yaroslavsky.

"If the Police Department does not lose any officers over the next few years, during this time of economic hardship, it's because the rest of city services have been eviscerated," said Yaroslavsky, now a Westside and San Fernando Valley representative on the county Board of Supervisors. "I don't think it's sensible to say that we cannot cut the Police Department by even one position."

There is little consensus among criminal-justice academics about the effect that changes in police staffing have on crime rates. Where officers are deployed and the assignments they are given appear to be as important as the number of cops on the payroll, said Jeremy M. Wilson, a Michigan State University criminologist. A recent report on police staffing levels coauthored by Wilson suggested that many departments simply guess the number of officers needed. "We determine how many officers we need," said one police official in the report, "by holding an envelope to our head."

Many criminologists who have studied big-city crime decreases credit longer prison sentences and the retreat of the crack-cocaine epidemic, among other reasons, as being most responsible for bringing down crime. They point to cities such as Seattle and Dallas that cut police staffing in the 1990s and still saw crime drop sharply.

But LAPD Chief Charlie Beck argues that there is an important correlation between officer staffing levels and lower crime rates. Cities such as San Jose, Long Beach and Oakland saw crime surge after cutting their police forces, he said.

Villaraigosa, whose legacy is tied to his record of expanding the Police Department, despite the Great Recession, also draws a direct line between more cops and less crime. The city has had fewer than 300 murders each of the last three years, he notes, down from a high of nearly 1,100 in 1992.

"The numbers speak for themselves," Villaraigosa said. "A 49% drop in violent crime and homicides, a 66% drop in gang homicides. Growing our Police Department and ... community policing is a big reason why we are safer today."

But why 10,000 cops for L.A.?

Yaroslavsky latched onto the number after crack- and gang-fueled violent crime surged. Voters demanded action. The 10,000 figure lacked any analytical underpinning but was "a nice round number," Yaroslavsky chuckled in an interview. It also "takes the force from four digits to five digits." The goal stuck, becoming a lodestar of L.A.'s mayoral politics ever since.

Police Chief Willie L. Williams, hired three years after Yaroslavsky rolled out his plan, said he wanted to reach the mark by 2000. In 1993, mayoral candidate Richard Riordan suggested pushing the force past 10,000 officers by leasing Los Angeles International Airport to a private operator and diverting the income to the LAPD. His opponent, Councilman Michael Woo, pledged to reach the 10,000-officer target by shifting money away from other departments. Riordan won the contest but never added the 3,000 officers he had promised.

In 2005, mayoral contender Villaraigosa pledged 1,000 additional officers, which would have brought the LAPD to a force of 10,200.

To finally claw past the 10,000-cop threshold, his administration employed a bureaucratic sleight of hand — shifting 60 officers to the LAPD from the General Services Department, which patrols parks, libraries and other municipal buildings. The result: no net increase in officers, but effectively 10,000 wearing LAPD blue. (Due to routine fluctuations in staffing, the figure dipped to 9,976 last week.)

The department's highest-ever staffing comes with a notable asterisk. Because the city has all but eliminated funding for police overtime, cops must instead be compensated with time off, removing the equivalent of 400 or more officers from duty. That effectively reduces Villaraigosa's police buildup during his eight years in office by at least half, according to Beutner, the mayor's former first deputy.

Using the 10,000-officer figure, the LAPD now employs more than 2.5 officers per 1,000 residents. That's low compared to Chicago (4.7) and New York (4.3) but higher than other large western cities such as Houston (2.3), Phoenix (2.1) and San Diego (1.5). Criminologists warn that such ratios can be misleading because so many other factors — including geography and deployment patterns — are more important factors.

The LAPD, including the cost of benefits to retired officers, now consumes more than 55% of the $4 billion in revenue that city officials have discretion over, compared with 46% nine years ago.

The increased expenditures are worth it, Beck says, because public safety is the city's No. 1 priority. Current staffing is the "absolute minimum" needed to keep the city safe, he argues.

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Trial for 1987 slaying of Jimmy Casino to wrap up

He was a smooth-talking swindler who operated Orange County's most notorious and lucrative strip club, the Mustang Topless Theater.

Born James Stockwell, he rebranded himself Jimmy Casino and lived the extravagant lifestyle of a character from an Elmore Leonard novel. Expensive cowboy couture. Luxury cars. Enemies who wanted him dead.

After years of staying a step ahead of the law and the people whom he owed money, Casino, 48, was ambushed at his Buena Park condo Jan. 2, 1987.

"We're getting paid to do this," one of the two gunmen allegedly said.

They raped Casino's 22-year-old girlfriend. Then they pumped three bullets into the back of his head with a silencer-equipped handgun before making off with credit cards, fur coats, jewelry and two of his cars.

For more than two decades, Casino's death remained one of Orange County's most intriguing unsolved crimes.

But investigators kept the heat on the cold case. In 2008, using DNA matching technology not available at the time of the shooting, they arrested 59-year-old Richard Morris Jr. in Hawaii, charging him with murder.

Now, a quarter of a century after Casino was gunned down, Morris' trial is set to wrap up this week in Orange County Superior Court with jurors deciding his fate. If convicted he faces life in prison without parole. A second suspect remains at large.

These days, Morris looks like an aging biker — slightly pudgy with a droopy mustache and a long ponytail. But back in the day, prosecutors say, , he was a violent criminal and cold-blooded hired hand.

"He was a street thug and a heroin addict," Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Murray said. "He was a nobody."

Casino's slaying was front-page news replete with the titillating elements of a pulp novel — mobsters, hit men, prostitution, extortion.

Morris' two-week murder trial, by contrast, has largely played out to an empty courtroom and the esoteric science of DNA matching — laboratory protocols, negative controls, electropherograms.

After one recess following a detailed cross-examination of a crime lab employee over data displayed on an overhead projector, Judge Francisco Briseno rhetorically asked jurors how they were holding up.

Morris' attorney, assistant public defender Martin Schwarz, argued to jurors that DNA collected from the rape victim was mishandled over the years and misinterpreted by the county's crime lab. Morris' DNA was obtained in Hawaii after he was picked up on suspicion of driving under the influence.

"Popular culture has shaped peoples' perception of DNA as being infallible," Schwarz said. "It's a powerful crime-fighting tool. but it's only as good as the evidence itself.... There's also a subjective component to DNA analysis."

Schwarz also placed into evidence what he described as a 2004 recorded confession by a man, now dead, who told investigators he was hired by one of Casino's business associates to kill him.

Casino's death in 1987 was the opening salvo in a battle for control of the Mustang strip club in Santa Ana, which grossed $150,000 a month and had ties to organized crime.

Over the next 15 months, a financial backer of the Mustang was shot and blinded by a Los Angeles mob underboss who was convicted of attempted murder. Mustang bouncer "Big" George Yudzevich — a 6-foot-7 slab of intimidation who also happened to be an FBI informant — was shot to death in an Irvine industrial park; no one was ever charged.

Who ordered Casino's murder may never be proven. He had served time for fraud, extortion and other crimes and made more than a few enemies. He also liked to insinuate to others that he had juice with the mob.

"There have been all kinds of theories," Murray said

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President Obama's Mexico visit comes with backdrop of uncertainty

WASHINGTON — President Obama travels to Mexico this week amid signs that the relationship between the United States and its southern neighbor's new government faces a new period of uncertainty after years of unprecedented closeness forged by the deadly war against Mexican drug cartels.

The government of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is said to be wary of the level of U.S. involvement in security affairs that characterized the administration of his predecessor, Felipe Calderon. As a result, the Mexican government is expected to narrow U.S. involvement in its attorney general's office and Interior Ministry, the agencies that oversee police and intelligence, current and former U.S. and Mexican officials say.

Instead, Peña Nieto and officials from his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, want to concentrate U.S. participation in less sensitive but potentially profitable areas such as the economy.

Privately, the shifts have led to a large degree of concern in Washington about what the day-to-day working relationship will look like.

Publicly, the Obama administration has welcomed a broader agenda.

"We don't want to define this relationship with Mexico … in the context of security or counter-narcotics trafficking," U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry said April 19 in Washington, with his Mexican counterpart, Jose Antonio Meade, at his side.

"We want to define it much larger in the context of our citizens' economic needs and our capacity to do more on the economic frontier. I am convinced we're going to grow that relationship."

Under Calderon, the United States expanded its role in Mexico to a level never before seen, sending drone aircraft, intelligence agents, police trainers and other assistance worth $2 billion over a six-year period to help fight the drug war. U.S. intelligence, in particular, was instrumental in the killing or capture of 25 drug kingpins, or capos.

The number of U.S. employees at the American Embassy and elsewhere snowballed, coming from agencies as diverse as the Drug Enforcement Administration, CIA, FBI and Treasury. Many participated directly in planning and carrying out drug-war missions with the Mexicans.

Much of that is likely to change.

"The U.S. knows it's going to be different and they're actively trying to find ways to work with the Mexican government," said Duncan Wood, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

Washington is "waiting to see how comfortable [the Mexicans] are with the kind of cooperation that has been going on," Wood added. "The [Mexican] government recognizes that reliable flows of information and intelligence are crucial, but they would rather build up their own capacity than depend on the U.S."

The PRI wants to assert much more control over how U.S. officials operate in Mexico, said a former Mexican official with close ties to the administration. "The doors [to the Americans] are closing," he said.

One of Peña Nieto's most senior staff members, Atty. Gen. Jesus Murillo Karam, is openly critical of two areas where U.S. advisors have been especially active — and where their work seems to have backfired: a series of high-profile corruption prosecutions and a botched program of police vetting.

