Saturday, October 30, 2010
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox on California legalizing pot: "May God let it pass” | FP Passport
Vicente Fox on California legalizing pot: "May God let it pass” | FP Passport: "“How great it would be for California to set this example. May God let it pass,” Fox told the W radio network in Mexico. “The other U.S. states will have to follow step.”"
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Rising Costs
Last September figures were released as to the cost of Calderónś war to the economy of Mexico as well as the individual. In El Universal, in the front page news headline on September 29, the Business Industry Council of Mexico estimated that the violence and related security costs in Mexico cost nearly 800 US dollars for each person in Mexico. The next day, September 30, the front page news headline was that businesses in the affected areas are losing, on average, 36% of their business. However, it was the headline on the front page of El Universal today that reflects the real cost to Mexican society “Nueva masacre de jóvenes en Juárez” “New massacre of the young in Juárez” (El Universal Oct 24, 2010 A1) where 14 young people were murdered and 15 more wounded, the majority of them teenagers although there was a 9 nine old child killed as well.
This latest horror updates a recent trend of multiple killings of innocents in the northern states of Mexico by gunmen: Sept 2, 2009 - 17 clients of a drug rehabilitation centre in Juárez, Chihuahua; Sept. 15 2009 - 9 men and 1 woman in another drug rehabilitation center in Juárez; Jan 30, 2010 - 16 youth were murdered at a private house party in Juárez; March 12, 2010 - gunmen kill 8 people between the ages of 16 and 28; June 10, 2010 - 19 more clients are murdered at a rehabilitation center in Juárez; and, July 18, 2010 - 17 youths are gunned down in Torreón, Durango.
Mexican columnists (an endangered profession itself) are now starting to write about what people have been whispering among themselves for the last few months, that the patterns of killings is more and more resembling social cleansing by self-appointed vigilantes and political interests who back death squads. Mexico has millions of young people without education, work or opportunity who are being recruited by the cartels (who offer what the state does not, a chance to work and get ahead regardless of the risk). The death squads, under the cover of the indiscriminate slaughter that plagues this country, are removing those “troublesome” elements with little or no fear of being apprehended. Or so it is whispered.
The veil that there is justice in Mexico, the Rule of Law, has been brutally torn away by Calderón’s War. His deployment of the military and its ineffectiveness combined with the broken judicial system (police, prosecutors and judges all) that cannot put a halt to more than 30,000 killings, wholesale slaughter, death squads and rampant vigilantism has revealed the hollow shell of security that covers Mexico. One can see the police, security guards and military forces deployed throughout the country, constantly patrolling but the narcos have shown that it is all just for show. There is no security, not for the poor, nor the rich, nor even the powerful (the recent kidnapping of power-broker and ex-senator, Diego Fernández de Cevallos as well as the 12 mayors that have been killed in 2010 alone illustrate this) and people are starting to resort to their own measures.
This is the real cost, it is not the lost business or cost of maintaining the security forces rather it is the breakdown of the state and the lack of faith of its existence/relevance by its citizens. Mexico is not a failed state, but it is definitely failing and only the politicians seem to be oblivious to this fact.
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This latest horror updates a recent trend of multiple killings of innocents in the northern states of Mexico by gunmen: Sept 2, 2009 - 17 clients of a drug rehabilitation centre in Juárez, Chihuahua; Sept. 15 2009 - 9 men and 1 woman in another drug rehabilitation center in Juárez; Jan 30, 2010 - 16 youth were murdered at a private house party in Juárez; March 12, 2010 - gunmen kill 8 people between the ages of 16 and 28; June 10, 2010 - 19 more clients are murdered at a rehabilitation center in Juárez; and, July 18, 2010 - 17 youths are gunned down in Torreón, Durango.
Mexican columnists (an endangered profession itself) are now starting to write about what people have been whispering among themselves for the last few months, that the patterns of killings is more and more resembling social cleansing by self-appointed vigilantes and political interests who back death squads. Mexico has millions of young people without education, work or opportunity who are being recruited by the cartels (who offer what the state does not, a chance to work and get ahead regardless of the risk). The death squads, under the cover of the indiscriminate slaughter that plagues this country, are removing those “troublesome” elements with little or no fear of being apprehended. Or so it is whispered.
