News Cut: January 8, 2009 Archive

Graduation day

Posted at 3:24 PM on January 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Life

Dennis LeTourneau knows where he'd be today if not for some of the people in the Hennepin County judicial system. "I'd be dead," he said without hesitation. He is sure heroin would've killed him.

LeTourneau was one of 23 people graduating today from the Hennepin County Drug Court, a unique program that people who know what they're talking about insist is the answer to reducing the problem of repeat criminal activity from addicts. It's the second graduating class since the program was changed to focus on addicts.

People who choose the drug court system undergo a 12-month program that includes 12-step meetings, therapy, and education classes. They have to report to probation officers and agree to be tested.

"It costs $36,000 to send someone to prison, " Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson said today. "It costs $6,000-$9,000 to get them through Drug Court." Nonetheless it's a tough sell at the Capitol. Magnuson eliminated pay raises for judges in his budget request this year, but included $6 million for Drug Court.

When it comes time to convince legislators, Magnuson could do worse than have them listen to LeTourneau, or Mindy Heinkel, who thanked her probation officers and judges today noting, "It changed my life forever." James Hill said his probation officer joked with him "we can always execute" during his 12-months in the program.

It wasn't a hard program for LeTourneau. "The hard part was making the decision (to go through the program), because I was still in that life," he said. That life was a heroin addiction that started five years ago. He remembers his first shot of heroin and why he took it. "I had a girlfriend who was into it," he said.

LeTourneau has gotten clean, earned his GED, and started a business. He's also mentoring others who are in the program, according to his probation officer, Stacey Pratt (shown below congratulating graduate James Hill). "It was easy for him because he made his mind up at the beginning that he would remain determined to turn his life around."

While receiving plaques at the Hennepin County Government Center this afternoon, many graduates hugged or at least shook hands with a gauntlet of probation officers. A couple muttered "thanks," and walked away, turning their back without acknowledging the people they had to call every day for a year.

But most also knew where they'd be today otherwise. "I know people in prison who'd give their left arm for this chance," LeTourneau said.

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What happens when the cameras stop rolling?

Posted at 6:06 PM on January 8, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice

A lot of us who covered the violence surrounding the Republican National Convention wondered aloud occasionally whether things would be the same if we put away our cameras, tape recorders, and notepads and simply took a hike?

Maybe we have the answer in the violence that broke out Wednesday following protests of the killing of an unarmed man by a Bay Area Rapid Transit policeman. The killing was captured on video by a cellphone camera (you can view it here if you're so inclined).

Near the end of a segment on the subsequent violence, a guest on NPR's Talk of the Nation provided some keen insight into the related question of what role the media plays in crowd behavior.

Demian Bulwa, a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, was at the riot.

"There was also a dynamic with the media at the protest last night where there were so many of us. It was sort of unmistakable; we were part of the thing. You might have one guy confronting a police officer with three camermen, and two reporters, a still photographer, and a blogger, and someone who's live on the air with some sort of Internet radio. And, you know, it concerned me that I thought to myself, 'What if we left? What would happen? What if the police left? What would happen? But, you know, later in the night when all of the TV cameras were gone, I was still with the protesters and they were still smashing stuff."

The other question that ran through my mind is if there hadn't been someone videotaping the shooting in the back of an unarmed man, how might the story of what happened be different, if at all?

(Photo courtesy of Javier Panzar)

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