Millions of U.S. dollars have gone to training prosecutors and police. But the corruption cases collapsed because of what Murillo now says was flimsy evidence, and the vetting has failed to rid police forces of bad cops and may also have resulted in the firing of good officers.

"In a desire of simple imitation," Murillo said, "we let ourselves be guided by the values of other latitudes, other countries."

Some in the Mexican government portray the changing relationship as more tweak than rupture.

One official said Mexico seeks continued U.S. support and advice in the drug war, but wants to reinstate a more formal relationship through "proper," high-level channels, not across-the-board contacts throughout its agencies.

"It's how the PRI does things, always centralizing the channels," said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the government's thinking.

The PRI ruled Mexico uninterrupted for seven decades until it was booted out in 2000. It returned to the presidency in December and has steadily reprised its tradition of concentrating power in a few hands.

For one thing, it is consolidating control over the drug war under the Interior Ministry, including plans to establish a 10,000-member national gendarmerie and add at least 35,000 officers to the federal police force. A powerful Public Security Ministry that existed under Calderon and received substantial U.S. attention has been dissolved; its main body, the federal police, subsumed into the Interior Ministry.

Experts say that the PRI's long-standing concern for protecting Mexican sovereignty could provide a cover for rolling back U.S. involvement. But it may not be easy.

Despite Calderon's U.S.-backed frontal assault on drug cartels, or perhaps because of it, violence skyrocketed, and experts and former officials say that Peña Nieto may have difficulty scaling back U.S. involvement because it has become so deeply entrenched in Mexico's security establishment.

Military attention to Mexico has also grown; in January, the Pentagon announced that it was creating a new headquarters for special operations forces at Colorado-based U.S. Northern Command, which covers Mexico. The number of special operations personnel could increase fivefold to about 125; they would help oversee sensitive training operations requested by Mexican security forces.

U.S. troops aren't expected to get involved in combat in Mexico because of Mexican resistance to a foreign presence, but officials say the special operations expansion has further entrenched a mission the military already has begun.

"Obviously we have a good military-to-military relationship with Mexico, and a lot of that involves special operations," said the command's spokesman, Capt. Jeff Davis. "The bread and butter of what they do is build capacity and train forces.... It's no change in operation, but it provides us better accountability and better command and control."

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

wilkinson@latimes.com

Bengali reported from Washington and Wilkinson from Mexico City.

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After Dorner claim, other fired LAPD cops want cases reviewed

In the wake of Christopher Dorner's claim that his firing from the Los Angeles Police Department was a result of corruption and bias, more than three dozen other fired LAPD cops want department officials to review their cases.

The 40 requests, which were tallied by the union that represents rank-and-file officers, have come in the two months since Dorner sought revenge for his 2009 firing by targeting police officers and their families in a killing rampage that left four dead and others injured.

Dorner's allegations of a department plagued by racism and special interests left Chief Charlie Beck scrambling to stem a growing chorus of others who condemned Dorner's violence but said his complaints about the department were accurate. To assuage concerns, Beck vowed to re-examine the cases of other former officers who believed they had been wrongly expelled from the force.

Now, details of how the department plans to make good on Beck's offer are becoming clear. And, for at least some of the disgruntled ex-officers, they will be disappointing.

In letters to those wishing to have their case reviewed, department officials explain that the city's charter, which spells out the authority granted to various public officials, prevents the police chief from opening new disciplinary proceedings for an officer fired more than three years ago.

"Therefore the Department does not have the power to reinstate officers whose terminations occurred more than three years ago," wrote Gerald Chaleff, the LAPD's special assistant for constitutional policing. "You are being informed of this to forestall any misconceptions about the power of the department."

The reviews remain one of the unsettled postscripts to the Dorner saga. In February, three years after he was fired for allegedly fabricating a story about his partner inappropriately kicking a handcuffed suspect, Dorner resurfaced in violent fashion, bent on seeking revenge for his ouster.

After killing the daughter of the attorney who defended him at his disciplinary hearing and her fiance, Dorner killed two police officers and wounded three other people as he evaded capture during a massive manhunt. After more than a week on the run, Dorner was chased into a cabin in the mountains near Big Bear, where he died from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Dorner had posted online an angry manifesto of sorts in which he claimed that he had been a victim of a racist, corrupt police organization that protects its favored officers at the expense of those trying to report abuses. Those accusations tapped into deep wells of discontent and distrust that officers and minority communities have felt toward the department. Beck sought to reassure doubters that years of reforms had changed the department and buried the "ghosts" of the past. He then offered to review past discipline cases.

Fired officers who wish to have their terminations re-examined must first submit an affidavit or similar declaration within two months of receiving the letter from Chaleff, according to a copy obtained by The Times. The letter was sent in recent weeks to the former officers who have already come forward.

Using "clear and convincing language," the letter instructs ex-officers to explain "the new evidence or change in circumstances that would justify a re-examination of your termination."

LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith said Chaleff will conduct a review for anyone who follows the rules laid out in the letter. "We will do whatever it takes on the cases, including redoing interviews, if necessary," he wrote in an email.

The department and the Protective League declined to release the names of former officers who have requested reviews.

Gary Ingemunson, a longtime attorney for the League, used the case reviews as an opportunity to revive the League's perennial criticism that disciplinary hearings, called Boards of Rights, are stacked against officers.

"The Board of Rights system could be fair, but for the last few years the Department has consistently outdone itself in the attempt to completely skew the system against the officer. The Department wants to win. End of story," Ingemunson wrote in a column in the current issue of the union's monthly magazine.

One of the problems, Ingemunson and other union lawyers have said, is the makeup of the three-person panels that decide an officer's fate. Two of judges are senior-level LAPD officers, while the third is a civilian.

According to the critics, that arrangement is unfair because officers are sent to boards whenever the chief wants them fired and the officers on the panel will feel pressure to do as the chief wants.

Smith rejected that idea, saying board members are completely free to decide as they see fit. He pointed to department figures showing that over the last three years, officers sent by the chief to Boards of Rights were fired in only about 60% of the cases.

Smith defended the department's disciplinary system in general, saying it has been in place for decades and stood up under repeated scrutiny by oversight bodies.

Another allowance Beck made after Dorner's rampage, Smith noted, was to launch a broad review of disciplinary procedures to identify areas that officers believe are unfair and possibly make changes to address those concerns.

joel.rubin@latimes.com

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Syria prime minister survives bomb attack

BEIRUT -- Syria's prime minister survived a bomb attack Monday that targeted his convoy in the capital of Damascus, state media reported, in the latest apparent assassination attempt against a top official in the government of President Bashar Assad.

Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi "is safe and he survived the explosion," reported the official Syrian Arab News Agency. There were unconfirmed reports that the prime minister's bodyguard and several others were killed in the blast.

Footage on state television showed several heavily damaged vehicles and debris scattered along a major street in the Mazzeh district, an upscale neighborhood in western Damascus that is home to many senior officials and diplomats.

The state media reported "casualties and material damage," but there was no official word on how many people were injured or if anyone had been killed.

The attack appeared to be a car bomb, though official accounts did not provide specifics.

Halqi, a senior figure in the governing Baath Party, was appointed prime minister last year after his predecessor, Riad Hijab, defected to the opposition and fled to Jordan.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The government blamed "terrorists," its standard term for the armed opposition.

Rebels fighting to oust Assad have regularly deployed car bombs and have been blamed for several such attacks in the capital, including a devastating explosion in February on a busy roadway in central Damascus  that killed more than 50 people.

The heavily guarded capital is largely under tight government control. But rebels based in suburbs have shown the ability to set off bombs in the city and shell the capital from positions on the outskirts. The military has thwarted several rebel attempts to storm the city from strongholds east of the capital. In recent days the government has been mounting a major counteroffensive against rebels based outside the capital.

Senior government figures have often been targeted for assassination during the two-year uprising against Assad's rule.

Last summer, four top security officials were killed by what the government called a bomb planted in a security building in the capital. A bombing attack at the Interior Ministry in December reportedly wounded Interior Minister Mohammed al-Shaar.

Special correspondent Nabih Bulos in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

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The starkly new face of the Netherlands' monarchy

AMSTERDAM — Even by the unconventional standards of the Dutch, their new king is going to be a bit of a novelty.

He has a license to fly commercial airliners. He's married to a South American, a lively Argentine who's more popular than he is. He says he won't mind it if people fail to address him as "Your Majesty" because he's no "protocol fetishist" — an amusing description here in a city that caters to nearly every fetish imaginable.

But his biggest break with Dutch history of the last 120 years is the simple fact that he's a he. Queens have reigned over the Netherlands since 1890, a matriarchy that will come to an end Tuesday when Crown Prince Willem-Alexander is sworn in as monarch.

His soon-to-be subjects are taking the shift in stride, though no one alive today can recall a time when people spoke of their koning (king) rather than their koningin (queen).

"It's strange," 68-year-old Ineke Flier says, rolling the word around in her mouth. "But he's nice.… He can do a lot of good things for Holland."

Chief among his duties will be to represent the Netherlands as its head of state, its standard-bearer around the world. Here at home, he's supposed to be the uniter-in-chief, a symbol of Dutch identity, cohesion and continuity.

But some are wondering whether things will feel different when the nation's public face is one that has whiskers. The last king was Willem-Alexander's great-great-grandfather, Willem III; first-born daughters of the House of Orange-Nassau have succeeded him since. (In the Netherlands, the monarch's eldest child is heir to the throne regardless of gender, unlike in Britain, where a son takes precedence over older sisters. The British Parliament is currently amending that rule.)