The veil that there is justice in Mexico, the Rule of Law, has been brutally torn away by Calderón’s War. His deployment of the military and its ineffectiveness combined with the broken judicial system (police, prosecutors and judges all) that cannot put a halt to more than 30,000 killings, wholesale slaughter, death squads and rampant vigilantism has revealed the hollow shell of security that covers Mexico. One can see the police, security guards and military forces deployed throughout the country, constantly patrolling but the narcos have shown that it is all just for show. There is no security, not for the poor, nor the rich, nor even the powerful (the recent kidnapping of power-broker and ex-senator, Diego Fernández de Cevallos as well as the 12 mayors that have been killed in 2010 alone illustrate this) and people are starting to resort to their own measures.
This is the real cost, it is not the lost business or cost of maintaining the security forces rather it is the breakdown of the state and the lack of faith of its existence/relevance by its citizens. Mexico is not a failed state, but it is definitely failing and only the politicians seem to be oblivious to this fact.
Follow on Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/wmmckay
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
LEAP Events Calendar
Take a look at the LEAP Events Calendar. Look at all the events LEAP is doing in California during the next thirteen days.
It's pretty amazing. September and the earlier weeks in October were just as packed.
LEAP has been doing an amazing job in California supporting Proposition 19. I've held off doing much as a LEAP speaker, mainly because I think it would be inappropriate for someone from another country to tell American citizens how to vote.
That said, I'm very proud of the LEAP speakers and staff who have been working hard in California. They've made a real difference in the ballot initiative.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
There is no change
Recent events indicate the slow disintegration of communities in Mexico. In addition to the daily killings, which average over 32 a day for 2010 (8 per day in Ciudad Juárez alone) there is now the 11 assassinations of mayors in 2010, in both rich municipalities and poor alike. This is in conjunction to the increasing acts of vigilantism that is sweeping throughout the country because of the lack of confidence in the state in its ability to provide security to its citizens.
The killings have been ever-increasing as acknowledged by Alejandro Poiré, the Technical Secretary for the National Security Council of Mexico, who stated that for the months of June, July and August the average was 49 killings per day (over 1000 per month), BUT, he then added, the good news is that since September 24 the rate has now stabilized at 36 killings per day (he made the announcement on September 30)...indications of a government struggling for any kind of "good" news that it can get. The pace of killings has now become routine, so much so, that one of the national newspapers of Mexico, El Universal, has diminished its daily, thorough, reporting of each incident and daily count of executions to once or maybe twice a week, with only the scantiest of details.
The Federal government has repeatedly stated that the killings are narcos killing narcos and that 90% of the dead are criminals, a claim that is dubious at best since the investigative prowess of the police are nearly non-existent with a government estimate that only 1% of all crimes end with a conviction. Of course, this perception is starting to change somewhat now that the dead are beginning to include mayors of towns all over Mexico. Of the 11 mayors killed in 2010, 5 have been assassinated in the last 6 weeks: Gustavo Sanchez, mayor of Tancitaro, Michoácan; Prisciliano Rodriguez, mayor of Doctor Gonzalez, Nuevo León; Edelmiro Cavazos, mayor of Santiago, Nuevo León: Marco Antonio Garcia, mayor of Hidalgo, Tamaulipas; Alexander Lopez-Garcia, mayor of El Naranjo, San Luis Potosi. And, there have been reports of hundreds of other mayors receiving threats and/or who have had attempts made upon their lives.
Lastly, there is the vigilantism. Since 2008, the number of incidents of mobs of citizens taking justice into their own hands has nearly doubled every year with two in 2008 (April 10, 2008 and June 24, 2008), four in 2009 (November 9, 2009, December 9, 2009, December 10, 2009 and December 20, 2009) and seven to date for 2010 (January 6, 2010, February 18, 2010, May 17, 2010, August 6, 2010, August 8, 2010, August 13, 2010, September 21, 2010).
The news is that none of this is news or seems to raise any real concerns, either nationally or internationally. The rhetoric is muted, staid and unchanging, “stick to the plan and everything will work out” (clearly none of the leaders are aware of Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity).
The number of people killed in relation to the drug war here in Mexico for 2010 is now at 8213 and the total killed since Calderón launched his war in December 2006 is 29413.
