Day at the Legislature

I spent a good part of the day on Monday at the Nebraska State Legislature, which isn't even in session.  The Judiciary Committee, however, was having some interim study hearings, and I had been asked to testify on two issues.  The first was a special hearing by the committee to study "policies and procedures associated with immigrants who come in contact with law enforcement at Federal, state, and local levels." The second was Senator Amanda McGill's Legislative Resolution 243, an interim study to examine the extent of human trafficking in Nebraska in connection with labor and sex trafficking.

Of the two, I was more intrigued by the human trafficking testimony. I came prepared with a couple of actual examples of cases investigated by LPD in 2011.  I had planned to fill the role of trying to help those in attendance at the hearing understand that human trafficking really does occur in Nebraska. My friend Alex Hayes, the Omaha Police Chief, beat me to the punch when he testified about his experience in Omaha with the sex trade.  He essentially told the senators the same thing I had planned.  He was followed by another friend, Weysan Dun, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Omaha field office.  Among other things, SAC Dun told the senators another story about an Omaha case that was quite similar to one of my two examples.

By the time I was in the seat, the point had already been made, and there was no real need to convince the committee that the sex trade in Nebraska is a good example of human trafficking. Instead, I told them about the hard life, and about the vulnerability evident with sex trade victims, who often suffer from mental health and substance abuse issues, have endured a lifetime of abuse, neglect and exploitation, and are hardly free to make their intelligent, informed, and voluntary decisions. Rather, they are often manipulated and abused by handlers who may pose as boyfriends, business partners, husbands, and the like, but in actuality are pimps and exploiters who take advantage of the vulnerability of addiction, poverty, alcoholism, and mental illness. For that matter, so do all of the johns.

Paul Hammel's Omaha World Herald article contains a good description of the immigration hearing, while Dan Holtmeyer's Daily Nebraskan article thoroughly covers the human trafficking hearing.

Short, sweet, and simple

Yesterday afternoon, I was at the Nebraska Legislature, where the Judiciary Committee was holding a public hearing on LB1145, a bill introduced by Senator Amanda McGill concerning human trafficking.  I dread these hearings, because you just never know how long it will be. I've been there for hours on some occasions, waiting for my turn to testify. It turned out to be a good day, though, and I was in and out rather quickly.

The Judiciary Committee enforces a three minute time limit, so you have to get to the point.  I limited my remarks to just one aspect of the bill: a provision that would increase the maximum penalty for the crime of pandering when the victim is under the age of 18.  I gave an example of a case where justice might have been better served, and public safety enhanced, had this been the law.  The overtime warning light blinked red as I uttered my final syllable.

Back at the County-City building, I encountered a colleague, who shall remain nameless for the time being.  "How'd it go?" she inquired.  "Short, sweet, and simple," I replied.  "You, or your testimony?" she asked.

[Pause]

"Yes."

At any rate, for those of you interested, here is the text of my testimony:

"I am here on behalf of the City of Lincoln to support LB 1145. I testified here two months ago on Legislative Resolution 243, and gave some local examples of human trafficking cases in Lincoln.  Although few of these come to the attention of the police, I believe that they are more common than most people realize.

Today, I would like to focus on the primary reason I support LB 1145. The bill changes the crime of pandering from a Class 4 Felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison, to a Class 3 felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, when the victim is under the age of 18.  I think this change treats the crime with the gravity it deserves. 

Shortly after my appointment as Lincoln’s police chief, our officers became involved in a human trafficking investigation in which a 28 year old man was ultimately convicted of pandering.  He had lured a girl who had just turned 16 into the sex trade.  The case that led to his conviction involved arranging an act of prostitution with a 47 year-old man here in Lincoln. 

The “John” was convicted of debauching a minor, a Class 1 Misdemeanor, and sentenced to two years probation.  The pimp was convicted of pandering and sentenced to prison for 2-4 years.  He served a little less than two years, and was released. He has since been convicted of contempt of court, assault, three additional sex-related misdemeanors, and a felony Federal weapons violation that sent him to Leavenworth for a few years.

Something just isn’t right about this. Pandering, ought to be a more serious offense and the court should have the leeway to impose a more serious sentence."

Belly dancers peeved

Never thought I'd be penning a blog post title like that.  What an interesting evening.  I took off a little early yesterday, and loaded four of the five grandkids up for a little excursion to grandma and grandpa's house.  While playing with the munchkins, my iPhone was beeping incessantly. Around 5:00 PM, I started receiving a string of emails from...annoyed belly dancers? They are still coming in this morning.