"Having a female head of state has been so much the style that [there's] a kind of feeling it's going to be harder for a male to fit the mold," says James Kennedy, a historian at the University of Amsterdam. "Some people say that the Dutch monarchy has taken on … a caring, nurturing style — the maternal thing. How is Willem-Alexander going to be able to do that?"

The prince, who turned 46 on Saturday, will also be the youngest sovereign in Europe, where most of the remaining crowned heads are gray (or balding).

But that doesn't faze his compatriots, who are confident that his feckless days as "Prince Pils," the nickname he earned as a beer-swilling college student, are well behind him.

"He's serious enough to be king," says Flier, a retired designer. "The world is changing. In America it's a young president."

Contrast that with Britain's Prince Charles, who at 64 is seemingly no closer to ascending to the throne than when he was Willem-Alexander's age nearly two decades ago. Charles' mother, Queen Elizabeth II, is in excellent health at 87.

In fact, Willem-Alexander's succession is possible only because of a tradition that would horrify the British royals. Beatrix, the prince's 75-year-old mother, is voluntarily stepping down as queen, as did her mother before her, in 1980, and her grandmother, in 1948.

Those abdications, almost in the manner of CEOs opting for a comfortable retirement, illustrate just how different the Dutch royal family is from the House of Windsor.

As institutions of hereditary privilege go, the Dutch monarchy is a relative newcomer, created after the Netherlands won its independence from Napoleon about 200 years ago. It's therefore not so freighted — or burdened — with the same weight of history and expectations that surround its much older British counterpart.

Tuesday's investiture of Willem-Alexander, the oldest of three brothers, isn't even a "coronation." Dutch kings and queens are sworn in, not crowned, during a special joint session of the two chambers of parliament, which form the Netherlands' democratically elected government. The prime minister remains the country's political leader.

"It's often been said that this is a republic ruled over by a monarch," Kennedy says. "There is this kind of notion that the queen or the king really does need to know this was once a republic and that monarchs are kind of guests in the Netherlands. They serve at the pleasure of the people."

Particularly in the 20th century, the Dutch royals have cultivated a far greater sense of informality and closeness to the people than has the British monarchy, which strives to maintain an otherworldly aura through its matchless pomp and circumstance.

Juliana, the present queen's mother, was often seen riding her bicycle in public, sometimes to the supermarket. Today's princes and princesses are expected to hold down "real" jobs, making them more like royal professionals than professional royals. Willem-Alexander's career focus has been water management. (The commercial pilot's license is just a hobby.)

As queen, Beatrix is credited with dispatching her duties with businesslike efficiency and dedication but also with a certain aloofness, in contrast to Juliana's affectionate style.

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With new arrest, ricin case takes a strange turn

TUPELO, Miss. — Federal agents of all sorts invaded northeast Mississippi several days ago, on a mission: Find the man who sent a poison-laced letter to the president. But the United States government quickly found itself entangled, once again, in a misunderstood land dominated by squabbling tribes and petty vengeances.

Agents first arrested an Elvis impersonator, released him, then on Saturday arrested his nemesis, a karate instructor. Gradually investigators concluded that what they had descended upon was probably less about the president — or the U.S. senator and retired state judge who also received letters — than a serious case of indigenous bickering.

That shocks no one here. "Tupelo is a kaleidoscope," said sociologist Mark Franks, who grew up in nearby Booneville. There are true geniuses walking the streets of Tupelo, he said, and incredibly wealthy, generous people. But also, "every wall-eyed uncle and 'yard cousin' — just referencing the local pejorative — makes it into Tupelo, Miss. It creates a peculiar culture."

Tupelo is best known as the hometown of Elvis Presley, after whom it has named streets, waterways and dry cleaners.

Unlike many other Southern towns its size, it boasts several excellent museums, street art and a large public arena. An arena large enough, in fact, to attract the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus this month. That's when someone shot Carol, a circus elephant, in what seems to be the first elephantine drive-by ever. Carol is recovering, but Tupelo Police Capt. Rusty Haynes said his investigation has stalled. "Because, to be honest, there are a lot of possible perpetrators."

So people in the area were bemused more than surprised when the FBI, Secret Service and other agencies showed up looking for the soul who had sent letters laced with ricin to President Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and retired Mississippi judge Sadie Holland.

The agents quickly nabbed an odd character in nearby Corinth named Paul Kevin Curtis. He worked as an Elvis impersonator, spun wild conspiracies about the local hospital selling body parts and apparently signed the poisoned letters with his own initials.

But the FBI found no evidence of ricin in Curtis' home. No incriminating research on his computer. They decided he hadn't sent the letters after all and released him Tuesday. Within hours agents had raided the home of his archenemy: J. Everett Dutschke, karate instructor.

Curtis claimed Dutschke wanted to frame him. It wouldn't be the first skirmish between Tupelo's most famous son and a karate man. In 1973, several men climbed on stage during a concert by the actual Elvis. Elvis felt threatened and fought the men, alongside his bodyguards. He felt sure the men had been sent by estranged wife Priscilla's new boyfriend, his own personal nemesis: Mike Stone, karate instructor.

Curtis, 45, and Dutschke, 41, seem locked in an elaborate piece of tribute performance art. Their lives have entwined for years, feuding over small-town grievances as labyrinthine and intricate as any global conspiracy. They met in 2005, and were friendly for a time. When he wasn't teaching karate, Dutschke worked for Curtis' brother Jack at an insurance office. Both men knew Sen. Wicker, and both had connections to the 80-year-old Judge Holland.

It's unclear at what moment the hostilities began, but a few years ago Curtis, who worked at the local hospital, developed a theory that doctors were harvesting organs to sell on the black market. He wrote a book about it called "Missing Pieces." Dutschke published a local newsletter at the time, and after some negotiations apparently rejected Curtis' writings.

There was the question, too, of who had the bigger intellect. Dutschke was a member of Mensa, the club for people with high IQs. A few years ago, Curtis posted a fake Mensa certificate on his Facebook page, which sent Dutschke into a rage. "I threatened to sue him for fraud for posting a Mensa certificate that is a lie," Dutschke told Tupelo's newspaper, the Daily Journal. "That certificate is a lie."

"Aw, yeah. I don't know why Kevin did that," Curtis' father, Jack, said recently in Cleveland, Miss. "These boys were just after each other."

Both men have made multiple trips to jail. Curtis was arrested for, among other things, assaulting a Tupelo lawyer — for which he received a six-month sentence from Judge Holland. In January, Tupelo authorities charged Dutschke with molesting children. He pleaded not guilty, but he shut down his karate school, called Tupelo Taekwondo Plus, while awaiting trial.

After the FBI released Curtis, the two enemies' paths diverged. Curtis headed for New York. "Can you believe that?" Jack Curtis said. "Now he's got publishers all trying to jump the gun on each other to publish his book first. Isn't that something?"

Dutschke, meanwhile, watched federal agents in protective masks search his home, his karate studio and his van.

On Wednesday, Dutschke slipped from sight, traveling with his friend Kirk Kitchens to a remote house in neighboring Itawamba County.

They entered the house and turned on the television, then slipped out the back door and down a wooded path, where they met a waiting car, Kitchens later told a Memphis television station.

Itawamba County Sheriff Chris Dickinson said Dutschke had escaped surveillance.

But the next evening, Dutschke pulled into the driveway at his house and stepped from his minivan like a man returning from routine errands.

On Saturday the U.S. attorney charged him with "knowingly developing, producing" and stockpiling ricin. If convicted he faces maximum penalties of life imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.

Hours before his arrest, Dutschke answered his door by opening it just enough to look out with one dark eye. He held a kitten, which also looked outside. "I'm sorry, I just...," he started. His voice was soft. "I can't talk. I'm so, so sorry."

Could he say, at least, what started this mess?

"Just look around you," he said. "This place is crazy."

matthew.teague@latimes.com

Twitter: @matthewteague

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FBI: Mississippi man arrested in suspicious letters case

TUPELO, Miss. — A Mississippi man whose home and business were searched as part of an investigation into poisoned letters sent to the president and others has been arrested in the case, according to the FBI.

Everett Dutschke, 41, was arrested about 12:50 a.m. Saturday at his Tupelo home in connection with the letters, FBI spokeswoman Deborah Madden said. The letters, which allegedly contained ricin, were sent last week to President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and earlier to an 80-year-old Mississippi judge, Sadie Holland.

Madden said Dutschke was arrested without incident. She said additional questions should be directed to the U.S. attorney's office. The office in Oxford did not immediately respond to messages Saturday.

Dutschke's attorney, Lori Nail Basham, did not immediately respond to phone or text messages Saturday.

Charges in the case were initially filed against an Elvis impersonator but then dropped. Attention then turned to Dutschke, who has ties to the former suspect and the judge and senator.

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Efforts to split Santa Monica-Malibu district gain new traction

The PTA at Point Dume Elementary in Malibu is a fundraising machine. Parents collected about $2,100 per student in the 2009-10 school year, money that helped pay for music and art programs, as well as a dedicated marine science lab.

But now the Santa Monica-Malibu school board wants to funnel much of that money away and, in the name of educational equality, give it to other district campuses.

The move has sparked an effort in Malibu to secede from the district, igniting a battle between one wealthy community and its less wealthy neighbor that echoes across the state.

The district's effort to redistribute PTA money adds to the trend in California since the 1970s to equalize funding between rich and poor schools. Gov. Jerry Brown rolled out a new plan earlier this year that would radically alter the status quo, moving the lion's share of educational dollars to poor schools.

Some Malibu parents are just fed up.

"It's not fair," said Maria Kuznetsova, who has a 6-year-old son at Point Dume. "You don't want to donate to somebody else. You know how it goes. It disappears."