For a map of the killings: click: Narco-killings
Follow on Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/wmmckay
The killings have been ever-increasing as acknowledged by Alejandro Poiré, the Technical Secretary for the National Security Council of Mexico, who stated that for the months of June, July and August the average was 49 killings per day (over 1000 per month), BUT, he then added, the good news is that since September 24 the rate has now stabilized at 36 killings per day (he made the announcement on September 30)...indications of a government struggling for any kind of "good" news that it can get. The pace of killings has now become routine, so much so, that one of the national newspapers of Mexico, El Universal, has diminished its daily, thorough, reporting of each incident and daily count of executions to once or maybe twice a week, with only the scantiest of details.
The Federal government has repeatedly stated that the killings are narcos killing narcos and that 90% of the dead are criminals, a claim that is dubious at best since the investigative prowess of the police are nearly non-existent with a government estimate that only 1% of all crimes end with a conviction. Of course, this perception is starting to change somewhat now that the dead are beginning to include mayors of towns all over Mexico. Of the 11 mayors killed in 2010, 5 have been assassinated in the last 6 weeks: Gustavo Sanchez, mayor of Tancitaro, Michoácan; Prisciliano Rodriguez, mayor of Doctor Gonzalez, Nuevo León; Edelmiro Cavazos, mayor of Santiago, Nuevo León: Marco Antonio Garcia, mayor of Hidalgo, Tamaulipas; Alexander Lopez-Garcia, mayor of El Naranjo, San Luis Potosi. And, there have been reports of hundreds of other mayors receiving threats and/or who have had attempts made upon their lives.
Lastly, there is the vigilantism. Since 2008, the number of incidents of mobs of citizens taking justice into their own hands has nearly doubled every year with two in 2008 (April 10, 2008 and June 24, 2008), four in 2009 (November 9, 2009, December 9, 2009, December 10, 2009 and December 20, 2009) and seven to date for 2010 (January 6, 2010, February 18, 2010, May 17, 2010, August 6, 2010, August 8, 2010, August 13, 2010, September 21, 2010).
The news is that none of this is news or seems to raise any real concerns, either nationally or internationally. The rhetoric is muted, staid and unchanging, “stick to the plan and everything will work out” (clearly none of the leaders are aware of Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity).
The number of people killed in relation to the drug war here in Mexico for 2010 is now at 8213 and the total killed since Calderón launched his war in December 2006 is 29413.
For a map of the killings: click: Narco-killings
Follow on Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/wmmckay
Saturday, October 2, 2010
When we waste resources on non-violent drug offenders rather than violent criminals, people die
This is what happens when we waste resources on non-violent drug offenders rather than violent criminals.
Free to flee Are fugitives an open secret in law enforcement?
Found but let go, fugitives strike again it’s been an open secret in law enforcement for decades. Authorities refuse to investigation found that authorities have long refused to pick up fugitives who have fled, extradite many sought on warrants, and "these guys know they can just take off."
By Joe Mahr
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
http://www.correctionsone.com/news/1842529-Free-to-flee-Are-fugitives-an-open-secret-in-law-enforcement/
CLEVELAND — Halfway up a gentle slope in Sunset Memorial Park, a heart-shaped wreath of red and white carnations stands over a grave marker etched with Badge No. 545. Cathy Clark and Pat McLaughlin sit on either side, absently plucking blades of grass as they recall the life of the man they loved, and their bitterness over his death. The man who wore badge 545 - Clark's husband, McLaughlin's son - was gunned down by a fugitive from Florida who was wanted for assault and robbery.
A fugitive who, hours earlier, had been in jail in Ohio.
A fugitive who had to be let go, because Florida wouldn't pick him up.
"They should have extradited - there was no excuse," said McLaughlin, on the ninth anniversary of the death of police Detective Robert Clark.
Cathy Clark added: "It's just hard to understand. ... You get really disillusioned the more you learn."
A Post-Dispatch investigation found that authorities have long refused to pick up fugitives who have fled.
Even when their warrants are put into national databases and even when police locate them elsewhere, fugitives regularly don't face justice.
Law enforcement officials across the nation acknowledge that their inability or unwillingness to extradite merely shifts the danger to another community.
"It's a joke really," said Oregon prosecutor Ed Caleb. "And the joke's unfortunately on all of us, because these guys know they can just take off."
The open secret
The unwillingness to retrieve fugitives has long been common knowledge in law enforcement.
Cases that make headlines often result in extradition, but other cases never make the cut.
Most law enforcement data on fugitives is kept secret by state and federal laws and policies. So the best glimpse of the problem comes from information kept by two federal agencies that provided data: the Social Security Administration and Veterans Affairs.
