REPEAT OFFENDER: Technology ties violent deportee to two deaths
Police arrest man in 1998 slayings of elderly residents
By ANTONIO PLANAS and MIKE BLASKY
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Gustavo Ramos-Martinez is an illegal immigrant with a history of violent crime.
For years, he sneaked in and out of the country, visiting family in Las Vegas even though he was caught and deported to Mexico multiple times.
During much of that time, Las Vegas police were trying to find the killer of Wallace Siegel, 75, and Helen Sabraw, 86, who were brutally slain in May 1998 in their homes at the AmeriPark retirement community.
Although Ramos-Martinez eluded federal immigration authorities, he wasn't able to escape modern forensic technology.
On Wednesday, Las Vegas police arrested Ramos-Martinez, 31, in connection with the slayings. New tests revealed that his DNA was at both murder scenes.
Sgt. Jon Scott, supervisor for the Metropolitan Police Department's Cold Case Detail, said Thursday detectives had little to work with 12 years ago. There were no witnesses to what appeared to be random robbery and murder.
The slayings shocked the assisted living community near Flamingo Road and Maryland Parkway, he said.
"That's one place you would think that someone that frail could be safe," Scott said.
According to an arrest report, the killer entered the homes of both victims between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. on the night of May 15-16, 1998.
The killer first came in through Siegel's window, bludgeoning him with a 25-pound weight after robbing him. A bloody palm print was found on a newspaper in the apartment. Siegel, who recently had undergone hip replacement surgery, was found dead that morning by his son, police said. A neighbor at the time, who asked to remain anonymous, called Siegel's death senseless.
"Wally was a kind, gentle soul who wouldn't hurt anybody," the neighbor told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "He survived three heart bypasses."
That was the morning of May 16. A full day later, on May 17, Sabraw's neighbor and her son found her body in her nearby home. She had been beaten savagely and stabbed multiple times. Several items in her home were covered in blood, including a man's discarded T-shirt, a chair and several knives. Sabraw was found with her nightgown pulled over her chest, and had been sexually assaulted, police said.
Detectives had quickly linked the two murders but had no leads and no suspects. The case grew cold.
But in June, Las Vegas police cold case detectives submitted DNA found at the crime scenes to the FBI's national DNA database. On Sept. 10, the database produced a match and identified Ramos-Martinez. It was unclear Thursday why his DNA profile was already in the FBI records.
It was also unclear if Ramos-Martinez was in the United States legally at the time of the murders, but in 1998 he was already a violent criminal.
Ramos-Martinez pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon after a separate incident in Las Vegas in July of that year. He pleaded guilty and was ordered to serve five years probation. In 2006, he violated probation, and was ordered to serve one to four years in prison.
But Scott said Ramos-Martinez often returned to Las Vegas, and was deported on more than one occasion. After his DNA was linked to the AmeriPark murders, cold case detectives tracked him to his Las Vegas home. They followed him for several days and, on Sept. 30, stopped him for a minor traffic violation. After making a positive ID, they turned him over to federal immigration officials. Nearly two weeks later, immigration gave him back to stand trial. He is now in the Clark County Detention Center, facing two counts of murder with a deadly weapon, two counts of burglary, robbery with a deadly weapon and sexual assault with a deadly weapon.
During an interview with homicide detectives on Wednesday, Ramos-Martinez denied ever entering the AmeriPark complex, which is now known as Oak Hill Senior Living. He declined to answer additional questions and asked to speak with a lawyer, police said.
The investigation into the slayings was aided by a $500,000 grant received last year from the Department of Justice. Since January, detectives have been making arrests in cold sexual assault and murder cases.
Scott said credit for the latest arrest goes to detectives and forensic lab technicians.
"It's about 50-50," Scott said. "Good police work, tied with the DNA."
John Sabraw, 70, said Thursday he was glad an arrest was made in his mother's death, but declined to comment. He said he did not know the man in custody and had been given limited details by police.
"We'll wait for further action from the wheels of justice and see what transpires," said Sabraw, a Mesquite resident. "Perhaps then we'll have further comments."
Review-Journal reporter Brian Haynes contributed to this report. Contact Antonio Planas at aplanas@review journal.com or 383-4638, and Mike Blasky at mblasky @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283.
Outdated, unused pills too common
By Renee Ordway
Special to the Bangor Daily NEWS
Four tons? I thought it was a misprint. Nearly 4 tons, that’s 7,820 pounds of unused, unwanted and outdated prescription pills that Maine residents dropped off in bins in parking lots throughout the state last week.
Four tons!
Can you even begin to visualize how many pills that involves?
If last week’s National Take-Back Day didn’t convince officials of the desperate need people have to rid themselves of prescription drug medication, then surely nothing will.
