Fugitive Man Page 7

  The NY Times published a compelling article by Jesse Wegman, on July 28, 2014, “The Injustice of Marijuana Arrests.” The article highlights the racial imbalance in marijuana arrests and is, from my experience, spot on. Read the article at http://nyti.ms/1nTqLTc.

  Phoenix Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) Jack Hunt subsequently left Phoenix to become section chief of the Intelligence Section in the Criminal Division at FBIHQ. After three years in Phoenix and 18 months or so on the JDIG, Jack asked me if I would like to come back to FBIHQ and be the unit chief of the Criminal Intelligence Development Unit. I said yes and applied for the position. I was selected, and we packed up and moved back to Washington.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  INTELLIGENCE DEVELOPMENT UNIT

  As Chief of the Criminal Intelligence Development Unit, I quickly ascertained we were an FBI program without resources. The strength of any program in the FBI is directly related to the level of its funding, known then as Funded Staffing Level (FSL), it equates to agents, support personnel, and money in the field dedicated to the program. The criminal intelligence side of the FBI in the mid to late ‘90s had a zero FSL. Without FSL, the program had very little influence and could accomplish little. Section Chief Jack Hunt was way ahead of his time in his vision of the way criminal, including counterterrorism, intelligence handling should ideally function, but he had very little support from senior FBI leaders, who apparently did not recognize the import of trained competent analysts for the Bureau’s criminal and counterterrorism cases.

  It was really an uphill battle. The Foreign Counterintelligence Division (FCI) side of the FBI was significantly more advanced than the Criminal Division (which included the Counterterrorism Section) when it came to the quality of their analysts. Within the criminal side of the house, the only trained analysts, for the most part, were those working with the Organized Crime Information System (OCIS) and they were focused on organized crime. The FCI Division had long sought out real analysts, analysts with appropriate training and job skills to provide case analysis beyond a mere regurgitation of what was already known.

  For reasons I’ll never understand, during those times in the late 90’s, the FCI Division did little to help the Criminal Division develop training for our analysts, nor share useful training material. There were some exceptions, but for the most part, we were on our own within the FBI. So, we turned to the military and the DEA for help. In 1989, General Colin Powel established Joint Task Force 6 in Fort Bliss, Texas. (It was initially a counter-drug operation, but was subsequently renamed Joint Task Force North and in 2004 was given counterterrorism as an additional focus.)

  While the FBI did not provide standard training for criminal and counterterrorism analysts before 9/11, JTF6 and the DEA graciously provided limited training for FBI criminal analysts in Miami, El Paso, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. Uniform training for criminal/counterterrorism analysts eluded the FBI until after the events of 9/11.

  A good analyst takes the data gathered by an agent and conducts research through numerous government and public sector databases to fill in any intelligence gaps, as well as to validate or condense the data. The analyst then dissects all information with the use of analytic tools and determines if there is actionable intelligence for the agent/ officer. Potentially significant investigations should feature an analyst teamed with the case agent from the start. The FCI side of the house had long been accomplishing that.

  On the criminal side, we suffered with a legacy of analysts who were good secretaries or clerks who had been promoted to the Intelligence Research Specialist (analyst) position. Many of them were quite competent, but were not trained by the FBI in what was expected from an analyst. The FBI did not then have an academy for analysts, and the new criminal analysts basically worked with the legacy FBI-created systems that were in place. Agents still appreciated them, as, for example, analysts took voluminous phone records and put them in a workable database and did other elementary functions that made the case agent’s life easier. However, analysts could have done so much more as they were frequently idle in an analytical sense and were not providing any “added value” information, analysis, or investigative leads.

  What we in the Intelligence Section of the Criminal Division wanted was a real career path for analysts that included minimum education standards and minimum training. We wanted an analyst’s academy. We wanted to emulate what was successfully done by other agencies, notably the DEA and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). FBI senior management was unreceptive, and I used to think that Jack Hunt had one of the more frustrating jobs in FBIHQ. Ultimately, I feel the attacks on 9/11 demonstrated that people should have listened to Jack. I’m not saying trained analysts would have made the difference in discovering the presence and intentions of the 9/11 terrorists, but we’ll never know.