Still, secession is a hard idea to swallow for some in the community known as much for its liberal politics as its sandy beaches and Creamsicle sunsets.

Deborah Allen, who has two sons in the district and helps run Malibu High's booster club, said she has no problem with the policy that will send money her school raises to students who need it most.

"Some of the kids in Santa Monica, the only hot meal they get each day is lunch," Allen said. "So if half of my money, or whatever portion, goes to them, I'm OK with it."

::

Only in this awkward marriage between two beach cities could Santa Monica be considered the poor spouse. Its median household income is 27% higher than the rest of the county. Its ocean-front homes are the stuff of California dreams, although there are less affluent pockets inland.

The city's wealth, however, pales in comparison with Malibu, where median incomes, at $133,000 a year, are nearly double Santa Monica's.

When the Santa Monica school district first added a campus in Malibu more than 60 years ago, the joining of the two communities made sense. Santa Monica had an established system; Malibu was just a rustic beach town.

But over the decades, the two cities have grown — and grown apart. Malibu opened its own high school in 1992. It now has three elementary schools and about 2,000 students. Leaders of the separation movement say it's time the for city to make its own educational decisions for its schools.

The core of the problem is the mismatch between the wealth of Malibu, population 13,000, and the political power of its southern neighbor Santa Monica, population 90,000. Santa Monica has 10 schools and about 9,000 students. There hasn't been a Malibu resident on the school board since 2008.

In 2003, Malibu parents launched the first of at least three serious attempts to secede from the joint school district.

The latest effort was sparked in 2011, when the joint school board unanimously passed a policy that beginning in 2014 will bar PTAs from raising money for professional development or staff, such as instructional aides.

Instead, the district will funnel privately raised dollars into a foundation that will distribute the funds more equally among all schools. PTAs could still raise money for classroom items under the new plan.

The goal, Supt. Sandra Lyon said, was to ensure that "every student gets the best education we have to offer."

In a presentation to the school board, she showed how some PTAs in the district raised thousands of dollars per student for their schools while others brought in less than $100.

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Problems keep proliferating at discredited private foster care agency

A decade ago, a team of Los Angeles County auditors delivered a damning assessment of Teens Happy Homes, a private foster care agency responsible for hundreds of children.

Agency workers bought beer and cigarettes with public funds intended for mistreated children, auditors found. It billed the state and county more than $100,000 for care it never provided. Employees wrote checks to themselves worth thousands of dollars and kept no receipts.

The auditors' conclusion: The county needed to give Teens closer supervision or cancel its contract.

Not only did the county Board of Supervisors continue the Teens contract but it tripled its value, from $1 million a year to as much as $3.6 million, according to the agency's tax returns. Between 2008 and 2011, 1,154 children lived in its homes.

Interviews and an examination of public records by The Times found that questionable financial practices proliferated in recent years. At the same time, children suffered abuse and neglect repeatedly.

Robert Fellmeth, director of the Children's Advocacy Institute at the University of San Diego School of Law, said the long delay in reviewing the agency is indicative of the state and county's inattention to private foster care agencies that were created over 25 years ago.

"There are some clear failures indicating the need for financial auditing and performance oversight," Fellmeth said. "There is a need for systemic reform in this regulatory scheme."

County Supervisor Gloria Molina said Teens should finally lose its contract, and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said that if the allegations against Teens prove true, they "would constitute a serious misuse of public funds and represent a grave threat to the health and safety of the foster children."

Philip Browning, director of the Department of Children and Family Services, said in an interview Thursday that he was startled to learn of the depth of problems at Teens, and that he was enlisting the help of retired homicide detectives to examine allegations of child abuse and financial malfeasance at foster care contractors.

"My marching orders are to figure out what's going on and fix it," Browning said. "I think we have a long way to go in terms of improving the monitoring of these agencies."

::

Teens' chief executive, Beautina Robinson, grew up in foster care and knew the life from the inside out. She established the South Los Angeles agency's group home in 1990 and expanded with foster homes throughout Southern California.

As a private group, Teens was only loosely monitored by the state and county, which typically audits the finances at private agencies once a decade.

The routine audit of Teens in 2003 faced problems from the beginning. Shortly before auditors arrived, a sewage backup destroyed many financial records. The remaining documents painted a picture of financial chaos.

There were canceled checks showing the agency repeatedly bought cigarettes and beer with foster care money — in one instance, 30 cases' worth. There was $46,000 in unpaid federal payroll taxes. The agency's bookkeeper wrote $13,000 in checks to herself. "The agency was unable to explain the nature of these expenditures," auditors wrote.

The bookkeeper, fearing criminal prosecution, wrote to county auditors, saying Robinson had ordered two workers to "come up with receipts" to help keep staff "out of jail."

The plan fell apart when one manager refused. "He was not going to get caught up in falsifying any documents," the bookkeeper wrote in her letter, which was obtained by The Times.

An attorney for Teens declined to comment for this story.

In the end, auditors told county officials they "should consider whether to continue contracting with this agency due to the nature of these financial issues."

But the agency retained its contract, and the auditor-controller never completed another financial audit to see if problems had been fixed.

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L.A. Unified fight focuses on breakfast program

Los Angeles Unified will eliminate a classroom breakfast program serving nearly 200,000 children, reject more school police, cut administrators and scale back new construction projects unless the school board votes to approve them, according to Supt. John Deasy.

Heading into a fierce battle over funding priorities, Deasy said this week that he would give "maximum responsibility" to the board to decide between those programs and demands by United Teachers Los Angeles to restore jobs and increase pay.

In an April 12 memo obtained by the Times on Friday, Deasy outlined eight items the district would not fund without explicit board approval, including a request for an additional $1.4 million for KLCS-TV public television, small schools that are underenrolled and other unspecified programs.

But the proposed elimination of the breakfast program has drawn the most immediate backlash and pits two of the district's most influential labor unions against each other. Deasy said he proposed eliminating the classroom breakfasts, which were expanded from a small pilot program to 280 schools last year, after "UTLA made it very clear about how this program is a big problem."

UTLA, representing 35,000 teachers, nurses, librarians and others, will not back the program unless it is moved out of the classroom and concerns over lost teaching time and messes are addressed, according to Juan Ramirez, a union vice president. The union posted a video and poll findings on its website stating that more than half of 729 teachers surveyed said they disliked the program in part because it took an average 30 minutes to set up, feed the children and clean up. In a flier to parents, the union said the time lost to the breakfast program amounted to eight instructional days.

"We need to think of our students first, and our biggest concern is instructional time," Ramirez said, adding that the union was willing to seek an alternative nutrition method with district officials.

But Service Employees International Union, Local 99 said more than 900 cafeteria workers among nearly 45,000 school service employees it represents would lose their jobs if the program were eliminated. The union announced that it would begin a week of rallies at schools to save the classroom breakfasts, starting Tuesday at Hooper Avenue Elementary.

Courtni Pugh, Local 99's executive director, said that many of her workers were also L.A. Unified parents who would lose both jobs and extra nutritional opportunities for their children without the program.

The possibility of eliminating classroom breakfasts dumbfounded the program's supporters.

"We'd be out of our minds to cut something that is feeding hungry children," said Megan Chernin, a philanthropist who launched with Deasy the nonprofit Los Angeles Fund for Public Education. The nonprofit has contributed $200,000 to fund an eight-member administrative team to help train educators on how to roll out the program at their schools.

The program was launched to increase the number of children eating breakfast; only 29% of those eligible for free or discounted morning meals were actually eating them when served before school in the cafeteria. Now, 89% of children are eating breakfast and schools are reporting higher attendance, fewer tardies, greater student focus and decreased trips to the nurse's office, according to David Binkle, the district's food services director.

Binkle said the program has brought $6.1 million to the district this year in federal school breakfast reimbursements and that sum is projected to increase to $20 million if the program is expanded to more than 680 schools, as had been planned for the next two years.

Tufts University is evaluating the program and expects to have preliminary findings in the fall.

Deasy said he would recommend that the board restore the program and, in a statement Friday, said he was confident that the board would "enthusiastically and unanimously" do so at its May 14 meeting. But he said the fight over such programs and union demands for more jobs and higher pay would provoke "a very public and intense meeting" in May.

At least one board member, President Monica Garcia, said she would vote to continue the program. Charting a possible way forward were schools such as Malabar Elementary, where students ate together outside their classroom, Garcia said.

She said she wasn't enthralled by Deasy's abrupt move to throw the decisions to the board over classroom breakfasts, more school police and other individual items instead of past practices of bringing an overall recommended budget.

"It's not my favorite strategy, but I understand choices have to be made," she said.

teresa.watanabe@latimes.com

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Assembly passes bill to let noncitizens serve on juries

SACRAMENTO — California would allow noncitizens to serve on juries under a proposal being considered by state lawmakers, potentially expanding a fundamental obligation of American life to millions more people.

The measure, which would apply only to legal residents, would make California the only state to open the jury box to noncitizens who meet all other requirements of service, according to legal experts.

The proposal raises the question of what it means to be judged by peers in a state where more than one in seven residents is not a citizen.

One of the bill's authors, Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont), said the proposal would help ensure an adequate pool of jurors, help immigrants integrate into American society and make juries more representative of California.

Juries "should reflect our community, and our community is always changing," Wieckowski said. "It's time for California to be a leader on this."

The Assembly passed the bill this week on a party-line vote, with most Democrats lining up in favor and Republicans standing in opposition.

Assemblyman Rocky Chavez (R-Oceanside), who voted no, said the measure was unfair to both the prospective jurors and any defendants whose fates they could decide. Noncitizens may not want the responsibilities of American citizenship, he said, and people on trial should not be judged by jurors who "might not have the same cultural experience."