Four tons!
As a state we really outdid New Hampshire, where authorities collected only 2,479 pounds, and Vermont, where 1,127 pounds of pills were deposited.
Connecticut collected 5,050 pounds and Rhode Island only 784 pounds. The only state in New England to dispose of more pills last Saturday than Maine was Massachusetts. There they collected 8,550 pounds, a measly 730 pounds more than Maine.
Maine’s population is 1.3 million and Massachusetts’ is 6.5 million.
In Virginia officials collected 5,000 pounds, and 4,000 pounds in Minnesota.
We clearly had a whole lot of extra medication hanging around in our medicine cabinets.
Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, U.S Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, announced just four days after National Take-Back Day that their legislation to allow the safe disposal of medications had passed Congress and was on its way to the president to be signed into law.
The Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act will allow states and private agencies to institute responsible drug take-back programs. Federal law now prohibits such programs.
For a brief time the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency was administering a mail-back program, providing residents free, pre-addressed envelopes to mail their unwanted prescription medication to the MDEA office.
Funding dried up, however, and the program was phased out.
Maine is one of 17 states where deaths by drug overdose outnumber deaths by motor vehicle accidents.
Prescription drug abuse is the fastest-growing drug problem in the country.
Around the country surveys show that three out of five teenagers say it is easy to steal prescription medications from their parents.
Between 1998 and 2008, hospital admissions due to prescription drug abuse rose 400 percent.
Given that in one day in Maine we collected 4 tons of excess prescription medication, those statistics are certainly easy to believe.
Maybe Congress has finally figured out the extent of the problem.
People, even in the most rural parts of our state, are scared their homes may be invaded by drug seekers.
Home invasions were almost nonexistent just 10 years ago. Today they are not uncommon.
People are warned not to flush extra medications down the toilet, for they contaminate the groundwater.
They are told not to throw them out because they end up in landfills and eventually leach into the soil.
They are not allowed to take them to their local police department, and the local pharmacy won’t take them either.
Until now, neither the state nor the federal government has provided a safe solution to the problem.
Passage of the Secure and Responsible Drug Disposal Act is a good first step, but there is no money attached.
The preferred method of disposing of prescription medication is through incineration.
If local governments are going to be responsible for collecting unused medication, then local governments most likely will be responsible for their storage and their incineration costs.
Most police departments have secure evidence rooms where the drugs could be stored.
There are ways to offset incineration fees.
Drug forfeiture money could be used to offset the costs to communities.
In one Texas community the police department built its own incinerator to dispose of the drugs, and in yet another, a local pet crematorium provides the service free of charge.
Four tons of pills in Maine in one day.
Houston, I think we have a problem.
National Family Caregiver Support Program
Serving as a caregiver for a loved one is both challenging and rewarding. All too often, the efforts of family caregivers go unnoticed. To honor this dedication and commitment, the U.S. Administration on Aging is excited to announce the Year of the Family Caregiver.
November 2010 marks the 10th Anniversary of the National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP). To help celebrate this milestone and to highlight the important role caregivers play in the everyday lives of those for whom they provide care, AoA would like to help you recognize the tremendous efforts of family caregivers. A new website, www.celebratingfamilycaregivers.org has been created and is equipped with the tools and materials you need to organize, publicize, and host events to honor caregivers and celebrate the NFCSP’s accomplishments.
Program That Really Helps Older People Stay in Their Homes Suffers Cash Crunch
by Christine Parrish
Feature Writer Belfast Police Chief Jeff Trafton is also the chairman of Waldo County Triad, a group that’s working hard to keep senior citizens living safely at home. Photo courtesy J. Trafton
Waldo County is known for looking after its elderly, but the two-year economic decline has not only been hard on senior citizens, it has also been hard for the volunteer organizations, like Waldo County Triad, that are designed to help them.
Waldo County Triad, a nonprofit organization that is a partnership of volunteers from local law enforcement agencies, concerned citizens, and senior citizens, has scrambled to raise enough money to keep going this year.
The organization offers a host of programs. They provide seniors with free refurbished cell phones programmed just to dial 911, put up highly visible house numbers near the road that can be seen easily by emergency workers, fund a flashing beacon program at seniors' homes that tells neighbors and patrolling law enforcement that there is trouble afoot, and they make sure seniors on a call list are called every morning to make sure everything is okay. If there is no answer, a patrol officer stops by the house to check in.
Most of Triad's programs are free to seniors, with the exception of the House Number Sign Project. That costs $12 to pay for the sign.
"We are basically trying to make it so seniors can safely stay in their homes for longer," said Belfast Police Chief Jeff Trafton, who is also chairman of the Waldo County Triad.
