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2 FBI agents killed, 3 wounded while serving warrant.
Gunman, now dead, shot them through door.
BY DAVID J. NEAL, CHARLES RABIN, JAY WEAVER, AND DAVID OVALLE
FEBRUARY 02, 2021 08:05 AM, UPDATED FEBRUARY 03, 2021 05:58 PM
In the bloodiest day for the FBI in decades, two veteran agents were shot to death and three others wounded Tuesday morning when a gunman opened fire from inside his home as they attempted to serve a search warrant at an apartment in Sunrise as part of a child-pornography probe.
The gunman, not yet identified by the FBI, is believed to have monitored the approach of the agents with a doorbell camera and ambushed them through the unopened door with a hail of bullets from an assault-style rifle, law enforcement sources told the Miami Herald.
“There are several huge holes in the door going outward,” one law enforcement official said.
The murders of agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger left the FBI reeling, as investigators began piecing together what went wrong in the type of raid that usually unfolds with little attention but is also fraught with danger for law enforcement. Such raids are commonly conducted in conjunction with heavily armed tactical officers, although Tuesday’s operation was not.
FBI Special Agent in Charge George Piro, in a statement read Tuesday evening at the FBI’s Miramar field office, did not address why the FBI’s tactical unit was not initially called in to assist before the raid.
“FBI Miami conducts search warrants almost daily,” Piro said. “They are an essential and important part of what we do and we thoroughly research and meticulously plan for any threats or dangers. The vast majority of these warrants occur without incident.”
An FBI agent is consoled near the Broward County Office of Medical Examiner and Trauma Services in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Tuesday, February 2, 2021. Two FBI agents were shot and killed and others injured while serving a warrant at a Sunrise home near Nob Hill Road and Northwest 44th Street. MATIAS J. OCNER MOCNER@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Piro also said the gunman, believed to have taken his own life after barricading himself in the first-floor apartment, would not be identified publicly until his family is notified of his death.
Gunfire exploded just before 6 a.m. on Tuesday at the Water Terrace apartment complex in Sunrise in a neighborhood about five miles northeast of the Sawgrass Mills mall.
The FBI had not provided details of the case against the gunman, other than to say he was suspected of possessing illegal graphic images of children. The case was being investigated by the FBI’s Internet Crimes against Children task force, and supervised by prosecutors based in Fort Lauderdale.
Delay in NY Implementing Erin's Law Cost Many Children a Great Deal
It took several frustrating years for NY legislators to pass the Child Victim's Act. They repeated their lethargy with Erin's Law, taking 7 years of lobbying for Erin Merryn to get the law through Albany.
In the first year of being in effect, a long-term Elementary School principal was outed as having molested several children. This will be the first of many, and many could have been prevented had NY Legislature not dragged their heels for 7 years.
Thank you, Erin, for your dogged determination to get this done and for getting it done in 3 dozen other states. God bless you.
Erin's Law (Erin Merryn)
Facebook
16 April 2021
Northwood Elementary School principal Kirk Ashton
Wednesday night a New York principal was arrested and charged with sexually abusing 9 children in his school. The children came forward after being taught Erin’s Law by the local Children Advocacy Center as stated in the news article below. He has been principal since 2004. I would not be surprised at all if the number of victims grows since he has been the principal for 17 years.
I spent 7 years fighting to pass Erin’s Law in New York. A law that kept dying year after year but I kept coming back telling legislators they can’t get rid of me until they pass it.
They finally listened to me and in 2019 passed Erin’s Law. Making it the 37th state. Due to Cuomo delaying signing it, the schools were not required to start teaching it until this year. Here we are the first year requiring it and this major story shows the law works and it needs to be taught. It is time for me to send this article to every NY state legislator just like I told them I would.
Green Bay teacher resigns as investigation into
child sexual abuse claims continue
Doug Schneider
Green Bay Press-Gazette
GREEN BAY - A teacher charged with sexual abuse of students is no longer employed by the Green Bay Area Public Schools, but the police investigation into David S. Villareal continues.
Villareal, 46, of Sheboygan, has resigned his job as a second-grade teacher at Baird Elementary School, Superintendent Steve Murley confirmed. The district placed Villereal on administrative leave when he was arrested April 14 and charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child under 13.