Apparently the source of the annoyance is this article in the University of Nebraska student newspaper, the Daily Nebraskan.  The comments on the DN's website went nuts, and the tech-savvy had no trouble finding my email address.  Last December, I testified before a Nebraska legislative committee hearing on the topic of human trafficking.  I am quoted in the article saying that escort services are "fronts for erotic dancers, belly dancers, erotic massages and prostitution."  Methinks the reporter mistook his notes, and replaced something like "lap dancers" with "belly dancers," because I don't believe I said such a thing. If I did, it was an incredible gaffe, because I certainly realize belly dancing is not associated with the sex trade in any way.

I have patiently replied to each email, explaining that this must be a misquote.  Here's an example, my response to a belly dancer from Texas, who delivered quite a lecture to me:

This is a misquote, I believe. Perhaps the student reporter misread notes concerning my testimony that escort services are a front for activities like erotic massage, lap dancing, exotic dancing and prostitution.  I would never, ever put belly dancing in such a list, which would be akin to including something like figure skating or gymnastics.  You can take belly dancing lessons at the Y, for goodness sake! Legislative committee hearings are streamed live, recorded, covered by the Nebraska press, and I normally submit written testimony.  I have testified at two legislative hearings in the past few months concerning the sex trade and the issue of human trafficking. Both were widely covered in the news, as a Google search will reveal, and no one has quoted me as associating belly dancing with the sex trade prior to this article in the University of Nebraska's student newspaper.  Had I actually said something like this, I believe it would have raised some eyebrows among the senators and the gallery, and I am pretty sure it would have been picked up by the rest of the media. The reporter may have made a mistake in either his note taking or writing. 

Tom

Hopefully Apple's big event today will eclipse this story, and my inbox will settle down.

It is a good series of articles, despite this slight dust-up.  The Daily Nebraskan's coverage of the issue of human trafficking over the past year has been excellent.

Gruntled again

Yesterday's little dust-up concerning belly dancers seemed to be well in hand. I felt it was just a minor error by the reporter, who probably misread the copious notes he had collected surrounding the series of articles he has been writing about human trafficking. The manner in which the Daily Nebraskan had responded to it, however, fired me up, and I was like a dog with a bone to chew.

This occurred yesterday when it came to my attention that the DN had corrected the (non) quote in its online edition, and had also run a correction in the print edition.  I happened to see the print edition, and my formerly red hair (red former hair?) began to flame. This was no correction at all.  Rather, it was an apology by the DN for printing my (non) quote!  Instead of simply stating that Casady had been misquoted, the DN actually did the reverse: confirmed that they had quoted me, and apologized for printing what I (had not) said:

"In a quote in a March 6 Daily Nebraskan article, Lincoln public safety officer Tom Casady listed 'belly dancer' among a list of sex related businesses escort services may be fronts for. The Daily Nebraskan did not  intend to associate belly dancing with sexual transactions by running the quote and apologizes for any confusion. Belly dancing is a form of middle eastern dance taught and practiced throughout the world. the Daily Nebraskan regrets this error."

I never asked for a correction in the first place, but this was worse. The editors of the Daily Nebraskan chould have just called me or sent me an email to say, "Sorry we misquoted you, and really sorry our attempt to correct matters actually compounded the error."

It took quite an effort on my part to get this to happen, but I finally received an email reply from the managing editor and a return phone call from the editor-in-chief at the end of the day.  The appropriate apology was politely delivered, and this was published in this morning's print edition:

"A story on human trafficking, which ran in the Daily Nebraskan on march 6, misquoted Lincoln Public Safety Director Tom Casady. In the story, he is quoted including “belly dancers” in a list of sex-related businesses that escort services may be fronts for during his testimony to the state Legislature’s Judiciary Committee. According to the committee hearing transcript, the phrase in the quote should instead be “lap dances.” Belly dancing is a form of Middle Eastern dance taught and practiced around the world. The Daily Nebraskan regrets the error."

That's more like it. Consider me gruntled. Among the flood of emails I received from belly dancers was this one last night, from someone who is mad that I am not sufficiently mad about a student journalist's one word error. The subject line was "Still annoyed...":

"Dear Mr. Casady,

I am going to keep this brief, but in the scheme of things the misquote was a big deal, a very big deal.  If you know anything about the history of Raqs Sharqi/Belly dance in the U.S, then you will understand the reason so many dancers were 'peeved'. The dance was seen as lewd, disgusting, and sexual on its arrival and not much has changed I see; it was call the hootchy coochy dance at one point.  Still today, there are social stigmas that women who want to partake in this art face from their families, friends, and colleagues right here in the USA, not to mention what the dancers endure in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East.  Scholar Andrea Deacon wrote, ' western society takes various distancing positions toward belly dance: ignoring, joking about , diminishing'. And that what you did, diminished the mistake as trivial as if we were all the same or unimportant. So it is still quite offensive that you took the misquote so lightly until it involved you."