But the programs do cost money - about $10,000 a year. Trafton said the organization can usually raise the money. This year, it's $4,000 short.
"We do lawn sales, auctions, public suppers, we work with the day lilies guy," said Trafton. "We get direct donations, too, and we send out letters."
"It's just been a tough year," he said. "We're in a cash crunch."
Some of the other programs run by the Waldo County Triad are a free warm coat program, the file-of-life program so seniors can put all their medical information in a red magnetized folder and attach it to the refrigerator; emergency response teams are trained to look for it. The organization also provides rides to and from local medical appointments for Belfast residents.
The Triad chapters belong to the nationwide association. There are 19 chapters in Maine, but each is individually run and some are far more active than others. Waldo County is very active. Lincoln County Triad focuses on two programs: emergency cell phones and the red file-of-life program. Knox County Triad is reorganizing after several changes on the board of directors. Their efforts focus more on educating senior citizens about identity theft, prescription drug safety and disposal, and an initiative to promote a village concept of sharing responsibility for seniors in the neighborhood.
"Waldo County is going great guns," said George Chappel, the chairman of the Knox County Triad. "I'm really impressed with what they are doing."
Chief Trafton said if anyone wants to donate, the Waldo County Triad address is P.O. Box 125, Belfast, ME 04915.
A Wave of Addiction and Crime, with the Medicine Cabinet to Blame
By ABBY GOODNOUGH
BOSTON — Police departments have collected thousands of handguns through buy-back programs in communities throughout the country. Now they want the contents of your medicine cabinet.
Opiate painkillers and other prescription drugs, officials say, are driving addiction and crime like never before, with addicts singling out the homes of sick or elderly people and posing as potential buyers at open houses just to raid the medicine cabinets. The crimes, and the severity of the nation’s drug abuse problem, have so vexed the authorities that they are calling on citizens to surrender old bottles of potent pills like Vicodin, Percocet and Xanax.
On Saturday, the police will set up drop-off stations at a Wal-Mart in Pearland, Tex., a zoo in Wichita, Kan., a sports complex in Peoria, Ariz., and more than 4,000 other locations to oversee a prescription drug take-back program. Coordinated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, it will be the first such effort with national scope.
The take-back day is being held as waves of data suggest the country’s prescription drug problem is vast and growing. In 17 states, deaths from drugs — both prescription and illegal — now exceed those from motor vehicle accidents, with opiate painkillers playing a leading role. The number of people seeking treatment for painkiller addiction jumped 400 percent from 1998 to 2008, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
And from rural New England to the densely populated South, law enforcement officials are combating a sharp rise in crime tied to prescription drugs.
“We’re seeing people desperately and aggressively trying to get their hands on these pills,” said Janet T. Mills, the attorney general in Maine. “Home invasions, robberies, assaults, homicides, thefts — all kinds of crimes are being linked to prescription drugs.”
In Harpswell, Me., a masked man broke into the home of a 77-year-old woman in June, knocked her to the ground and snatched her Oxycontin pills at knifepoint. And in Hyannis, Mass., three men armed with a knife, a bat and a revolver broke into a home in 2008, bound the owner’s hands and feet with duct tape and tore through drawers and cabinets until they found her husband’s Oxycontin.
In other states, the authorities say, pill thieves have infiltrated open houses.
“One will distract the Realtor,” said Matthew Murphy, assistant special agent in charge at the D.E.A.’s New England field division in Boston, “while the other goes and rifles through the medicine cabinet looking for pain medication.”
Skeptics, pointing to the dearth of evidence that gun buybacks have reduced the gun crime rate, question whether even a national take-back effort will have much impact. And they question whether most people will bother to participate when the take-back programs, unlike the gun programs, do not offer a reward for turning in pills.
There is also the reality that many people intentionally hang on to pain or anxiety medicine for future use.
“They might say, ‘I’ll take back my Oxy but not my Vicodin,’ ” said Neale Adams, the district attorney in Aroostook County, Me. He said “easily a third” of the indictments there were related to prescription drug trafficking and abuse.
The officials coordinating Saturday’s drug take-back program acknowledge that even with a few thousand drop-off points, it will capture but a tiny fraction of the addictive drugs lining the nation’s medicine cabinets.
Nor will it address root causes of addiction, like the overprescribing of powerful drugs. In New York City, the number of oxycodone prescriptions filled at pharmacies rose by 66 percent from 2007 to 2009, with a high density of prescriptions per population in middle-class strongholds like Staten Island and Chelsea.
But Steve Bullock, the attorney general in Montana, said the program was a worthy tool, nonetheless.
“It raises the awareness that we tend to hoard these drugs and hang onto them,” he said. “And raising that awareness is one more step in dealing with the overall problem.”