The legislation goes next to the Senate. Gov. Jerry Brown has not taken a public position on the bill.

There are roughly 2.5 million adults in California who live here legally but are not citizens, according to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Homeland Security. Wieckowski's bill, AB 1401, would not change other conditions for jury service; those eligible must still be at least 18, proficient in English and have no felony record.

Legal and trial experts had mixed reactions to the measure, which would open a distinctly American institution to non-Americans. Legal proceedings, particularly civil cases, in many parts of the world are not decided by a jury.

"The real goal is to have people in the community make a determination about guilt or innocence. There could be a value in adding different perspectives into the deliberation process," said Matthew McCusker, president of the American Society of Trial Consultants.

But noncitizens may not have the same understanding of the judicial system, he said.

"Jury instructions are remarkably complex," McCusker said. "If you add in further barriers, whether it's language or cultural, you're adding more difficulties in following the rule of law."

Niels Frenzen, a professor of immigration law at USC, said he doubted immigrants would have any more trouble handling jury duty than citizens would.

"There is not often that great a divide of knowledge between immigrants and ...citizens."

chris.megerian@latimes.com

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George Jones dies at 81; country music icon

Three decades ago, an east Texas singer named George Jones took on an impossibly melodramatic, shamelessly sentimental song about a man who desperately clutched at lost love until his dying breath.

His 1980 recording of "He Stopped Loving Her Today" became one of the most revered songs in country music history.

Singers Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard were known for the poetically crafted lyrics of their country standards. But Jones' anguish-drenched vocals elevated "He Stopped Loving Her Today" above its soap-opera lyrics in polls of the greatest country music songs.

George Jones: Career in Photos

From 1955 to 2005, Jones put 167 records on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart — a history-making 143 of them in the top 40 — and won two Grammy Awards. Along the way, he won admirers as diverse as Frank Sinatra, James Taylor and the Who's Pete Townshend.

Jones, 81, died Friday in Nashville, a little more than a week after being hospitalized for a fever and irregular blood pressure, ending a long, tumultuous life that frequently outstripped the songs he sang in terms of sheer drama.

"The world has lost the greatest country singer of all time. Amen," Merle Haggard said Friday in a statement.

Vince Gill, whose 20 Grammy Awards make him the most lauded male country singer ever, said, "There aren't words in our language to describe the depth of his greatness. I'll miss my kind and generous friend."

In George Jones, glorious musical achievement lived side by side with personal heartbreak. Frustration, failure, disappointment and loss gave way later in life to personal and artistic redemption in recent decades.

That Jones continued touring and recording until this month astonished and delighted fans who had seen him struggle with alcohol and drug abuse, multiple marriages and divorces, lawsuits over his erratic behavior, and brushes with death in motor vehicle accidents. His life became the stuff of country legend: Following a drinking binge during which his wife took his car keys so he couldn't drive, Jones famously commandeered a motorized lawn mower and drove himself to the nearest liquor store.

"Hopefully [people] will remember me for my music and forgive me of the things I did that let 'em down," Jones said in 2006. He also understood he wouldn't be absolved of everything: "There are some things you just can't make up to people," he said of the many performances he missed over the years because of his struggles with alcohol and drugs, which led to the nickname "No Show Jones" that followed him for many years in the 1970s and '80s.

Yet, along the way, he continued to deliver hit after hit from 1955, when he first scored with "Why Baby Why," through his final appearance on the pop chart 50 years later as a guest of Waylon Jennings' son Shooter Jennings on "4th of July."

PHOTOS: Celebrities react to the death of George Jones

"In country music, George Jones set the standard long ago," the late Johnny Cash once said. "No one has compared to him yet."

Or, as the now-departed Waylon Jennings famously remarked, "If we could all sound like we wanted to, we would all sound like George Jones."

"George Jones was the ultimate voice of country music," said Robert Hilburn, The Times' former pop music critic. "He was someone whose pure and traditional tone represented to country music singing what Hank Williams represented to country songwriting. When people talk about country music being the white man's blues, they can explain their point by simply playing a George Jones song."

George Glenn Jones was born Sept. 12, 1931, and grew up in Saratoga, a small, dusty town northeast of Houston in the Big Thicket region of Texas. He was the eighth child of George Washington Jones, a pipe fitter and shipyard worker who played guitar, and, Clara Jones, a church pianist.

The modest household was dominated by the sounds of gospel and country music — and the abusive rages of the young singer's father, who turned to alcohol to drown his pain when Jones' sister died from a fever.

"We were our Daddy's loved ones when he was sober, his prisoners when he was drunk," the singer wrote in his 1996 autobiography, "I Lived to Tell the Tale."

As an 11-year-old, Jones made his first money as a singer when he played guitar and warbled Eddy Arnold songs for coins in front of a local church.

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Lenders venturing back into subprime market

Michele and Russell Poland's credit was shot, but they managed to buy their suburban dream home anyway.

After a business bankruptcy and a home foreclosure, they turned to a rare option in this era of tightfisted banking — a subprime loan.

The Polands paid nearly $10,000 in upfront fees for the privilege of securing a mortgage at 10.9% interest. And they had to raid their retirement account for a 35% down payment.

Most borrowers would balk at such stiff terms. But with prices rising, the Polands wanted to snag a four-bedroom home in Temecula near top-rated schools for their 5-year-old son. By later this year, they figure, they'll be able to refinance into a standard loan.

"The mortgage is a bridge loan," said Russ Poland, now working as an insurance investigator. "It was expensive, but we think it's worth it."

In the aftermath of the housing crash, there's no shortage of Americans who, like the Polands, are eager to rebuild their shattered finances. In response, lenders are emerging to offer the classic subprime trade-off: high-priced loans for high-risk customers.

Before the housing bust, a sprawling business arose in subprime mortgages and their cousins, so-called alt-A loans, which were issued to people who had decent credit but did not have to prove income. About $1 trillion in subprime and alt-A loans were originated in 2005 and again in 2006 — more than a third of all home loans, according to the trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance.

But the explosion of mortgage defaults that began in late 2006 vaporized an entire industry of subprime specialists. The Wall Street firms that had bundled the loans into securities soon began to implode as well. Little wonder that loans for the credit-challenged disappeared.

Today's high-risk lenders differ from those during the housing boom in key ways. These lenders say the new subprime mortgages are actually old school — the kind of loans made in the 1980s and 1990s. In other words, a borrower's collateral matters, down payments matter, income and ability to pay matter.

Subprime lenders care because they are holding the loans on their books rather than selling them to investors. They hope a private securities market for subprime loans, also destroyed in the meltdown, will reemerge soon.

For now, the subprime and alt-A business remains small, maybe $8 billion total, estimated Inside Mortgage Finance Editor Guy D. Cecala. That's less than half of 1% of the $1.8 trillion in U.S. home loans last year.

Among those hoping to reverse the trend is the Polands' lender, Citadel Servicing Corp. of Orange County. Chief Executive Daniel L. Perl said he has tested the water by making a few dozen subprime loans since late 2011, mostly with his own money rather than investment capital.

The Polands, among the first to receive Citadel loans, are part of a success story, Perl said. None of the loans has gone bad; about a third have already been paid off. With that track record, Perl recently raised $200 million from private investors. He's hiring 55 employees to help him make loans through mortgage brokers across most of the West, and he's moving from Citadel's Aliso Viejo location to larger offices in Irvine.

"We're looking to build it up over the next 24 months to $30 million to $50 million a month," Perl said. "It's a decent business plan in a credit-barren world."

But lenders such as Perl are proceeding far more carefully than during the housing bubble. Then, borrowers commonly avoided down payments entirely in "piggyback" arrangements that allowed one loan of 80%, another for 20%. Some lenders offered "Ninja" loans — requiring no proof of income, assets or even a job.

Perl now requires 25% to 40% down, depending on credit scores that can drop as low as 500 on an 850-point scale. His potential customers, who pay a minimum of 7.95% interest, include higher-income as well as lower-income borrowers.

"Quite a few" affluent borrowers are good credit risks, Perl said, even though they had recent short sales — they sold homes for less than they owed on their mortgages. Perl also writes mortgages that exceed the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac threshold for conventional loans, which varies but tops out at $625,500 in the most expensive areas.

"They come from all walks of life — doctors and lawyers as well as blue-collar workers," Perl said. "As long as they have the ability to pay and equity in their homes, they are a candidate for one of our loans."

Another lender getting into subprime mortgages is Carrington Mortgage Holdings of Aliso Viejo, a manager of distressed loans and properties that has become a major landlord.

"There are a lot of borrowers who can make a big down payment, document that they have the income to pay the loan and have a good recent job history — but have a credit score that would make it impossible to get a loan," Carrington Executive Vice President Rick Sharga said.

Carrington would like to start making subprime mortgages later this year, depending on the still-evolving regulatory environment for mortgages. Sharga anticipates "a lot of pent-up demand."

In a related development, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray last month encouraged credit unions, which often hold fixed-rate mortgages on their books, to make "responsible" loans that fall outside the bureau's general guidelines for responsible mortgage lending. Bureau rules discourage most lenders from writing mortgages that increase total debt payments to more than 43% of a borrower's income. Credit unions are given more leeway in exceeding that baseline, provided they properly vet applicants and charge no more than 3.5 percentage points above the going mortgage interest rate.

"The current mortgage market is so tight that lenders are leaving good money on the table by not lending to low-risk applicants seeking to take advantage of the current favorable interest rate climate," Cordray told a credit-union trade association. "This actually creates a window of opportunity for credit unions that helped 'write the book,' so to speak, on what it means to underwrite responsibly."