  Through the work of some very good analysts and managers, and working with people in the personnel section, core competencies were developed for analysts in an attempt to construct an analyst career path. For validation purposes, we introduced those core competencies to the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts for their review, and IALEIA subsequently validated and adopted them as a standard.

  The other thing that was a positive development while I was Chief of CIDU was the development and dissemination of fill-in-the-blank worksheets for developing “target packets” for Racketeering Enterprise Investigations, making manageable what was often considered a complicated process.

  In those days, the FBI was infamous for its lack of success in the Information Technology world. We in the Intelligence Section wanted a standard set of analytical tools to be on the desktop of our analysts. When Analyst’s Notebook (then a new, cutting edge program, which graphically presented detailed link-analysis in complex cases) was demonstrated for some of our IT people, we were told to forget about using it, as anything it could do, the Criminal Law Enforcement Application (CLEA) would also be able to accomplish. CLEA was an FBI homegrown program. Of course, CLEA never did live up to its promise, and years later, the FBI ended up buying Analyst’s Notebook for millions of dollars more than what we could have had it for when it was first introduced.

  For years, the FBI had been an organization with a vertical reporting structure and a vertical flow of information. For the Bureau to function efficiently, to be able to just get to the intelligence that’s available, that flow of information had to be made horizontal. Following 9/11, Director Mueller really pushed the Bureau into that mode.

  After a fairly frustrating (but informative) two years in the Intelligence Section, and with the support of Jack Hunt and Deputy Director Bob Bryant, I was named the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Jackson, Mississippi, Division.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  MISSISSIPPI

  Having been born and raised a Yankee in Princeton, New Jersey, going to Jackson, Mississippi, was an interesting experience. If I heard it once, I heard it a hundred times while speaking with folks in the state: “You’re not from here, are ya?” However, the majority of the Mississippians I got to know were friendly, and didn’t hold it against me that I was a Yankee, and I enjoyed my time there.

  I immediately got to work on familiarizing myself with the FBI’s business in the state. Between the headquarters office in Jackson and the satellite, or resident agencies, in Gulfport, Pascagoula, Hattiesburg, Columbus, Greenville, Meridian, Tupelo, and Southaven, the FBI had a presence pretty much throughout the state.

  As I examined the cases on the various squads throughout the Division, I observed that the Violent Crimes Squad in Jackson had a Safe Streets Task Force that was primarily acting as a warrant squad for the local police. The task force was arresting just about anyone for whom the locals had an arrest warrant. That’s a dangerous practice because an FBI agent normally needs to be able to demonstrate a federal nexus to justify involvement in arrests. When I was a new SSA in the Violent Crimes
Section at FBIHQ, SSA Gary Rohen and I wrote the initial Safe Streets policies and procedures, which were reviewed by many FBI and DOJO attorneys. I learned well from Gary, an experienced task force supervisor, and knew of what I was speaking.

  I put a stop to the local warrant squad. I understood how unhappy I was making the agents on the squad, as they were having an exciting time running out and arresting people on a regular basis, taking criminals off the street, and being recognized by the community for doing a good service. I would have enjoyed it too and would have been angry with the new ASAC for putting a stop to the practice. The fact that making local arrests did not fall within the scope of an FBI agent’s job did not seem a concern. The good they were doing was an example of the ends justifying the means. I could see their point, but the practice wouldn’t have passed legal muster and could have resulted in significant liability for the agents involved, as well as their supervisors and the Bureau.

  The Safe Streets Task Force supervisor was very unhappy that I had modified his fugitive squad’s activities to adhere to FBI Safe Streets standards. He told me so on more than one occasion and I appreciated his candid approach to me. But whether or not he’s ever come to realize it, I was doing the right thing for him and his squad. The ASAC has the responsibility for the day-to-day operation of the field office, and I was doing my job, and in the long run, keeping the agents out of potential trouble. But I know not everyone saw things that way.