In lobbying the public to participate, law enforcement officials and others who battle prescription drug abuse try to educate people on just how lethal keeping pills around can be.
“It’s really no different than having a loaded gun just lying around the house,” said Joanne Peterson of Raynham, Mass., who started a support group for relatives of prescription drug abusers after her son tried a friend’s Oxycontin and became addicted.
While the primary goal of the take-back day is to reduce the volume of pills in households, there may also be environmental benefits. The collected drugs will be incinerated instead of flushed down toilets, which can release them into the water supply.
Incineration is the best way to dispose of controlled prescription drugs, Mr. Murphy said, but the cost of contracting with private disposal companies can be prohibitive. Some communities have gotten creative: in Bella Vista, Ark., the police department bought a small incinerator specifically to destroy pills. And in West Lafayette, Ind., a pet crematory incinerates pills collected by the police at no charge.
Gary Boggs, executive assistant in the office of diversion control at D.E.A. headquarters in Washington, said the agency hoped to coordinate national drug take-back days twice a year until federal law allows other options for safe prescription drug disposal. Several bills before Congress would loosen regulations on who can collect used drugs.
Meanwhile, a growing number of state legislatures are considering bills that would require drug manufacturers to help coordinate and pay for the collection and disposal of leftover prescription drugs.
Bernard Strain of Philadelphia, whose teenage son Timmy died last year after taking prescription methadone pills that had been sitting in a medicine cabinet, said pushing for drug collection programs had become his crusade.
Timmy had been prescribed Percocet after burning his hand on a lawnmower, Mr. Strain said. When his pain persisted, his girlfriend’s mother offered him two pills that he thought were extra-strength Percocet but turned out to be methadone, another powerful painkiller. He died that night.
“This is about saving even just one life,” said Mr. Strain, who will help supervise a take-back site in Philadelphia on Saturday. “If we can dispose of cans and bottles and oil from our car properly, why can’t we dispose of something the size of a dime that can kill you?”
Anemona Hartocollis contributed reporting from New York and Katie Zezima from Boston.
California has paid scores of criminals to care for residents
The rules of the state's home healthcare program, as interpreted by a judge this year, permit such felons to work as aides. Among their crimes are rape, assault and theft.
By Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Sacramento
Scores of people convicted of crimes such as rape, elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon are permitted to care for some of California's most vulnerable residents as part of the government's home health aide program.
Data provided by state officials show that at least 210 workers and applicants flagged by investigators as unsuitable to work in the program are nonetheless scheduled to resume or begin employment.
State and county investigators have not reported many whose backgrounds include violent crimes because the rules of the program, as interpreted by a judge earlier this year, permit felons to work as home care aides. Thousands of current workers have had no background checks.
Only a history of specific types of child abuse, elder abuse or defrauding of public assistance programs can disqualify a person under the court ruling. But not all perpetrators of even those crimes can be blocked.
In addition, privacy laws prevent investigators from cautioning the program's elderly, infirm and disabled clients that they may end up in the care of someone who has committed violent or financial crimes.
"We are allowing these people into the homes of vulnerable individuals without supervision," said John Wagner, director of the state Department of Social Services. "It is dangerous…. These are serious convictions."
Alarmed administrators and law enforcement officials have warned lawmakers, who have the power to change the program's rules, that the system may be inviting predators to exploit program enrollees. But efforts to address the problem have stalled in the Legislature.
Lawmakers with ties to unions representing home care workers are wary of making more changes to a program they have cut deeply under pressure from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Relatively new restrictions on who can work in the program or receive its benefits, also implemented at the governor's urging, have already created unnecessary obstacles, lawmakers and activists say.
State and county investigators have identified 996 convicted felons working or seeking jobs in the program since background checks were launched last year; 786 of them were removed or declared ineligible, according to the state Department of Social Services.
The rest are expected to be employed in the program despite the investigators' concerns. Among them is a woman convicted of false imprisonment, assault with a deadly weapon, forging drug prescriptions and selling drugs who continues to work as a caregiver, according to state officials. Another person was convicted of welfare fraud, willfully threatening bodily harm, drug possession and two counts of burglary.
Advocates and unions note that nearly half of the 400,000 employees of the In Home Supportive Services program, which is intended to provide the state a cost-efficient alternative to nursing homes for low-income people who need certain kinds of help, are caring for their own relatives.
"We don't want to put anybody at risk of abuse or theft, but sometimes your options of who you can get to work for you are very narrow," said John Wilkins, a recipient of the services and co-chairman of a coalition of advocacy groups and unions.
Further, he said, "I've had two providers work for me who had criminal histories who were two of the best providers I have had. There is a lot of gray area. It is just not black and white."