Under orders by Congress, both agencies match their recipient rolls against databases of fugitives wanted on felonies and pass the names and addresses to police.
Police often don't tell the agencies what they did with the new addresses. But when they do report back, they routinely say the fugitives were too far away to pick up.
In nearly 5,000 active cases since 2000 in which police notified Social Security of the outcome, authorities refused to retrieve fugitives wanted on violent felonies 28 percent of the time. The rate was 37 percent for the 171 Veterans Affairs cases.
For nonviolent felonies, authorities declined to extradite in nearly 40 percent of the 25,000 matches.
Violent outcomes
The failure to extradite can backfire.
Social Security notified Virginia authorities in 2000 that fugitive Felipe Fowlkes was living in New York. Fowlkes, with convictions for assault and sex crimes, was wanted on charges of felony theft and voter fraud.
But Virginia was unwilling to travel 500 miles to pick up Fowlkes.
His benefits were cut off in April 2000. Three weeks later, he tried to rob a woman in New York, resulting in three years in prison. Virginia had not filed a detainer to hold Fowlkes, so he was released when his term was up.
In 2003, six weeks after his release, Fowlkes raped a girl, 15, in Massachusetts.
Authorities in Nottoway County, Va., did not respond to questions about why they didn't retrieve Fowlkes.
In Oregon, authorities had an active warrant out for nine years for Victor Batres-Martinez, an illegal immigrant whose rap sheet included armed robbery and kidnapping. The last warrant, in 1993 in Oregon, was for drugs.
Immigration officials arrested him crossing the border into New Mexico in 2002, but Portland authorities wouldn't travel outside the Pacific Northwest to retrieve him. He was driven back to Mexico and released.
Seven months later, he made his way back to Oregon. In Klamath Falls, he came across two nuns on a bike path, and beat and raped them.
One nun died.
There was no outcry over the decision not to extradite.
Even Caleb, the man who later prosecuted Batres-Martinez, said he didn't blame Portland officials.
Oregon's budget reimburses extradition costs only in extreme cases. An informal network of police agencies will shuttle fugitives for free, but only in the Pacific Northwest.
With the state's lack of prison space, authorities usually don't pursue fugitives facing nonviolent charges, Caleb said.
"If he goes across the (state) border, everybody's glad they don't have to extradite him back now, because everybody's so overcrowded," Caleb said. "It's really a horrible way to run a criminal justice system."
Police 'betrayed'
Florida's Lee County was willing to cross state lines to retrieve fugitive Correy Major - but not all state lines.
Major had seriously injured an elderly woman in 1997 when he stepped on her face to steal her purse, and he nearly wrestled the gun away from a police officer who chased him down.
County authorities were willing to retrieve him from anywhere in the southeastern United States.
They'd go only as far north as Kentucky.
He fled Florida and was arrested two months later in a strip club in suburban Cleveland for breaking into a pickup and resisting arrest. Police there contacted Florida authorities but learned that Ohio was one state too far for Florida to travel.
So Major posted $900 bond on the Ohio misdemeanor charges. He called his mother to tell her he was being released.
"He said, 'Something ain't right,'" recalled his mother, Annie Watts. "He said, 'They're setting me up.'"
Eight hours later, police officers from a different department came upon Major selling drugs on a Cleveland street corner, records show. They had no idea he was a fugitive.
They chased him up the stairs of an apartment building. Major pulled a gun and shot at them, hitting Detective Clark, before another officer shot back, killing Major.
Officers rushed Clark to the hospital, but doctors couldn't save him. Then they learned that Major was a fugitive, in police hands just hours earlier.
"We all felt like we were betrayed," Sgt. Jerry Zarlenga recalled. "How could that happen?"
Still no solution
Lee County authorities were quick to apologize, and changed their procedure to allow supervisors to make exceptions to extradition limits. They say they rarely decline to extradite now.
Yet statewide in Florida, it's clear that authorities won't cross state lines for nearly 60 percent of felony warrants involving violence, sex or guns, because they aren't even entered into the FBI fugitive database, according to information from the state.
In Florida, as in many states, the local sheriff or prosecutor must pay for extradition costs.
Missouri reimburses local officials, spending about $2 million a year so they can pick up fugitives from out of state. But even in Missouri, in 10 percent of felony warrants involving violence, sex or guns, agencies will not go out of state to retrieve fugitives.
Illinois has a state fund for extradition but hasn't put any money in it.