The hard life

Last Friday, Dr. Donna Akers, and associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Nebraska came by my office to visit about research she is undertaking. Dr. Akers is interested in human trafficking. We discussed the potential for using Lincoln data as part of her research.

Hard though it may be for most Lincoln residents to believe, we indeed have some cases involving human trafficking in our city. These are situations where women are being coerced into prostitution, or where runaway girls are being forced to participate in “survival sex.” The crimes that come to police attention are rare, but not unknown.

While Dr. Akers was here, I was showing her how we might gather some information. I clicked on a couple of prostitution arrests, and showed her the police contact history on these two subjects. After she left, I did a little research of my own. I selected ten women arrested within the past decade for prostitution who are now between the ages of 20 and 35 and who have resided in Lincoln for at least ten years.

These women have lived the hard life. The ten subjects have a combined record of 105 runaway reports, 44 child abuse/neglect cases, and 35 sexual assaults prior to their 19th birthday. Those are only the reported incidents that came to the attention of the Lincoln Police Department.

Just another day

Last Friday, I blogged about the two big events that kept our officers occupied on Wednesday of last week: a tense standoff with an armed subject firing a high-powered rifle, and a huge full-scale exercise simulating a campus shooting.  But those were just the most high-profile of the days events.  On Thursday, I had a speaking engagement with the Leadership Lincoln fellows.  I thought it might be interesting to tell them about the events of the preceding day that did not grab the headlines. So I took along the data, as well as a few highlights from the reports. Here's the synopsis:

Last Wednesday, we responded to about 300 other events.  That's a fairly slow day for us.  Among those were 15 assaults, eight of which were domestic assaults.  Two of those assaults occurred shortly after midnight when a man came home to discover his wife in bed with another man.  At about the same time, officers responded to an assault in which a drunken man was chasing his wife around the house with a meat cleaver while she cradled the couple's 2-month old baby.

There were 10 child abuse/neglect cases on Wednesday.  In one, officers investigated a report that a parent and her friends had smoked meth in the company of four children ages 1 to 11. In another, Officer Chris Howard investigated a report of possible human trafficking.  An 11 year old girl reported that the woman posing as her mother had actually purchased her from her biological parents in Africa, as a means of obtaining refugee status, and was forcing her into all the household labor.

We investigated two death cases, one of which was the untimely death of one of our retired officers, and both of which consumed considerable investigative effort, even though there was no obvious evidence of foul play.  You cannot act on assumptions when an unattended body is discovered.

There were six missing person cases. One of those was a 14 year old boy.  This is the 8th time he has been reported missing, and he has been arrested 7 times for such crimes as shoplifting, marijuana, and skulking around inside other people's cars in the dark of night.  A 22 year old women was also missing.  She, too, had been reported as a missing person 8 times previously.  She has also been the subject of five prior mental health investigations involving suicidal ideation or suicide attempts during the sort time (3 years) she has been in Lincoln.

There were only three narcotics cases, probably because we were too busy to engage in much proactive activity.  In one, an 10 year old girl brought her mom's stash of marijuana to school and gave it to a teacher.

There were two rapes.  In one, the victim went to an apartment to do some drinking and hang out.  After passing out, she awoke to found a man engaged in an an act of sexual penetration, and it appeared that he was not the first to assault her during her unconciousness.  Although she is in her early twenties has been the victim in over a dozen assaults and three sexual assaults.  She has worked for an escort service, and advertised as a massuese on craigslist. Her drug of choice appears to be meth, as she has a felony charge pending in District Court for possession of methamphetamine.

There were 11 medical emergencies, of which nine were mental health crises, all involving either an attempted suicide or suicidal ideation that required evaluation.  Looks like that might be getting even worse.

There were also 13 parking complaints, 46 disturbances, 20 prowlers, 9 vandalisms, 16 larcenies, 20 traffic accidents,three French hens,two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.

While the TERREX exercise unfolded, and the SWAT Team performed their apex job, it was just another day at the office for the remainder of the Lincoln Police Department.