John C. Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, sees no reason that subprime mortgage bonds can't reemerge in "plain vanilla" form, as opposed to the complex concoctions that ended up as "toxic assets" in the meltdown.

"I can't understand why it hasn't come back sooner," he said, pointing out that there's a strong market for bonds backed by subprime auto and credit-card loans.

"California has been famous for devising exotic mortgages," Williams said. "But the reality is that they held up rather well until we started doing things like giving them to people with no jobs."

scott.reckard@latimes.com

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FBI: Miss. man arrested in suspicious letters case

TUPELO, Miss. — A Mississippi man whose home and business were searched as part of an investigation into poisoned letters sent to the president and others has been arrested in the case, according to the FBI.

Everett Dutschke, 41, was arrested about 12:50 a.m. Saturday at his Tupelo home in connection with the letters, FBI spokeswoman Deborah Madden said. The letters, which allegedly contained ricin, were sent last week to President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and earlier to an 80-year-old Mississippi judge, Sadie Holland.

Madden said Dutschke was arrested without incident. She said additional questions should be directed to the U.S. attorney's office. The office in Oxford did not immediately respond to messages Saturday.

Dutschke's attorney, Lori Nail Basham, did not immediately respond to phone or text messages Saturday.

Charges in the case were initially filed against an Elvis impersonator but then dropped. Attention then turned to Dutschke, who has ties to the former suspect and the judge and senator.

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Medical Board of California could lose investigative powers

The Medical Board of California would be stripped of its power to investigate physician misconduct under a sweeping reform plan by legislators who say the agency has struggled to hold problem doctors accountable.

The medical board has come under fire for failing to discipline doctors accused of harming patients, particularly those suspected of recklessly prescribing drugs.

Under the proposed legislation, amended Thursday, investigations of doctors would be handled by the California attorney general, leaving the board to deal mostly with licensing doctors.

"I've heard repeated stories of difficulty in sanctioning physicians. It's cumbersome and takes a long period of time," said Sen. Curren Price (D-Los Angeles), who co-authored the proposal with Assemblyman Richard Gordon (D-Menlo Park). "I don't want anybody else to die."

Dying for Relief: A Los Angeles Times investigation

The proposed changes come a month after Price and Gordon wrote a letter to the board president threatening to "dissolve" the board unless it made significant progress in overseeing the state's more than 100,000 doctors.

The letter cited a Los Angeles Times investigative report that detailed cases in which doctors continued to practice despite having prescribed drugs to multiple patients who fatally overdosed. In some instances, the deaths occurred as the doctor was under investigation by the board and the inquiry dragged on for months or years.

Medical board President Sharon Levine, who was participating in a board hearing in Los Angeles, said she had been anticipating the move, but could not comment before the full board discussed the matter Friday.

Lynda Gledhill, a spokeswoman for Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris, said the attorney general was still evaluating the proposal.

The idea of placing investigators in the attorney general's office is not a new one.

A similar plan was proposed in 2004 by a public interest lawyer who was appointed by the Legislature to examine the medical board's oversight of physicians.

The lawyer, Julianne D'Angelo Fellmeth, wrote a report recommending that investigators be transferred to the attorney general's office, where they would work more closely with deputy attorney generals who prosecute cases of physician misconduct. The proposed move was intended to foster cooperation and streamline the process.

The plan was supported by then-Attorney Gen. Bill Lockyer, the medical board, the California Medical Assn. and other key players. Ultimately, however, there was political opposition to the idea and it was dropped from proposed legislation, Fellmeth said.

Gordon said he hoped this time would be different. He said shifting investigative responsibilities away from the medical board would not only improve investigations, it would enhance public confidence in the oversight process.

If the investigators answered to another agency, he said, "it would provide far greater assurance to the public that the medical profession is being regulated in California."

"The way it is now, you could almost look at it and ask: Is this a situation of the fox guarding the henhouse," Gordon said. "Some say they're too cozy."

Price and Gordon's desire to reform the medical board seemed to grow more urgent after a public hearing in March that was part of a review process to renew the medical board's legislative authority. Much of the hearing focused on issues raised in a series of Times articles that found that drugs prescribed by doctors played a role in nearly half of the prescription drug overdose deaths in Southern California from 2006 through 2011. The Times reported that 71 physicians prescribed drugs to three or more patients who later fatally overdosed and several had a dozen or more patients who died. In most cases, the board was unaware of the patients' deaths.

At the hearing, lawmakers heard emotional testimony from parents — many of them wearing matching T-shirts with the word "ENOUGH" — who criticized the medical board for doing little or nothing to stop doctors from harming patients with their prescription pads.

After the hearing, Price and Gordon wrote the letter to Levine urging the board to "be more responsive" and "show significant progress." The lawmakers were critical of the board's hiring record, pace of investigations and failure to more often seek immediate suspensions of doctors in the most egregious cases.

Levine said Thursday that the board "took very seriously" the lawmakers' letter and had responded point by point. She said board officials planned to meet with them May 7 to discuss matters further.

Earlier this month, a broad package of bills aimed at reducing prescription drug abuse and overdose deaths won approval from a key state Senate committee. The package included a bill that would require coroners to report prescription-involved deaths to the Medical Board of California and one that would upgrade the state's prescription drug monitoring program, known as CURES, to help officials improve tracking of overprescribing doctors and drug abusing patients.

scott.glover@latimes.com

lisa.girion@latimes.com

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LAFD chief to shift firefighters from trucks to ambulances

Los Angeles Fire Chief Brian Cummings said Thursday he was pressing ahead with a controversial plan to move dozens of city firefighters from fire engines to ambulances, despite warnings from labor groups that the change would put lives at risk.

In the coming days, the chief plans to deploy 11 new ambulances by reassigning one firefighter per shift from 22 firetrucks across the city. Cummings says the department must adjust to fewer fires and a growing number of medical emergencies, and has limited funding to make the change.

"After asking for money and not receiving it, I am moving forward," he said.

Both candidates for mayor have expressed concern about the change.

City Controller Wendy Greuel, who has been endorsed by groups representing city firefighters and most commanders, said the new plan "continues to put our first responders and our communities at risk."

A spokesman for her rival, Eric Garcetti, said the councilman does not believe the changes should be implemented until the department can prove they make sense. "He wants to see the real data," spokesman Jeffrey Millman said.

Medical calls now account for more than 80% of 911 responses, and the chief says that figure is growing rapidly. In the first two months of this year, medical calls increased 6.2%, compared with the same period last year, Cummings recently reported.

Labor leaders said Thursday that the chief's plan was hastily drafted and thinly researched. They called on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council to provide more money to staff ambulances, rather than take firefighters from engines.

The firefighters' union president, Capt. Frank Lima, urged residents to complain to elected officials about cuts to the force in recent years. "It's time to speak up, it's time to get angry," he said.

He spoke at a news conference outside of the charred remains of a North Hollywood apartment where one person died and four others were injured earlier this week.

Two fewer firefighters would have responded to the blaze under Cummings plan, he said. "Without a doubt, there would have been more fatalities," he said.

Earlier in the day, labor officials tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Fire Commission to postpone the changes. Assistant Chief Andy Fox, president the Chief Officers' Assn., complained that Cummings had failed to show that firefighter safety would be protected.

"If you remove one firefighter, it's like asking the Dodgers to play without a center fielder," Fox said. "Yes, they can play the game. Over time, it would prove to be a very bad idea."

About 60 firefighters assigned to so-called light forces, teams made up of a ladder truck and fire engine, will be reassigned under the plan. Currently, each light force is staffed by six firefighters who perform specialized roles during fires and rescues, including car accidents.

The chief's redeployment would leave many light forces with five firefighters, but allow for the new ambulances, LAFD officials said. The ambulances would be staffed by firefighters trained to handle less serious medical emergencies not requiring a firetruck or more highly trained paramedics.

The department's fleet of non-paramedic ambulances will increase by about one-third, to 45, officials said. That will help free up about 90 paramedic units to respond to the most life-threatening calls, they said.

The shift also aims to reduce responses by heavy firetrucks to many medical calls.

"To send an aerial ladder truck, or let alone lights and sirens, to someone with abdominal pains is dangerous and foolish," said Marc Eckstein, the department's medical director.

A Villaraigosa spokesman said only that the mayor supports Cummings and Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck "in their efforts to respond to the needs of the city through changes in deployment plans."

Cummings said his plan was based on solid data analysis. But so far, his office has released only a draft report of less than two pages describing the changes.

The department's planning and data analysis has been under increased scrutiny since early last year, when fire officials admitted that they published response times that made it appear that rescuers arrived at emergencies faster than they actually did.

A task force of experts found that that fire officials charged with crunching numbers were poorly qualified and previous departmental data analysis "should not be relied upon." Subsequent Times investigations found delays in processing 911 calls and summoning the nearest medical rescuers from other jurisdictions, as well as wide gaps in response times in different parts of the city.

ben.welsh@latimes.com

kate.lincthicum@latimes.com

robert.lopez@latimes.com

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Boston bombing suspect transferred to federal site

Surveillance video provided by the Boston Regional Intelligence Center shows bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at a Bank of America ATM in Watertown, Mass. at 11:18 p.m. on April 18, 2013. The next day, police intercepted Dzhokhar and his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, in a gun battle that left the elder brother dead. (Uncredited, AP / April 18, 2013)

From the Associated Press

April 26, 2013, 3:48 a.m.

BOSTON -- The surviving Boston Marathon bombings suspect has been released from a civilian hospital and transferred to a federal medical detention center in central Massachusetts.