  In Mississippi, corruption was one of our primary focuses. The white-collar squad in Jackson did a great job of going after corrupt police officers. In one undercover operation, corrupt officers were paid to protect cocaine shipments running in and out of Jackson. The drug-runners were actually undercover FBI agents. It was a great case, worked jointly by the FBI and the Jackson Police Department’s Internal Affairs Unit and several corrupt police officers went to jail.

  I note that while police corruption was rightfully a concern, I worked with some outstanding, professional Mississippi police officers during my time in Mississippi. The corrupt officers were a small minority sullying the reputations of the majority of officers who were hard working, honest peace officers, working for some of the lowest salaries offered police in any state in the nation.

  On the gulf coast of Mississippi, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the Safe Streets Gang Task Force, supervised by Harry Bowen, the Senior Supervisory Resident Agent in Gulfport, and run on a day-to-day basis by extraordinary Special Agent Jerome Lorrain in the Pascagoula Resident Agency. The task force was making numerous gang-related arrests in the gulf coast area, taking apart criminal organizations, and having a real impact on the area’s violent gang problem. It was (and likely still is) a prodigious task force.

  In north Mississippi, Hal Neilson was the Supervisor of the Oxford Resident Agency (SSRA) and also supervised the offices in Tupelo and Southaven. Hal and a great case agent put together an outstanding corruption operation. With intelligence aplenty concerning corruption on the part of local officials, the FBI opened an undercover beer and pool hall in a small town outside of Oxford. That’s right, a beer and pool hall, run by the FBI. The operation quickly bore fruit, as a local politician who wished to install illegal video poker machines almost immediately approached the “owners.” We were soon paying bribes to several public officials in the area.

  The establishment had a regular Karaoke night contest. It made me laugh when each month I signed a voucher for “Karaoke Prize Money” for the case. The operation was a joint effort with other agencies, including the Mississippi Highway Patrol, who assigned a trooper from south Mississippi to be the establishment’s bouncer. His job was crucial, as he was to make sure no one drove out of the place drunk. SSRA Neilson, the case agent, and several other agents and officers toiled long hours to pull off an outstanding undercover case. The operation was a tremendous success, with many convictions and significant asset forfeiture.

  For about half of my three years in Mississippi, I was the Acting Special Agent in Charge During that time and following some highly publicized corruption arrests, the late Jim Ingram, a former FBI senior executive, the then Director of Public Safety in Mississippi, and a really good man, invited me to have lunch with him and Mississippi Governor Kirk Fordice (Governor 1992 – 2000). The Governor was a gregarious, interesting man, and he spoke with expertise on several subjects, including his business of building highways and his many travels throughout the world.

  The Governor displayed a particular interest in our police and public official corruption cases, recently highlighted in many Mississippi news outlets. We discussed, in general terms, the problems we had encountered, and the types of political and police corruption we addressed. I also mentioned to the governor that I believed police corruption would continue to be a problem as long as police were not paid a fair and competitive salary. He seemed to agree.

  Two young black men, dressed formally in white shirts and bowties, who I assumed were trustees in the Mississippi State Prison system, served us an excellent meal. The two young men were standing at parade rest by a sidewall while the Governor and I spoke of corruption, when the Governor suddenly pointed to them and said with a laugh: “You see these two boys? They’re convicted murderers...I can trust them.” The impression Governor Fordice gave me was that convicted murderers who had become trustees were more trustworthy than many of the politicians and officials the Governor dealt with on a daily basis. I laughed out loud and so did the Governor. It was a lunch I’ll not forget.

  I also was reminded, while in Mississippi, that the business of justice did not always function on a level playing field. I had one particular African American friend who, in the late ‘90s, when he was in his early 60s, told me of his experiences growing up in the segregated south. He had many memories of the Klan coming to town from time to time, doing horrible things without consequence, and he felt he lived in a world that simply wasn’t just.