A spokesman for the Service Employees International Union, which represents most of the state's home healthcare workers, referred questions to Wilkins. SEIU is consistently one of the biggest donors to the Democrats who dominate the Legislature, contributing millions of dollars to political committees that the state Democratic Party and its leaders use to win legislative seats, register voters and even fund lawmaker retreats.
Members' wages from the home aide program provide millions of dollars in dues revenue that the union can use to fund such operations.
At a recent meeting of an advisory panel made up of administrators, investigators, caregivers and others, one county official raised the case of a man working in the program who had been convicted of raping a 3-year old, said Laura West, a Sacramento County prosecutor who was at the meeting.
"Can you do this job if you burned down someone's house? Yes. Murdered someone? Yes. Raped a 3-year-old child? Yes," West said.
West said she is prosecuting three caregivers for fraud against the system. One has been convicted of armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon; another committed identity theft; the third was a drug dealer.
"These are all good indicators that the person steals," she said. "Yet they were able to work in the program and went on to steal from it."
In Los Angeles County, investigators are frustrated after coming across numerous cases of convicted welfare cheats working in the program who, under current rules, cannot be removed.
"It is so unfair that we can't even tell the [IHSS] consumer about this," said Philip Browning, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services. "We have our hands tied. We asked our lawyers if we could share this information. They said, 'Absolutely not,' " due to privacy restrictions.
The strict limits on who can be barred from the program stem from a lawsuit that advocates won in March in Alameda County Superior Court. They sued after the Schwarzenegger administration launched an effort to purge all convicted felons from employment in the program. Exactly who could be barred had been unclear until the court ruling; the restrictions had been lobbed into legislation drafted hastily as part of a late budget deal.
The court sided with the advocates, who represented mostly workers caring for relatives or friends. They argued that the legislation limited those who could be expelled to a narrow group of offenders, so people in need would not lose a trusted provider who had committed an offense such as theft or drunk driving.
Administration officials say they are pushing to root out only the most dangerous felons, and they complain that the effort has met a chilly reception in the Legislature. Union members have argued at legislative hearings that more restrictions would cause people like the plaintiffs in the Alameda County case to lose their jobs and force their family members into institutions.
The battle is part of a larger dispute over the recently implemented anti-fraud measures that Schwarzenegger championed. Advocates say the rules, which in addition to background checks for employees involve fingerprinting of care recipients and spot checks by investigators, are invasive and don't root out fraud because little is being committed.
Assemblywoman Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) said lawmakers would consider a reasonable proposal to block potentially dangerous people from the program if that were all the administration was seeking. But she said the administration also wants to save money by slashing the aides' wages and cutting 200,000 recipients from the program and has even proposed eliminating the services altogether.
"The administration is interested in nothing less than destroying IHSS," said Evans, who has chaired oversight hearings on the program.
Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Denise Moreno Ducheny (D- San Diego) said the budget discussions in which the administration's proposed restrictions have been raised are not an appropriate venue.
"They need to draft a bill, get an author and bring it up in the public safety and human services committees," she said.
Administration officials cited many meetings they have had with lawmakers and their staffs in which they said they raised the issue of criminals working in the program.
Meanwhile, Eileen Carroll, deputy director of adult programs for the state Department of Social Services, says she fields calls from puzzled county investigators who are seeking to keep potential predators out of the program.
"We tell them they have to approve someone who has a murder conviction," she said. "We tell them they have to approve the rapist. They call the state and ask for our help, and all we can tell them is: If it is beyond the [court-approved] list, you cannot deny them. "
TRIAD Group Plans Annual Senior Expo
NEW BRITAIN —
The New Britain TRIAD will hold its annual senior expo on Oct. 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Hospital for Special Care Research Center, 370 Osgood Ave.
Admission is free and a free lunch will be provided.
Vendors provide seniors with information about safety, fraud and health. Guest speakers include Sen. Donald Defronzo and Dr. Lorand Kristoff from the University of Connecticut Medical Center.
Dr. Kristoff will discuss how seniors can deal with loneliness. A representative of the Office of Social Security will be on hand to answer questions and there will also be a presentation about mortgage scams. Sponsors will also provide free haircuts and manicures to those who attend.
The New Britain TRIAD is a consortium of police, community, organizations, and senior citizens working to prevent the victimization of older people. For more information about the expo contact Officer Carol Zesut at 860-826-3081.
—Ken Byron
Copyright © 2010, The Hartford Courant
Porter County Triad Hosts Fall Forum
Written by Porter County Triad
On Thursday, October 14th, from 8:30 to 12:30, Porter County Triad will host its annual Fall Forum at the Hebron Senior Center located at 611 N. Main St., Hebron.