The U.S. Marshals Service said Friday that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center overnight and was taken to the Federal Medical Center Devens about 40 miles west of Boston.

The facility, on the decommissioned Fort Devens U.S. Army base, treats federal prisoners and detainees who require specialized long-term medical or mental health care.

The 19-year-old Tsarnaev is recovering from a gunshot wound to the throat and other injuries suffered during his attempted getaway.

The Massachusetts college student was charged with setting off the shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs that killed three people and wounded more than 260 at the marathon finish line April 15.

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Consumers' shift to older iPhones raises concerns on Wall Street

How strange to think that Vicki Macchiavello's decision to buy an iPhone after years of using a BlackBerry could be bad news for Apple.

And yet, because the Oakland resident opted to buy a cheaper, older iPhone 4 rather than the latest, pricier iPhone 5, she represents a trend that has become a growing concern on Wall Street.

In recent months, such an unusually large proportion of consumers are opting to buy older iPhone models that some analysts have begun to wonder whether Apple has lost its ability to create new versions that have enough dazzle to justify their high prices.

Not only has the shift toward cheaper phones nibbled away at Apple's profit margins, it's been dramatic enough for some analysts to view the iPhone 5 as a disappointment.

"I think it's no surprise then that the iPhone 5 is selling worse than expected," said Brian Colello, an analyst at Morningstar.

When Macchiavello went shopping recently for a new phone, she wasn't thinking about the bigger screen size of the iPhone 5, its faster processor, or the fact it could come with 32 gigabytes of memory. What she did think about was its price, ranging from $199 to $399.

So instead, she gravitated to the iPhone 4, which to some may border on heresy in the gadget-obsessed Bay Area. Macchiavello got the iPhone with a mere 8 gigabytes of memory for practically free from AT&T in exchange for signing a two-year service contract.

"I'm not one who feels like I need to get the coolest things right away," Macchiavello said. "After a short period of time, the coolest thing isn't that cool anymore, and then it gets a lot cheaper."

Apple would argue that it's happy to have customers like Macchiavello. The company has found that once people buy Apple products, they tend to keeping buying more Apple products over time. Customer satisfaction is so high, and loyalty so strong, that a customer that starts small today is likely to grow into a bigger one down the road.

"Apple's 'black hole' ecosystem captures subscribers who never leave," Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe wrote in a recent report that argues these factors will give Apple a long-term advantage over rivals that run on operating platforms such as Google's Android.

Many analysts are not entirely convinced.

That's because Apple has built its reputation and much of its business in recent years on the ability to consistently deliver new versions of it products, especially the iPhone, that consumers were more than happy to buy in ever greater numbers at premium prices.

That was true at first of the iPhone 5 that went on sale last September. Apple said it sold 5 million units in the first three days, compared with 4 million of the iPhone 4S in 2011 and 1.7 million of the iPhone 4 in 2010.

But sales growth has slowed. In January, Apple executives said the company could have sold more iPhones if had the ability to make more older models.

After the Apple earnings conference call Tuesday, several analysts noted that the average selling price of iPhones had fallen to $613 from $641 in the previous quarter, the result of what William Power, a Baird analyst, said in a report was "greater focus on the lower-priced iPhone 4."

Although Apple did not give specific breakdowns between versions, a recent report by Chicago-based Consumer Intelligence Research Partners found that for the first three months of 2013, 53% of those surveyed bought an iPhone 5, compared with 73% for the iPhone 4S for the same period after its launch.

Ben Reitzes, an analyst at Barclays, wrote in a note to clients this week that "the reception of the iPhone 5 and execution of late has tested our patience."

Beyond just profit margins in the short term, analysts also worry that people like Macchiavello who buy older phones with less memory are also less likely to buy other things like music and apps. Indeed, Macchiavello said she had downloaded only 11 apps for her phone so far.

And going forward, Wall Street wonders whether there will really be enough new features on the rumored iPhone 5S presumably coming this fall to generate the kind of enthusiasm to cause fans to set new sales records and return the company to the faster growth investors crave.

"It begs the question: Can Apple bounce back with an iPhone 5S?" said Colello of Morningstar. "Can they add enough that's new to make enough people believe it's worth it to buy a premium phone again?"

chris.obrien@latimes.com

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U.S. economy grows at 2.5% rate in 1st quarter

WASHINGTON -- U.S. economic growth accelerated from January through March, buoyed by the strongest consumer spending in more than two years. The strength offset further declines in government spending that are expected to drag on growth throughout the year.

The Commerce Department said Friday that the overall economy expanded at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the first quarter, rebounding from the anemic 0.4 percent growth rate in the October-December quarter.

Much of the gain reflected a jump in consumer spending, which rose at an annual rate of 3.2 percent. That's the best since the end of 2010.

Businesses responded to the greater demand by rebuilding their stockpiles. And home construction rose further.

But government spending fell at a 4.1 percent rate, led by another deep cut in federal defense spending. That kept growth below economists' expectations of a rate exceeding 3 percent. And broad government spending cuts that began in March are expected to weigh on the economy for the rest of the year, while higher taxes have started to make some consumers and businesses cautious.

Many economists say they think growth as measured by the gross domestic product is slowing in the April-June quarter to an annual rate of just 2 percent. Most foresee growth remaining around this subpar level for the rest of the year.

GDP is the broadest gauge of the economy's health. It measures the total output of goods and services produced in the United States, from haircuts and hamburgers to airplanes and automobiles.

The cuts in government spending have forced federal agencies to furlough workers, reduced spending on key public projects and made businesses more nervous about investing and hiring this year.

The cuts came two months after President Barack Obama and Congress allowed a Social Security tax cut to expire. That left a person earning $50,000 a year with about $1,000 less to spend this year. A household with two high-paid workers has up to $4,500 less.

Consumers' take-home pay is crucial to the economy because their spending drives roughly 70 percent of growth.

Americans appeared to shrug off the tax increase at the start of the year. They boosted spending in January and February, helped by a stronger job market. In part, that's why growth is expected to be solid in the first quarter.

But hiring slowed sharply in March. And consumers cut back their spending at retail businesses, a sign that many were starting to feel the tax increase. Economists expect spending to stay weak in the second quarter as consumers adjust to their smaller paychecks.

Ben Herzon, an economist at Macroeconomics Advisers, said the tax increases could shave roughly 1 percentage point from growth this year. He also expects the government spending cuts to reduce growth by about 0.6 percentage point.

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Boston bombings: A city can exhale

WATERTOWN, Mass. — A manhunt that locked down metropolitan Boston for 23 hours ended Friday night when police unleashed a barrage of gunfire and snatched the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings from his hiding place in a covered boat in a backyard.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was found huddled and covered in blood by officers who stormed the suburban neighborhood after receiving a tip from a homeowner. The suspect's brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, had died before dawn Friday in a fierce gun battle with police not far from the same section of Watertown.

Only a day earlier, pictures of the two men — wearing baseball caps and carrying backpacks that authorities said held bombs — had been spread across the country in an effort to identify them. Friday night, spectators broke out into applause as an ambulance with the younger brother made its way toward a hospital, and further celebrations broke out in central Boston.

"CAPTURED!!!" the Boston Police Department tweeted. "The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody."

"The people of Boston will be able to sleep tonight," Mayor Thomas Menino said.

President Obama, who watched the arrests unfold on television from the White House residence, congratulated police and federal agents on the intense, four-day investigation that successfully sifted through countless tips and thousands of photos. He pledged that the federal government would not stop its work with the arrests.

"Obviously, there are still many unanswered questions," he said. "Among them, why did young men who grew up and studied here as part of our communities and our country resort to such violence? How did they plan and carry out these attacks? And did they receive help?"

Friday's events ended an intense dragnet underway since two closely timed bombs went off during Monday's marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 170.

The climactic finale began shortly after 10 p.m. Thursday, authorities said, when the brothers shot a police officer to death at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hijacked a sport utility vehicle, then opened fire on pursuing officers with gunshots, explosives and homemade hand grenades, leaving one officer critically wounded.

The furious gun battle — with 200 rounds of ammunition exchanged as residents of a Watertown neighborhood crouched in their homes — ended with the elder Tsarnaev dead and the younger, also apparently wounded, fleeing on foot.

In scenes rare to modern American law enforcement, city authorities shut down the entire Boston transit system, asked businesses to close, searched trains and urged people to stay home and lock their doors. The search rendered bustling Boston eerily empty — a scary snow day, some Bostonians described it.

"Hurricanes, natural disasters — a city shuts down. But nothing like this," said Steven Feldman, a lawyer who works in downtown Boston.

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis concurred, pointing to the dizzying array of ammunition and explosives deployed by the two suspects. "This is the stuff that [for] an urban police department, it's almost unheard of," he said.

By nightfall, authorities had decided to lift the advisory to stay indoors, warning that it still might not be entirely safe. But "we cannot continue to lock down an entire city," said Col. Timothy Alben of the Massachusetts State Police.

Residents of a 20-block area of Watertown near the shootout began venturing outside, some to go to the store, some for a short walk.

Outside, one resident noticed something amiss about the small boat in his backyard. When he lifted a tarp covering it, he found a man covered in blood. He quickly retreated and called 911.

A dozen police cars screeched into the neighborhood, witnesses said, followed by hundreds of officers. An FBI hostage rescue team, guided by a helicopter overhead looking for heat signatures, cautiously approached the boat, fearful that the suspect might have more explosives. They used a robotic arm to lift the tarp, officials said.

Within minutes, a new barrage of gunfire and stun grenade volleys erupted.