He also is charged with one count of repeated acts of sexual assault of a child. The offenses are all felonies.
Green Bay Police Cmdr. Paul Ebel, who heads the investigations division, said detectives continue to follow up on tips related to Villareal, while social workers conduct forensic interviews with children if they suspect a child might have been abused.
As of Monday afternoon, however, police have not recommended any further charges to the three already filed. Authorities said those offenses occurred between September 2015 and January 2017.
Villareal taught second grade at Baird Elementary School on the city's east side.
He remains in the Brown County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail. He is due in Brown County Circuit Court on May 27 for an arraignment before Judge Donald Zuidmulder.
City police began investigating March 22 after a former Baird student said Villareal would touch or slap her backside every day when she was in his class during the 2015-16 school year, the complaint states.
Villareal is also charged with sexually assaulting a student in the fall of 2016, an incident that was reported to school authorities in January 2017.
District officials reported the allegation against Villareal to Child Protective Services, district spokeswoman Lori Blakeslee said in an email to reporters in April. She said CPS would have made the decision whether to forward the complaint to city police.
A Child Protective Services report filed on Jan. 4, 2017, said police were not notified, the complaint states.
School administrators on Thursday said they won’t provide more information beyond an acknowledgement that they are aware of Villareal's arrest and that he had been placed on leave. Anyone with information about the allegations is asked to call Green Bay Police.
Villareal has been licensed as a teacher in Wisconsin since 2000, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.
Before working in Green Bay, he told police, he worked for the Madison school district between 2000 and 2006.
Sexual assault, the hidden pandemic: Protecting the children
Jonna Carter
May 11, 2021
CONWAY — "For every child we see, we know there are nine more."
So says Elizabeth Kelley-Scott, executive director of the Child Advocacy Center of Carroll County. In 2020, the CACCC received and examined 120 reports of child abuse, 92 of these sexual abuse, as documented in its operational report.
The agency's main office is in Wolfeboro, with a satellite office in Conway to serve the Mount Washington Valley, because the majority of child abuse cases in the county are referred by the Conway Police Department. Of the 120 child abuse reports in 2020, 58 were from valley law enforcement, and 43 of these from Conway.
CACCC is an independent non-profit working with 17 county law enforcement agencies, as well as the state police, the FBI and Homeland Security in internet cases.
According to Kelley-Scott, the child advocacy center assembles the multi-disciplinary Carroll County Child Protection Team and assists families as they navigate the law enforcement, medical, mental health, child social services and justice system components.
Nationwide, there are more than 525 child advocacy centers, and CACCC literature states the National Children's Alliance was founded "to meet demands for access to the CAC model." Pursuant to a statewide initiative organized by the N.H. Attorney General's Office in 2003, every New Hampshire county now has a child advocacy center.
Kelley-Scott says one of the primary functions of child advocacy centers is "to protect children from further trauma from repeated interviews. We have on staff two dedicated forensic interviewers specially trained to work with children while the multidisciplinary team observes from another room."
They even have New Hampshire's first trained child advocacy center dog available to provide comfort during and after interviews.
The response to child sexual assault has come a long way, but for many, the changes have been slow.
Ellin Leonard of Conway believes that if people and communities don't get beyond their discomfort, the problem will continue. "The only way to change anything is to confront it, and nothing will change until social behavior changes. We have to get over our embarrassment and deal with it."
Leonard was outraged to read recently that a local 15-year-old was sexually assaulted, and she speaks of 1959, when she was 15 in Alton. "I didn't tell because I knew I wouldn't be believed."
She said she was assaulted in a convenience store by the owner, who was the father of a classmate. He grabbed her by the crotch. "It was like an electric shock. I got out of there as fast as I could." She confided in friends who already knew not to go into the store alone.
It wasn't until another girl was assaulted that law enforcement became involved. Leonard went to the girl's house to find police questioning her. "She was surrounded by middle-aged men interrogating her. I could tell they didn't believe her. It took all the courage I had to speak up. I said, 'He did it to me, too.'" Leonard gave police the names of other girls. Nothing, she said, was done.
Kelley-Scott estimates that of the children serviced by CACCC, 30 percent are boys. "It is harder for boys to disclose due to societal reasons," she said.
