By Glynnesha Taylor

WASHINGTON — In 2009, the number of U.S. law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty reached a 50-year low. That downward trend is gone.

The National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund (NLEOMF)  in Washington is reporting a 43 percent increase of officers killed in the line of duty during the first six months of 2010 compared to last year. Five of those were federal law enforcement officers, including a Border Patrol agent.

If the trend continues, the organization said, 2010 may prove to be the most deadly in two decades.

Preliminary statistics show that 87 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty between January 1 and June 30, 2010 compared to 61 during the same stretch in 2009, a 42.6 percent, the law enforcement organization said.

By Allan Lengel

ACLU offices around the country plan to file Freedom of Information Requests with the FBI to find out what type of information the agency is gathering on ethnic groups to battle terrorism, the Boston Globe reported.

The request comes in the wake of the FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide issued in 2008 that allows agents to collect info on peoples’ behavior, lifestyles, religious practices, cultural traditions and even eating habits, the Globe reported.

The Globe reported that the guidelines say agents can “identify locations of concentrated ethnic communities” if the information will “reasonably aid the analysis of potential threats and vulnerabilities.”

The guidelines say the information might also be helpful because some communities “may be potential victims of civil rights crimes,” the Globe reported.

“FBI surveillance and mapping based on people’s religion, cultural practices, race, or ethnic backgrounds raise profound civil liberties concerns,” Carol Rose, executive director of the Massachusetts ACLU said, according to the Globe.

The paper said the FBI was not immediately available for comment.

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Sam Adam Jr./ law firm photo

Closing arguments in the public corruption trial of Ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich were supposed to finish up on Monday, but those plans were derailed when Blago’s attorney got into a big tiff with the judge, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

The judge threatened to hold Blago’s attorney Sam Adam Jr in contempt if he said certain things during closing arguments. And Adam vowed to go to jail if necessary. The closing arguments were delayed.

Just another day in the Blago trial in downtown Chicago.

The tiff started just before Adam was to deliver his closing arguments. U.S. District Judge James Zagel told Adam — outside the presence of the jury — that he could not say that the prosecution mentioned 35 people in the case, including Tony Rezko, and never called them as witnesses.

“You cannot draw an evidentiary inference from the fact a witness was not called by the other side when you had an equal right to call them,” Zagel told Adam, according to the Sun-Times.

Adam argued with the judge, who said: “You will follow this order, because if you don’t you will be in contempt of court.”

“With all due deference to the court, I have a man here who’s arguing for his life. . . . I can’t effectively represent this man. . . . I can’t follow this order,” Adam told Zagel, according to the Sun-Times. “I’m willing to go to jail on this.”

After court, Sam Adam Jr. said he would go to jail “in a heartbeat” if that’s what it takes, the Sun-Times reported.

Arguments are scheduled to resume Tuesday.

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UPDATE: 12:55 PM Tuesday: Defense Attorney Sam Adam Jr. began delivering his closing argument without incident, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. To read more click here.

By Allan Lengel

The cancerous violence of the Mexican drug cartels seems to be spreading into Central America where the drug networks are burrowing in, the Washington Post reports.

And the presence of the cartels threatens to destabalize the countries that already face daunting crime figures, the Post reported.

The Mexican cartels “are spreading their horizons to states where they feel, quite frankly, more comfortable. These governments in Central America face a very real challenge in confronting these organizations,” David Gaddis, chief of operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration told the Post.

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