Florida

Detectives caught falsifying crime stats

Jorge Fuentes, who is doing time in federal prison for drugs, was astounded to find out that detectives at the Broward County Sheriff’s Department had pinned a series of burglaries on him.

Fuentes, according to what the detectives wrote in their crime reports, “spoke freely without prompting” about the break-ins.

But Fuentes says he never committed any of those crimes, and never even spoke with the detectives.

“Basically, it seems like they were just clearing their caseloads,” Fuentes, 33, told state prosecutors investigating what has turned out to be widespread falsification of crime statistics in Broward County.

Investigators have discovered that detectives buffed up the department’s crime-fighting stats by falsely classifying scores of cases as solved. In many instances, detectives pinned crimes on Fuentes and dozens of other scapegoats, some of whom were already behind bars.

St. Louis

Police accuse teen of making 911 calls

A teenager has been accused of using a stolen cell phone to swamp dispatchers with hundreds of bogus 911 calls over a matter of weeks, at times talking of killing some of the responding officers he could see.

The 15-year-old boy sometimes was such a nuisance he called in new emergencies at the same address where officers already were standing, St. Louis County police spokesman Mason Keller said Wednesday.

Such was the case Sunday, when the young suspect was tracked down only after dispatchers fielded 25 bogus calls within 75 minutes to the same area where the officer already had arrived, Keller said.

The boy has been referred to Family Court, where he was charged with two counts of harassment and one count of making a false police report, court spokesman Kim Moeckel said. The charges are misdemeanors.

North Korea

Kim Jong Il turns 63

North Korea marked the birthday of leader Kim Jong Il amid heightened nuclear tensions on Wednesday, comparing Kim to a daring porcupine routing an arrogant United States that swaggers like a tiger.

North Korea flouted the international community last Thursday by announcing it had nuclear weapons and was staying away from international nuclear talks where the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea have urged it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

The announcement was a key theme in North Korea’s celebration of Kim’s birthday this year, with its state-controlled media claiming that last week’s “bombshell” declaration demonstrated Kim’s “incomparable courage.” Kim turned 63 Wednesday.

“The Americans swagger like a tiger around the world, but they whimper before our Republic as the tiger does before the porcupine,” Pyongyang Radio said. “That’s because we have our great leader Kim Jong Il, who is undefeatable.”

Ukraine

PM: Government will contest privatizations

Ukraine’s prime minister said Wednesday that authorities were investigating the sale of 3,000 formerly state-owned companies, marking a sweeping effort to learn whether the firms were sold off at unfairly low prices to people connected with the former government.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has said many of Ukraine’s privatizations took place under murky circumstances with companies sold at unexpectedly low prices, sometimes to people with close ties to then President Leonid Kuchma, whose government was accused of widespread corruption.

“We will return to the state what was turned over to private but dishonest hands,” Tymoshenko said after a Cabinet meeting, according to a statement made available to The Associated Press. “The rights of honest business will be effectively protected.”