This year’s forum will include presentations about health, personal safety, laugh yoga and finance. Michelle Myer from the Indiana Attorney General’s office will provide an in-depth program on how to protect yourself from identity theft. The forum is free and a boxed lunch will be provided to attendees. Seating is limited. Call 219-477-3125 to reserve a seat.
Porter County Triad is a partnership between the Porter County Sheriff’s Department, local agencies and service providers who are dedicated to the well being of area seniors..
Groups collaborate to combat elder abuse By Corky Emrick emrick@sturgisjournal.com
Sturgis Journal Centreville, Mich. —
Care of the elderly has long been a concern of several agencies throughout St. Joseph County.
On Tuesday, a step was taken in St. Joseph County to improve safety of seniors.
The St. Joseph County Intermediate School District was the host for training local police and county agencies about adult abuse.
“This training for the police officers is an opening discussion we need to have. They are on the front line,” St. Joseph County Probate Judge Thomas Shumaker said. “They see this stuff 24 hours a day. We need to keep the awareness up, and this is a good place to start.”
“I think this protocol should go to others who see vulnerable adults, like doctors and bank employees,” Shumaker added.
Four sessions, two Tuesday and two today, are sponsored by Branch-St. Joseph Area Agency on Aging and the St. Joseph County Sheriff Department.
Funding for the education came through a grant.
The four-hour block training sessions were led by the Ron Tatro, project director for Elder Abuse and Financial Exploitation Projects.
St. Joseph County Sheriff Brad Balk said that one of the first questions he was asked when he was running for sheriff was, what was he going to do to protect the vulnerable?
“That was a concern of mine,” Balk said. “Ever since becoming sheriff, I tried to get something going.”
That question came from Branch-St. Joseph Area Agency on Aging coordinator Laura Sutter.
“This has been very near and dear to my heart to protect vulnerable adults,” Sutter said. “This is the result of those agencies who worked together to revamp the protocol.”
The two then teamed up to co-sponsor the class.
Balk said many agencies collaborated to create a statement of commitment for a countywide “vulnerable adult” protocol.
Those agencies include, Probate Court, Department of Human Services, St. Joseph County Sheriff Department, Long Term Care Ombudsman, Human Services Commission, St. Joseph County Prosecutor’s Office, Community Mental Health, Domestic and Sexual Abuse Services, Commission on Aging and Branch-St. Joseph Area Agency on Aging.
In the end, the agencies put together a nearly 10-page protocol.
Copyright 2010 Sturgis Journal. Some rights reserved
Victimization During Household Burglary
Shannan Catalano, Ph.D.,
BJS Statistician
An estimated 3.7 million household burglaries occurred each year on average from 2003 to 2007. In about 28% of these burglaries, a household member was present during the burglary. In 7% of all household burglaries, a household member experienced some form of violent victimization. These estimates of burglary are based on a revised definition of burglary from the standard classification in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Historically, burglary is classified as a property crime except when someone is home during the burglary and a household member is attacked or threatened.
When someone is home during a burglary and experiences violence, NCVS classification rules categorize the victimization as a personal (rape/sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault) rather than a property crime (household burglary, theft, and motor vehicle theft). In this report, the definition of household burglary includes burglaries in which a household member was a victim of a violent crime (see Methodology).
Figure 1.
Number and percent distribution of household burglaries, 2003–2007 - An estimated 3.7 million burglaries occurred each year on average from 2003 to 2007.
- A household member was present in roughly 1 million burglaries and became victims of violent crimes in 266,560 burglaries.
- Simple assault (15%) was the most common form of violence when a resident was home and violence occurred. Robbery (7%) and rape (3%) were less likely to occur when a household member was present and violence occurred.
- Offenders were known to their victims in 65% of violent burglaries; offenders were strangers in 28%.
- Overall, 61% of offenders were unarmed when violence occurred during a burglary while a resident was present. About 12% of all households violently burglarized while someone was home faced an offender armed with a firearm.
- Households residing in single family units and higher density structures of 10 or more units were least likely to be burglarized (8 per 1,000 households) while a household member was present.
- Serious injury accounted for 9% and minor injury accounted for 36% of injuries sustained by household members who were home and experienced violence during a completed burglary.
Households with a head of household ages 12 to 19 had the highest rates of burglary; ages 65 or older had the lowest rates
Burglary rates declined for households with heads of households in older age groups.
Households with a head of household age 65 or older had the lowest rates of burglary—12 per 1,000 households while no one was home and 5 per 1,000 households while the residence was occupied. Households with a head of household age 12 to 19 had the highest rates of burglary—59 per 1,000 households when no one was present and 27 per 1,000 households while the residence was occupied.