In 1999, the FBI's Advisory Policy Board, a group composed mostly of state and local officers who help oversee the national fugitive database, tried unsuccessfully to get federal aid for extradition.
Former board chairman Gray Buckley pushed the idea before he left the board that year, and said he was frustrated it had been ignored.
"We're talking about saving lives," he said.
The U.S. Marshals Service will fly fugitives - for a fee, said William Sorukas, the agency's chief inspector for domestic investigations.
To transport suspects in violent felonies for free, he estimated his agency would need $10 million to $20 million and more planes.
But he would support the idea.
"This is frustrating for the detectives who may have put months into the case developing a suspect, and it's up to the DA who says, 'We can't afford to bring them back.'"
The frustration extends to the family and friends of victims produced by the failure to extradite.
Clark's friend Zarlenga wonders why public officials haven't addressed the problem.
"Somebody should be stepping forward."
Clark's family tried.
His sister, Mary Forbes, said family members contacted prosecutors' groups about setting up nationwide extradition guidelines. They were told it was impractical.
Nine years after her brother's death, there remain no standards or federal aid.
To Forbes: "It's just a very broken-down system that has a lot of holes."
Free to flee Are fugitives an open secret in law enforcement?
Found but let go, fugitives strike again it’s been an open secret in law enforcement for decades. Authorities refuse to investigation found that authorities have long refused to pick up fugitives who have fled, extradite many sought on warrants, and "these guys know they can just take off."
By Joe Mahr
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
http://www.correctionsone.com/news/1842529-Free-to-flee-Are-fugitives-an-open-secret-in-law-enforcement/
CLEVELAND — Halfway up a gentle slope in Sunset Memorial Park, a heart-shaped wreath of red and white carnations stands over a grave marker etched with Badge No. 545. Cathy Clark and Pat McLaughlin sit on either side, absently plucking blades of grass as they recall the life of the man they loved, and their bitterness over his death. The man who wore badge 545 - Clark's husband, McLaughlin's son - was gunned down by a fugitive from Florida who was wanted for assault and robbery.
A fugitive who, hours earlier, had been in jail in Ohio.
A fugitive who had to be let go, because Florida wouldn't pick him up.
"They should have extradited - there was no excuse," said McLaughlin, on the ninth anniversary of the death of police Detective Robert Clark.
Cathy Clark added: "It's just hard to understand. ... You get really disillusioned the more you learn."
A Post-Dispatch investigation found that authorities have long refused to pick up fugitives who have fled.
Even when their warrants are put into national databases and even when police locate them elsewhere, fugitives regularly don't face justice.
Law enforcement officials across the nation acknowledge that their inability or unwillingness to extradite merely shifts the danger to another community.
"It's a joke really," said Oregon prosecutor Ed Caleb. "And the joke's unfortunately on all of us, because these guys know they can just take off."
The open secret
The unwillingness to retrieve fugitives has long been common knowledge in law enforcement.
Cases that make headlines often result in extradition, but other cases never make the cut.
Most law enforcement data on fugitives is kept secret by state and federal laws and policies. So the best glimpse of the problem comes from information kept by two federal agencies that provided data: the Social Security Administration and Veterans Affairs.
Under orders by Congress, both agencies match their recipient rolls against databases of fugitives wanted on felonies and pass the names and addresses to police.
Police often don't tell the agencies what they did with the new addresses. But when they do report back, they routinely say the fugitives were too far away to pick up.
In nearly 5,000 active cases since 2000 in which police notified Social Security of the outcome, authorities refused to retrieve fugitives wanted on violent felonies 28 percent of the time. The rate was 37 percent for the 171 Veterans Affairs cases.
For nonviolent felonies, authorities declined to extradite in nearly 40 percent of the 25,000 matches.
Violent outcomes
The failure to extradite can backfire.
Social Security notified Virginia authorities in 2000 that fugitive Felipe Fowlkes was living in New York. Fowlkes, with convictions for assault and sex crimes, was wanted on charges of felony theft and voter fraud.
But Virginia was unwilling to travel 500 miles to pick up Fowlkes.
His benefits were cut off in April 2000. Three weeks later, he tried to rob a woman in New York, resulting in three years in prison. Virginia had not filed a detainer to hold Fowlkes, so he was released when his term was up.
In 2003, six weeks after his release, Fowlkes raped a girl, 15, in Massachusetts.
