Category Archives: Law Enforcement

Law Enforcement

CONCERNED CITIZENS COME TO THE AID OF SF CHESS PLAYERS

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MarketStreetinSF2San Francisco, California – For more than 30 years, chess games have been a street institution in downtown San Francisco but earlier this month, the San Francisco Police Department confiscated the playing equipment, chairs and tables from Market and Fifth Streets where dozens of people, mostly homeless, veterans and aspiring chess masters, would gather every day to play.

Police said that regular chess players weren’t the problem but that the area had become a hotbed for illegal gambling and drug use.  The displaced chess aficionados disputed the police reason for the crackdown and said that they were being used as a scapegoat for SFPD’s inability to curb illegal activity in the area.

A group of concerned freedom-loving citizens of San Francisco responded by establishing a donation drive to collect handheld electronic chess consoles to be distributed to those displaced by the police action.p339202b

“We can’t believe that of all cities in the country, San Francisco would be the one to ban, of all things – the game of chess — depriving citizens of their right of  the ‘pursuit of happiness,’ ” said drive organizers Gary Torre and Nestor Kasparov.

On the first day of the drive, hundreds of new handheld electronic chess games were delivered to the makeshift collection center at the corner of Powell and Market Streets.

Kasparov said that with the handheld electronic chess games, there would be no need for the chess players to set up tables and chairs and there would be no reason for the police to drive them away from Market Street.  Kasparov added:  “We are aware, however, of the ‘sit and lie’ ordinance in San Francisco prohibiting individuals from sitting or lying in the sidewalks.  So we have advised chess players to be always on their feet while playing the electronic chess games.”

Law Enforcement, Politics

CALIFORNIA WILL LEASE EMPTY JAILS IN THE NETHERLANDS

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imageSacramento, California – California Governor Jerry Brown has found a solution to the state’s prison overcrowding. The solution is in The Netherlands.

The Netherlands recently announced that it will close eight prisons because of a lack of criminals.  The Dutch justice ministry said that declining crime rates in the Netherlands mean that although the country has the capacity for 14,000 prisoners, there are only 12,000 detainees. The decrease is expected to continue, the ministry said.

Earlier, Brown faced a serious dilemma on how to reduce California’s prison overcrowding to below 137 percent of capacity by the end of 2013, as ordered by the Federal Courts.  A three-judge special panel ruled in 2009 that widespread overcrowding in California prisons is unconstitutional because it constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment.” The US Supreme Court upheld that ruling in 2011 and 2012 when the Department of Corrections had failed to act. A federal judge ordered the state to release thousands of low-level offenders before their sentences expired.

Prison facilities operated at 200 percent capacity for more than a decade.

“Building new prisons is not an option,” Brown said. “We can’t afford to spend taxpayer money to erect more jails which is only a temporary solution.”

So, rather than sending prisoners to various county jails which is opposed by most local governments, or releasing prisoners before their time is served, Brown said that California will lease the eight prisons in The Netherlands and transfer some 2,000 of its heavy offenders and those with longer jail sentences.

The Dutch government appears to be receptive to Brown’s idea and is contemplating on renting out the Dutch prisons to California at below market rates.  Final negotiations are underway.

International, Law Enforcement, Politics

NAPOLES SEEKS AUDIENCE WITH OBAMA IN MANILA

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imageManila, Philippines – Suspected pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles wasted no time in trying to reach out to Barack Obama after it was officially announced that the U.S. President will be visiting Manila in October.

Obama has included the Philippines in his Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) tour. Manila will be Obama’s last stop. It will be his first visit to the Philippines.

Napoles is the central figure in the  Philippine pork barrel  scam involving the diversion of ten billion pesos in public funds into fake non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the pockets of senators and congressmen. She is currently in prison and facing charges for illegally detaining one of the whistleblowers in this escalating scandal.

Speaking through her lawyer Lorna Kapunan,  Napoles said that she has sent a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Manila requesting a private meeting with Obama when the latter arrives in the Philippine capital.

Informed sources said that in her letter, Napoles has indicated that she will be asking Obama to grant her political asylum in the U.S. and would like to be accommodated aboard Air Force One when Obama leaves Manila to return to the U.S.

Napoles said that she is very confident that she will be granted asylum because she has contrbuted immemsely to the economic recovery of America through her multimillion-dollar U.S. investments and the much talked-about shopping sprees and lavish parties by her daughter, aspiring fashion designer Jeane Napoles.

Napoles said she will not be a burden to America and promised that if Obama interceded on her behalf to have all her assets unfrozen, she will invest all her money in the U.S. and help create more jobs for Americans.