Damaging or removing a door was the most common type of entry in forcible and attempted forcible entry burglaries
Removing or damaging a window screen during a forcible entry was equally likely to occur whether the residence was occupied (11%) or unoccupied (9%) (table 5). In comparison, tampering with a door handle was less likely to occur while a household member was present (20%) than when no one was home (26%).
For a full report, including graphs: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/vdhb.pdf
Onslaught of scam attempts moves woman to action
By STEFANIE SCOTT
In the last month an 85-year-old Wauwatosa woman has received numerous calls and letters from people trying to bilk her out of money, but she outsmarted them all.
According to the Wauwatosa police report:
In August, the woman was sent a check for $1,962 and told it was a prize. She suspected it wasn't real, and her bank confirmed that.
Three weeks ago, she got a call from someone claiming to represent Publisher's Clearinghouse who said she had won $260,000. Because the money was supposedly coming from Canada, she needed to wire $1,900 to convert the funds to U.S. currency. The caller even told her where she should go in Wauwatosa to wire the money, and said a women with a package would be waiting for her when she finished. The woman checked her facts by calling the real Publisher's Clearinghouse and found out it was a scam.
Soon afterward, she received a letter from a company in Quebec that said she was a beneficiary of an $80,000 unclaimed settlement - all she had to do was call a number and provide information.
But on Sept. 30, she decided she had had enough. She got a call from a different supposed insurance company upping the stakes. The caller said she would get $300,000 cash and $190,000 by check as a settlement. She should wait for further communication. A man called a while later and said she should send $500 to insure the package. She told the man she didn't drive, so he suggested she call a cab and he would reimburse her.
When he called back to check her progress on getting him the money, he reached a police officer. The man was undeterred. He said the officer didn't scare him, and he hung up.
DEA drug take-back nets 121 tons of unwanted drugs
By ALICIA A. CALDWELL (AP)
WASHINGTON — A daylong, nationwide effort to get people to turn in old or unwanted prescription drugs collected more than 121 tons of unused medicine.
With prescription drug abuse on the rise, the goal was to keep the drugs from falling into the hands of abusers and criminals.
The Drug Enforcement Administration organized the national prescription drug "Take-Back" day for Sept. 25. Officials offered people across the country a free, anonymous and legal way to get rid of potentially dangerous prescription drugs that have been cluttering medicine cabinets.
"The Take-Back Campaign was a stunning nationwide success that cleaned out more than 121 tons of pills from America's medicine cabinets, a crucial step toward reducing the epidemic of prescription drug abuse that is plaguing this nation," DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart said in a statement Tuesday.
DEA spokesman David Ausiello said people across the country flocked to more than 4,000 sites to get rid of old drugs and just about anything they got with a prescription that they didn't need any more, including needles.
Authorities said a woman in Jacksonville, Ill., handed over drugs she's collected for the last 50 years while a man in Troy, Mo., hauled a kitchen drawer packed with medicine to a drop-off site.
It's illegal to turn over unused prescriptions to anyone other than law enforcement. But the House and Senate have passed legislation allowing state and private entities to create responsible drug take-back programs. The bill awaits President Barack Obama's signature.
Ausiello said DEA officials are likely to hold at least one more take-back day before any legislation takes effect.
During the six years ending in 2006, there was a 175 percent increase in accidental prescription overdoses, according to federal data.
By 2009, 7 million Americans aged 12 and older abused prescription drugs for non-medical purposes. That was up from 6.3 million in 2008.
Unsure of what to do with unused prescriptions, countless people flush them down the toilet, potentially sending unwanted medicines into the water supply. Or worse, they throw old medicines out, giving drug-seeking criminals a chance to find them in the trash.
The take-back program, Ausiello said, gave federal authorities a chance to collect and then incinerate the drugs.
(This version CORRECTS date of take-back day to Sept. 25, not last Saturday.)
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
ecrets behind the silence: Advocating an interfaith response to elder abuse
Written by Mary Beth Hislop - Town Crier Staff Writer
It’s no big secret that America’s citizens are aging. During the 1900s, the U.S. population 65 and under tripled, while those 65 and above increased eleven-fold – from 3.1 million in 1900 to 33.2 million in 1994.
The numbers supplied by the Foundation for Health in Aging aren’t any big secret to Adult Protective Services, which estimates that the nation’s 65-and-older populace will double to 70 million – one in five people will be a senior citizen – by 2030. That same age group will double in California by 2020.
And it’s no big secret that many of the elderly will require assistance with daily-living tasks. If the statistics hold, between 1 million and 2 million of them will be victims of elder abuse each year. The big secret is that 90 percent of the abusers are family members. Worse, one in five cases isn’t reported. It’s a number that shocks Betty Malks.
“This is a crime,” she said. “This is the crime of the 21st century. Elder abuse is increasing all over the world. And people are getting older all over the world.”