Authorities in Nottoway County, Va., did not respond to questions about why they didn't retrieve Fowlkes.
In Oregon, authorities had an active warrant out for nine years for Victor Batres-Martinez, an illegal immigrant whose rap sheet included armed robbery and kidnapping. The last warrant, in 1993 in Oregon, was for drugs.
Immigration officials arrested him crossing the border into New Mexico in 2002, but Portland authorities wouldn't travel outside the Pacific Northwest to retrieve him. He was driven back to Mexico and released.
Seven months later, he made his way back to Oregon. In Klamath Falls, he came across two nuns on a bike path, and beat and raped them.
One nun died.
There was no outcry over the decision not to extradite.
Even Caleb, the man who later prosecuted Batres-Martinez, said he didn't blame Portland officials.
Oregon's budget reimburses extradition costs only in extreme cases. An informal network of police agencies will shuttle fugitives for free, but only in the Pacific Northwest.
With the state's lack of prison space, authorities usually don't pursue fugitives facing nonviolent charges, Caleb said.
"If he goes across the (state) border, everybody's glad they don't have to extradite him back now, because everybody's so overcrowded," Caleb said. "It's really a horrible way to run a criminal justice system."
Police 'betrayed'
Florida's Lee County was willing to cross state lines to retrieve fugitive Correy Major - but not all state lines.
Major had seriously injured an elderly woman in 1997 when he stepped on her face to steal her purse, and he nearly wrestled the gun away from a police officer who chased him down.
County authorities were willing to retrieve him from anywhere in the southeastern United States.
They'd go only as far north as Kentucky.
He fled Florida and was arrested two months later in a strip club in suburban Cleveland for breaking into a pickup and resisting arrest. Police there contacted Florida authorities but learned that Ohio was one state too far for Florida to travel.
So Major posted $900 bond on the Ohio misdemeanor charges. He called his mother to tell her he was being released.
"He said, 'Something ain't right,'" recalled his mother, Annie Watts. "He said, 'They're setting me up.'"
Eight hours later, police officers from a different department came upon Major selling drugs on a Cleveland street corner, records show. They had no idea he was a fugitive.
They chased him up the stairs of an apartment building. Major pulled a gun and shot at them, hitting Detective Clark, before another officer shot back, killing Major.
Officers rushed Clark to the hospital, but doctors couldn't save him. Then they learned that Major was a fugitive, in police hands just hours earlier.
"We all felt like we were betrayed," Sgt. Jerry Zarlenga recalled. "How could that happen?"
Still no solution
Lee County authorities were quick to apologize, and changed their procedure to allow supervisors to make exceptions to extradition limits. They say they rarely decline to extradite now.
Yet statewide in Florida, it's clear that authorities won't cross state lines for nearly 60 percent of felony warrants involving violence, sex or guns, because they aren't even entered into the FBI fugitive database, according to information from the state.
In Florida, as in many states, the local sheriff or prosecutor must pay for extradition costs.
Missouri reimburses local officials, spending about $2 million a year so they can pick up fugitives from out of state. But even in Missouri, in 10 percent of felony warrants involving violence, sex or guns, agencies will not go out of state to retrieve fugitives.
Illinois has a state fund for extradition but hasn't put any money in it.
In 1999, the FBI's Advisory Policy Board, a group composed mostly of state and local officers who help oversee the national fugitive database, tried unsuccessfully to get federal aid for extradition.
Former board chairman Gray Buckley pushed the idea before he left the board that year, and said he was frustrated it had been ignored.
"We're talking about saving lives," he said.
The U.S. Marshals Service will fly fugitives - for a fee, said William Sorukas, the agency's chief inspector for domestic investigations.
To transport suspects in violent felonies for free, he estimated his agency would need $10 million to $20 million and more planes.
But he would support the idea.
"This is frustrating for the detectives who may have put months into the case developing a suspect, and it's up to the DA who says, 'We can't afford to bring them back.'"
The frustration extends to the family and friends of victims produced by the failure to extradite.
Clark's friend Zarlenga wonders why public officials haven't addressed the problem.
"Somebody should be stepping forward."
Clark's family tried.
His sister, Mary Forbes, said family members contacted prosecutors' groups about setting up nationwide extradition guidelines. They were told it was impractical.
Nine years after her brother's death, there remain no standards or federal aid.
To Forbes: "It's just a very broken-down system that has a lot of holes."
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