Sexual violence expert Scott Hampton of Dover concurs, saying, "Boys worry about being labeled as not normal somehow, or gay. We see the devastating impacts as these boys start to falter and fail."
Often it's institutional sexual abuse divulged years after the fact that creates awareness of the prevalence of sexual assault on boys. Perhaps the most highly publicized of these involved the Catholic church, beginning in 2002 with lawsuits brought against the Archdiocese of Boston.
That year, the N.H. Attorney General launched an investigation into claims within the Diocese of Manchester. The report concluded the diocese was aware of multiple allegations, and rather than being removed, the offenders were transferred to different parishes.
Leading the diocese was Bishop John McCormack, who in the 1960s was assigned to St. James Parish in Salem, Mass. He lived in the rectory with Joseph Birmingham, the second priest in the Boston Archdiocese to be accused. Birmingham allegedly abused nearly 100 boys as he was shuffled among six parishes.
One of Birmingham's victims, Bernie McDaid of Lynn, Mass., says of McCormack: "He had to have known. There's no way he didn't." McDaid recounts that Birmingham would select a victim, get him ice cream and take him back to his room.
"There was a constant parade of boys led by Birmingham walking past McCormack's open door," he said.
Birmingham often had boys in his car, and on several occasions McDaid recalls McCormack coming over to the car and chatting. McDaid said in 1970 McCormack was told by a parent that Birmingham had abused both his son and McDaid.
By 2002, Birmingham was long dead, and McCormack was leading the Manchester Diocese. McDaid said, "I held him accountable. This man didn't deserve to be bishop."
Church documents reveal that McCormack had a long history of covering up abuse allegations and relocating pedophile priests. In May of 2002, the Manchester Union Leader published a front-page editorial calling for his resignation. He refused.
In 2019, the Diocese of Manchester published a list of 73 priests accused of child sexual abuse between 1950 and 2002, nine of whom served at Our Lady of the Mountains in North Conway.
According to Hampton: "Pedophiles have deviant arousal patterns that are very controlled. They invest considerable time in grooming and planning."
He says it's not that priests have a predilection for pedophilia.
Most likely, they have a predilection for gay sex, and then sin becomes progressive. Also, choir boys are such an easy target.
"Sex offenders seek positions of authority — coaching, teaching, the priesthood — professions that put them in a position of power with access to the vulnerable."
In his efforts to raise awareness McDaid became a prominent crusader for victims of pedophiles. He offers, "It's the guilt and shame that kill. It needs to be talked about. The trauma lives in the body. There's a real freedom in coming forward."
Arthur sex offender won't get out of prison until he's almost 80
TONY REID
ARTHUR, Ill — Convicted Arthur child sex offender Christopher J. Landess will be close to 80 years old before he’s eligible for release from prison after receiving two consecutive sentences.
Richey ordered that sentence to be served after a 30-year sentence Landess had been given April 28 in Champaign County Circuit Court following his conviction there for the predatory criminal sexual assault of a child.
“With the combined sentences, Landess will be just short of 80 years old before he would be eligible for release from IDOC custody,” said Moultrie County State’s Attorney Tracy Weaver.
Weaver, in a statement, said Landess had been caught and charged after he “initiated sexual contact with two minor females at a location in Arthur.” One child had then come forward to report an April 2020 incident to police and a second child had contacted law enforcement and described “additional and separate occurrences initiated by Landess in Arthur and Champaign.”
A warrant had been issued for his arrest in May of 2020 and police investigations revealed he had fled to Montana where he was tracked down and arrested May 27.
If he does live long enough to be released from prison, Landess is further ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Former Lee Co. Fla teacher sentenced to 7 years in prison for child porn
by Sarah Glenn
6:03 PM EDT, Tue May 11, 2021
FORT MYERS, Fla.– A former Lee County teacher was sentenced to 7 years in prison for possessing images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children on Monday.
Christopher Duluk is a former Dunbar High School teacher. He was arrested in March 2020 for possession of child abuse material.
Law enforcement previously arrested Duluk for ramming his girlfriend with a car as well as impersonating a deputy while driving a Bentley.
According to a statement by the Department of Justice, the 32-year-old was sentenced to 7 years in federal prison followed by 15 years of probation. Duluk will be required to register as a sex offender.
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