REPORT ON MRP "COMBATTING INTERNATIONAL

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ACCRA 000636

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KPAO SCUL OIIP OEXC PGOV GH
SUBJECT: REPORT ON MRP "COMBATTING INTERNATIONAL
CRIME" FROM JANUARY 7 - 28, 2005.



1. Summary. The Chief Inspector of Police at the
Women and Juvenile Unit of the Ghana Police, Elvis
Bawa Sadongo, was among the participants in the MRP
on "Combatting International Crime" from January 7 -
28, 2005. He said his trip was a real "eye-opener"
because he and the other IVLP participants were given
an honest assessment of the security lapses prior to
the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the
preventative steps against future attacks being taken
post-9/11. End Summary.



2. In Washington, D.C. their first stop, Mr. Sadongo
and the other IVLP participants were given a round of
briefings at the Drug Enforcement Agency, Federal
Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department. He
said he was very surprised to see how the United
States had been such an active player on the
international scene but had had such a serious lapse
in internal security that permitted the terrorist
attacks to take place on its soil in 2001.












3. Mr. Sadongo said one of the most fascinating parts
of the trip was when he accompanied the border patrol
on its rounds in Tucson, Arizona, near the Mexican
border. He said he could not believe the border was
so expansive and yet so open. He said that as the
U.S. authorities are building fences and barricades
on their side of the border, Mexicans are countering
the effort by bulldozing tons of soil to higher
levels to enable Mexicans to continue to cross the
border even over the fences and barricades.


4. He and others in the group were perplexed by the
laws that prevent police from crossing into another
jurisdiction in the pursuit of a suspected criminal.
He said members of his group were aghast that, as an
example, police in Cincinnati, Ohio told them they
could not pursue a suspected criminal fleeing across
the bridge spanning the Ohio River into Kentucky. He
said they asked the policeman, incredulously, what he
would do in that case, to which he replied that he
would stop his vehicle, and then alert police in
Kentucky to pursue the suspect on their side of the
state line.


5. The group was also given a tour of a Department of
Homeland Security research center, near Cincinnati,
that is being used as a model to determine whether a
city's water supply has been poisoned. Mr. Sadongo
said he learned how U.S. authorities are using the
simplest means, examining plant and fish life, as
well as the most scientific means, such as
redesigning PVC pipes, to help determine whether
urban water supplies are contaminated.


6. Mr. Sadongo said all members of his group,
including a Canadian participant, were dumbstruck by
the sophisticated use of high technology in fighting
crime in the United States.







He said the Strategic Operational Center in Hamilton
County, once fully operational, will be amazing
because the Center will receive all crime calls in
its area, and each police commander will be able to
follow the progress of the cases through their own
touch-screen computers. He said he was highly
impressed to see policemen receive a call from their
dispatcher and it automatically appeared as a text
message on a computer screen in their police car. He
said the group was also bowled over by the fully
automated court system in Tucson, where all parties
concerned have a computer screen in front of them
and, as evidence is shown to the court, it appears on
each screen.


7. He said an emotional moment came when members of
the group were able to stand at the exact spot at the
Lincoln Memorial where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
delivered his "I have a dream" speech. He expressed
his gratitude to post and to the ECA staff and its
partners for including him on the MRP, which
represented his first trip to the United States.

YATES