As director of Santa Clara County’s Department of Aging and Adult Services for 12 years, Malks knows the numbers only too well.
Today, Malks is project director for Protecting Our Elders, a Santa Clara County Mental Health Department program that focuses on educating interfaith communities about elder abuse.
With more than 700 congregations in the county, it’s an approach with promise, according to Los Altos resident Margriet DeLange, a gerontolologist and the program’s community organizer.
“Seniors have the highest church-going attendance numbers – and they trust,” she said. “But the clergy aren’t trained in elder abuse.”
A recent addition to California’s Welfare and Institutions Code identifies clergy as mandated reporters who must inform specific authorities when elder abuse is suspected – similar to mandates for doctors and teachers in child-abuse cases. Malks’ program couldn’t come at a better time.
So far, 300 respondents and spiritual leaders have participated in four summits on learning to recognize the signs of elder abuse, how to intervene, how to prevent it – to speak out and lead by example.
“The interest is huge – with commitments to follow through,” said Malks of the ongoing series of gatherings.
Beyond the physical
Malks is taking the message to seminaries to develop awareness in young clergy members. If clergy lack the time to attend a seminar, Malks said they could request a speaker to visit the congregation.
California recognizes nine categories of elder and dependent-adult abuse, including physical, emotional, sexual, financial, abandonment, isolation, abduction, self-neglect and neglect.
While neglect accounts for 20 percent of Santa Clara County’s cases and physical abuse 11 percent, self-neglect leads the categories, accounting for 37 percent of cases reported to authorities.
Self-neglect often occurs because the seniors are isolated and unable to care for themselves.
Elder abuse crosses all the lines, Malks said – racial, ethnic, religious and socioeconomic. While bruises, scratches and broken limbs signal physical abuse, the signs of financial abuse are more subtle.
And in affluent communities, like Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, financial abuse is rampant against the elderly, who are often targeted in scams and become victims of fraud.
“Strangers befriend seniors,” DeLange said. “They prey on that vulnerability and isolation.”
“This is the generation that saved and saved and saved,” Malks said of seniors, many of whom developed frugal fiscal conservatism.
“And that generation has never learned to ask for help,” DeLange said. “This could be Los Altos, Los Altos Hills people.”
It’s not only strangers defrauding older adults. Stressed and unpaid caregivers, often family members, may justify stealing from seniors.
Signs and silence
“Elder abuse is hidden. It thrives on silence.”
This is the message Malks is determined to deliver, and the close relationships clergy develop with their parishioners as confidantes can provide the connections in communication for someone who is isolated.
Protecting Our Elders helps leaders recognize the subtle signs of financial abuse, as well as other signs that signal one of the flock is being abused.
“The abuse stems from feeling intimidated,” according to Malks.
Very often, victims rely on their caregivers for assistance and are too frightened, ashamed or sick to report abuse.
For caregivers – “It’s really very, very difficult work, without a lot of support,” Malks said – frustration can set the stage to abuse the elder.
“We need to understand what the cycle is before we can break the cycle,” she said.
Greed, envy, anger, revenge – all are catalysts that contribute to elder abuse, Malks said.
“Or purely thinking that it’s OK,” DeLange added.
To report a suspected case of elder abuse, call Santa Clara County Adult Protective Services at (800) 414-2002.
“(The phone line is) manned 24/7,” Malks said. “And we have live people answering the phone.”
In most cases, the agency investigates reports within 24 hours, with an understanding of and respect for seniors’ rights to self-determination.
“We do whatever we can to keep (seniors) in the home,” Malks said, “and get the perp out.”
For more information, call 269-2589 or visit www.protectingourelders.net.
Contact Mary Beth Hislop at marybethh@latc.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
State files lawsuits against 10 foreclosure consultants
VINCENNES, Ind. – Many homeowners facing foreclosure who are frustrated with their loan servicers turn to for-profit foreclosure consultants whose advertisements often promise any home can be saved from foreclosure and their services are 100% guaranteed. Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller today announced the filing of 10 lawsuits against companies making such claims calling them false and illegal, including one complaint which was filed today in Knox County against Integrated Financial Solutions, headquartered in New Jersey.
“These so-called ‘foreclosure consultants' are taking advantage of Hoosiers who are facing desperate financial hardships and scamming them out of thousands of dollars. They are operating illegally and this will not be tolerated in Indiana,” Zoeller said. “Working to protect Hoosier consumers includes bringing actions against those who violate our state laws and also warning people to protect themselves, their family and their neighbors – don’t let a loved one fall victim to these scams, no matter how convinced they may be of their legitimacy.”
To read more: http://intranet.atg.in.local/Pages/PressRelease102110.aspx
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