  I also became friends with Eugene Bryant, then the State President of Mississippi’s NAACP. He’s since retired and has become an ordained minister, but while I was in Mississippi, he was not only the President of the NAACP, but also a Revenue Officer for the IRS. Those are two positions that require a good bit of nerve, and Eugene certainly had it. He had a keen sense of justice and shared with me various injustices that he had witnessed or that had come to his attention during his career in Mississippi. I quickly learned that, if Eugene thought something was worthy of investigation, it was likely something the FBI should look into. He was a good friend who provided much appreciated advice.

  I thought about my time in Mississippi and issues of innocence recently, when I read of a Mississippi death penalty case where an observation on innocence is articulated in the case of Anthony Doss v. State of Mississippi, Supreme Court of Mississippi No. 2007-CA-00429-SCT.

  In Doss, former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. points out something central to the innocence issue: “Innocent men can be, and have been, sentenced to die for crimes they did not commit. In 2008 alone, two men – both black – convicted of murders in Mississippi in the mid-1990s have been exonerated fully by a non-profit group that investigates such injustices. ... Just as a cockroach scurrying across a kitchen floor at night invariably proves the presence of thousands unseen, these cases leave little room for doubt that innocent men, at unknown and terrible moments in our history, have gone unexonerated and been sent baselessly to their deaths.”

  Justice Diaz’s argument is an observation that highlights the undeniable presence of innocent men and women in prison.

  There’s clearly still work to be done.

  Another thing that surprised me as ASAC in Jackson, and later as SAC in Jacksonville, was the reluctance of many agents to conduct interviews of fugitives they arrested. Agents frequently made arrests, processed the person arrested, and turned him/her over to the jail without ever sitting them down and conducting an interview. One of an agen
t’s core competencies is the development of an intelligence base. (At least it was in my day and I imagine it still is.) Every person arrested has the potential of providing good intelligence about something. Arrestees may not want to talk about the crime for which they were arrested, but they still might offer up some good intelligence about other matters if given the chance.

  I even had a supervisor go so far as to tell me that by interviewing fugitives, we were “stepping on the toes” of the case agent or detective who obtained the warrant for the person’s arrest. Nonsense. No one is in a better position to obtain either a confession or other good information from a fugitive than the arresting agent or officer. By the time the fugitive gets into jail and is processed, the jailhouse lawyers have “counseled” him, and the chances of him talking are slim. Every person arrested should be interviewed for the crime they are arrested for and for any other information of value they may possess. I obtained too many admissions and confessions and, too much worthwhile criminal intelligence information from people I arrrested to ever agree to not interviewing arrested fugitives. It should be taught as a standard operating procedure at Quantico. (Today, maybe it is.)

  At the FBI Academy, as a new agent trainee in 1984, the interview training was not that thorough or beneficial. I received better interview training while going through NCIS training. I hear the FBI’s has been much improved.

  While in Houston, after being in the Bureau about seven years, I attended Interview and Interrogation Instructor School at Quantico, and they really hammered home the principles of a good interview. I especially remember being shown parts of the movie Cadillac Man, starring the late Robin Williams. In the movie, Williams is an outrageous Cadillac salesman, who the audience first meets at the beginning of the movie when he stops to help a broken-down hearse in a funeral procession and has the audacity to try to sell the new widow a new Cadillac. Ultimately, the Cadillac dealership where Williams works is hijacked by a jealous lunatic (Tim Robbins), surrounded by NYPD, and Williams, himself a hostage, becomes the self-appointed hostage negotiator. As comical as the movie is, a critical eye can see that the skills Williams’s character uses to negotiate with the hostage taker are the same ones taught at the FBI’s interview instructor school. It stuck with me and most of the lessons learned concerning hostage negotiation also apply to subject interviews.