"It was pow pow pow pow pow, at least 15, 30 shots," said neighbor Deanna Finn, who dragged her 8-year-old son onto the bathroom floor and threw herself on top of him. She kept flushing the toilet to drown out the noise of the volleys outside.

"It felt like my entire life, I swear. I never had anything go so fast and so slow at the same time," she said.

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From gunfire to cheering in Watertown

WATERTOWN, Mass. — The sounds were the most terrifying — the shots and the booms, the sirens and the whir of helicopter blades, and then, from time to time, the silence.

But as a very long Friday wore to a close, it was the sound of cheering and applause that surged through the streets of this small town.

"I'm so, so glad it's over," said Lori Toye, who lives with her husband and son in the house next door to the home where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found in a boat covered in a tarp. Someone drove by and yelled: "America! Woo!"

Toye, 40, was still wide-eyed. "I looked at that boat all day," she said, shaking her head. "Who knew he was right there?"

It had been a harrowing 21 hours for the Toyes and others in Watertown. Late Thursday night, people near Dexter Avenue heard explosions and shots fired. Police had exchanged gunfire with two men suspected in the Boston Marathon bombing, killing one. By early Friday morning, residents learned that the other suspect was on the loose. The Watertown chief of police urged everyone to stay inside.

The spotlight on sleepy Watertown, which sits next to more affluent Belmont and Cambridge, was strange for residents such as Dan Nystedt, 28, who lives in a house with roommates on Franklin.

After the marathon, he said, "I felt very vulnerable in Boston. All I wanted to do was get back to Watertown because Watertown was a safe place to be."

Olga and Dumitru Ciuc, who live two doors down from the house where the suspect was apprehended, stayed at home all day. Dumitru spent some time sitting in his backyard, which has a full view of the boat, with the couple's dog.

In the morning, the Ciucs saw police outside doing a sweep of the area but by afternoon, it seemed that the hunt had moved on. Just a few hours later, police would evacuate them and use their home to conduct their operation, taking out the windows in the upstairs bedrooms.

By late afternoon, Gov. Deval Patrick had lifted the stay-in-place ban, and many felt resigned that it could be a while before police caught the suspect, if they ever did.

Daniela and Richie Salerno headed outside to catch a breath of fresh air after the ban had been lifted. But the saga wasn't over yet. The Salernos hadn't gotten to the end of the driveway before they heard a series of quick shots. They ran back inside.

The action was taking place on Franklin Street, less than a mile from the intersection on Dexter Avenue where police had exchanged fire with the two suspects. The Ciucs and Toyes were evacuated by police.

A few houses away, after hearing shots, Deanna Finn led her son, Sean, 8, into the bathroom and lay beside him on the floor, terrified. She flushed the toilet repeatedly to distract him from the sounds outside, and the knowledge that something was happening a few homes away.

"I said, 'All right, buddy, we have to get down on the floor,'" she said, later, standing on the porch of her house, still a little shaky. "My motherly instincts just kicked in."

Then police announced they had apprehended the suspect, and Watertown breathed a sigh of relief. As SWAT officers passed by afterwards, Finn and her son yelled out praise. Down the street, people yelled, "USA!"

"Good thing they catch him. It's not very funny when you think he is hiding there and the night is coming, you never know what he has on his mind," said Dumitru, who is originally from Romania. "It's a little scary."

For many in Watertown, it was still hard to believe that the suspect who had eluded a manhunt for days had been so nearby.

Emmanuel Der Torossian noticed his sensor lights going on and off after the earlier shootout. His neighbor's did too.

"Dad, is there somebody around?" Julie, his 13-year-old daughter, asked. Nothing.

"Maybe he was here since last night," Julie said. "I had a feeling. But everyone said, no, nothing like that could happen here."

alana.semuels@latimes.com

ashley.powers@latimes.com

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Death toll in China quake hits 113

Reporting from Beijing --  A strong earthquake struck China's mountainous Sichuan province  Saturday morning, leaving at least 113 people dead and more than 3,000 injured.

Chinese authorities assessed the magnitude of the quake at 7.0, while the U.S. Geological Survey reported 6.6.

Although nowhere near in magnitude, the tremor evoked troubling memories of the great earthquake almost exactly five years ago along the same fault line that killed almost 90,000.

The earthquake's epicenter was about 80 miles southwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu, in Lushan country near the city of Ya'an. The city of 1.5 milion is best-known for its panda breeding research center, which was reported not to have sustained serious damage.

 Jiang Haikun, an official with the China Earthquake Network Center, told the official New China news agency that Saturday's quake is similar to the May 12, 2008, disaster centered in Wenchuan -- about 150 miles away -- as both occurred on the same Longmen mountain fault zone.

 Officials also warned of aftershocks and secondary disasters such as landslides and road and cave collapses, especially since a light rain was falling over the mountainous  area Saturday.

 The 8 a.m. quake jolted residents out of bed, and people ran into the streets wearing their pajamas, according to reports from the scene.

"We were very calm. We have gained experience from the last earthquake. It took us 30 seconds to leave everything and run," one middle-aged man told Chinese media.

A 22-year-old woman despaired that her house survived the first earthquake, but not this latest one.

"When the May 12th earthquake happened, I thought I was lucky ....  I still had a home to go back to. Now our house can't be lived in anymore. I feel really lost. Where I should go? What I should do after all this?'' she wrote on a microblog posting.

 The rescue effort will be a test for the newly installed government of Xi Jinping, who took over as president in March. His premier, Li Keqiang, toured the earthquake-stricken area  Saturday.

"The current most urgent issue is grasping the first 24 hours after the quake's occurrence, the golden time for saving lives, to take scientific rescue measures and save peoples' lives," Li was quoted as telling state media.

About 2,000 soldiers from Chengdu command of the People's Liberation Army were rushed to the epicenter, while two helicopters hovered overhead assessing the damage below.  

Compounding the tragedy, a military vehicle carrying 17 soldiers slid off a cliff into a river, killing one soldier and seriously injuring three.

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Boston bombings: Social media spirals out of control

Over the last few days, thousands of people have taken to the Internet to play Sherlock Holmes.

Armed with little more than grainy surveillance camera videos, cellphone photos and live tweets from police scanners, they have flooded the Web with clues, tips and speculation about what happened in Boston and who might have been behind it.

Monday's bombings, the first major terrorist attack on American soil in the age of smartphones, Twitter and Facebook, provided an opportunity for everyone to get involved. Within seconds of the first explosion, the Internet was alive with the collective ideas and reactions of the masses.

But this watershed moment for social media quickly spiraled out of control. Legions of Web sleuths cast suspicion on at least four innocent people, spread innumerable bad tips and heightened the sense of panic and paranoia.

"This is one of the most alarming social media events of our time," said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a media studies professor at the University of Virginia. "We're really good at uploading images and unleashing amateurs, but we're not good with the social norms that would protect the innocent."

Even as first responders were struggling to tend to the needs of the three killed and more than 170 injured in the Boston Marathon blasts, Web forums were cranking out rumors that there had been four bombs instead of two, that an area library had been targeted and that the death count was well over a dozen.

In short order, forums like Reddit and 4chan were alive with speculation — based on little or no evidence — that the culprits were Muslim fundamentalists or perhaps right-wing extremists.

In a mad rush to be the first to identify the perpetrators, anonymous posters online began openly naming people they believed had planted the bombs. Caught up in the mania, some traditional media ran with that information. Thursday's New York Post cover showed a photo of two men at the marathon under the headline "Bag Men" and implied that the two were prime suspects. In fact, neither was a suspect and one of the men, Salah Barhoun, was a high school student from outside Boston and had nothing to do with the explosions.

Once the FBI released images of the actual suspects, things really got out of hand. Online gumshoes scoured the Web for faces that might match and illustrated their work with drawings, circles and other home-brewed CSI techniques.

Some amateur sleuths focused their suspicions on Sunil Tripathi, a Brown University student who has been missing since last month. Using an animation tool, they used an image of Tripathi to highlight similarities between his face and the FBI photos of one of the Boston bombing suspects.

However, Tripathi has no apparent connection to the marathon bombing. That was underscored Friday, when authorities revealed the identities of their suspects, two ethnic-Chechen immigrant brothers — Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of Cambridge, Mass.

"We have known unequivocally all along that neither individual suspected as responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings was Sunil," Tripathi's family said in a statement on Friday.

Advocates of social media and crowd-sourcing have long touted its unrivaled power to gather huge amounts of information quickly in crisis situations. With tens of thousands of people on hand at the marathon, most armed with smartphones, the sheer volume of data available for analysis proved too tempting to ignore.

"People in the moment want to participate. They want to be a part of what's going on," said Nicco Mele, an expert on technology and social media at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

So as the Boston Police Department engaged in a gunfight with the two brothers in Watertown, Mass., early Friday, tens of thousands of Web denizens tuned in to live streams of police scanners, furiously tapping notes and ideas into Reddit and Twitter.

"I feel like we've reached a certain threshold here — the Internet is finally outstripping cable news completely," a poster using the handle PantsGrenades wrote on Reddit. "In fact, I wonder if we're inadvertently doing their work for them."

Their speculation was not limited to the events in Boston. The unusual confluence of tragic and suspicious events in the past week led many online to suggest that the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, might have been a terrorist attack as well and that the ricin-laced letters mailed to politicians could have come from those behind the marathon bombing.

According to Murray Jennex, a crisis management expert at San Diego State University, the huge influx of online voices enabled by social media can be extremely helpful because eye witnesses are holding cameras in almost every location.

But beyond the photos they upload, their speculation and theorizing don't necessarily lead to a more efficient resolution.

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