Criminals

On July 15, 1984, athlete Kari Swenson was kidnaped while running on a mountain trail near this resort town about 20 miles north of Yellowstone National Park. Her abductors--who the next morning shot Kari through the chest and killed one of her rescuers--were self-proclaimed mountain men Don Nichols, 53, and his 18-year-old son, Dan. They had long shunned society, hiding out in the mountains and surviving on squirrel meat, poached livestock and caches of red beans.

Would "Safe"be as brutally fun as it is without Jason Statham's gravel-voiced comic timing and explosive physicality? Writer-director Boaz Yakin's urban shoot-em-up isn't exactly the most cohesive narrative, throwing together the Russian mob, the Triads, dirty cops (led by Robert John Burke) and a corrupt mayor (Chris Sarandon) into a New York turf war over a bunch of coded numbers that lead to … who cares, really? It's the pairing of Statham's disgraced cage fighter and ex-cop - pushed to the brink of suicide by gangsters who killed his wife - with an endangered 12-year-old Chinese math whiz (Catherine Chan)

Stevan Dozier was 25 when he punched a woman in the face to snatch her purse, another episode in the cash-for-crack crime wave that plagued America's big cities during the 1980s. Over the next eight years, he would be arrested three more times for the same thing. But just before his last conviction, Washington in 1993 became the first state to pass a law requiring criminals with three serious felony convictions to spend the rest of their lives in prison. California followed suit the next year, and 24 other states now have similar laws.

The plural in"Headhunters"is not accidental. Though it starts with one man and his conventional-seeming job as a corporate headhunter, before this twisty Norwegian thriller is over two individuals are involved in nonstop pursuit of each other for the highest possible stakes. Like life and death. Taken from the fiendishly plotted novel by Jo Nesbo, one of Scandinavia's top mystery writers, "Headhunters" is a dark adult entertainment, a wild and bloody adrenaline rush of a movie that deals in gleeful grotesqueness and over-the-top implausibilities.

With banks saying, "Give them the money," and the police saying, "Give them the car," does that mean the criminals have won? PETER W. VASILION Palos Verdes Estates

Fortified by muffins and coffee, the detectives gathered under the chandeliers in the hotel's Grand Ballroom. San Francisco Police Inspector Greg Ovanessian prepared to start his presentation. "Before I begin," he said. "Not all Gypsies or Rom are criminals." "Bull...!" yelled someone in the back. After the laughs died down, Ovanessian, a bespectacled, soft-spoken investigator, continued.

California reached a milestone late last month when federal immigration officials quietly announced that all 58 counties in the state are now participating in Secure Communities, a controversial program created to track and deport dangerous criminals. Unveiled in late 2008, Secure Communities is billed as a showpiece of immigration enforcement. Under the Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, state and local police must check the immigration status of people who have been arrested and booked into local jails by matching fingerprints against federal databases for criminal convictions and deportation orders.

Emil Matasareanu, the bank robber shot by police in a wild gun battle in North Hollywood and given no medical care, was hit 29 times and bled to death from two bullet wounds to his thigh, the Los Angeles County coroner's office revealed Thursday. His partner, Larry Eugene Phillips Jr.

Kent Walker says he has a recurring and vivid nightmare: I go into the courtroom and I walk up to the witness stand. There are cameras all over the place. My brother Kenny is staring at me like he hates me. My mom has got her back turned to me. She's heaving. I can't tell whether she's laughing or crying. I start talking, but I don't even know what I'm talking about. Everyone is looking at me. They're saying, 'What are you doing, trying to defend your brother?' Then my mom turns around.

Regarding the recent spate of police brutality in San Bernardino and Westminster: I am truly amazed at the outrage and surprise expressed by many community leaders and citizens pertaining to these events. The typically brutal behavior of police is no surprise to me. A respected study originating in Minnesota determined that the behavioral patterns of police and the criminals they are supposed to catch are nearly identical. Intrusion by Orwellicopter, by semi-legal search warrant or by burglary tool are all the same in the end. They expose the same primal bent for domination and brutality by cop and crook alike.

HOUSTON - A former BP engineer appeared in federal court Tuesday chained at the wrist and ankles to face criminal charges that he intentionally deleted hundreds of text messages about the amount of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from the company's blown-out well in 2010. Kurt Mix, 50, of Katy, Texas, was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice and released on a $100,000 bond. U.S. Magistrate Stephen Smith asked Mix whether he understood the charges against him and the possible penalties if convicted - a 20-year sentence and $250,000 fine on each count.

A two-year corruption investigation in Oxnard uncovered "a clear pattern of fiscal waste by a small number of city officials" but produced no criminal charges, the Ventura County district attorney's office said Wednesday. The probe began in July 2010 when local investigators and FBI agents raided city offices, and later searched the homes of numerous officials. It yielded more than 100,000 pages of evidence, according to a lengthy report issued by prosecutors. Investigators found city officials had failed to disclose gifts from contractors, tried to delay the D.A.'s investigation, used public funds for expensive meals and submitted skimpy, often unsigned financial records that made it impossible to prosecute possible violations.

The paratroopers had their assignment: Check out reports that Afghan police had recovered the mangled remains of an insurgent suicide bomber. Try to get iris scans and fingerprints for identification. The 82nd Airborne Division soldiers arrived at the police station in Afghanistan's Zabol province in February 2010. They inspected the body parts. Then the mission turned macabre: The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held - and others squatted beside - the corpse's severed legs.

A private company has agreed to pay millions to install technology in California prisons to block Web searches, text messages and phone calls by inmates using smuggled phones. The deal won't cost taxpayers a dime, state officials insist, because the company, Global Tel Link, also owns the traditional pay phones prisoners can legally use. Company officials are betting that once the contraband cell devices are disabled, demand for pay phones will skyrocket. Like other states, California is battling a plague of phones smuggled to inmates.

Criminal background checks conducted on prospective employees routinely contain errors, mismatch people or misclassify criminal offenses, according to a report by the National Consumer Law Center. The report, released Wednesday, said that since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, employers increasingly have conducted background checks on prospective hires. That has created a booming industry of Internet companies that cull public information databases for employers. But the information produced by some of those firms is often riddled with errors.

The largest wireless carriers are banding together with regulators and law enforcment officials to launch an effort to make stolen cellphones and other mobile devices as useless as an empty wallet. The goal is to cut down on increasing thefts of smartphones by making them less appealing to criminals. AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA and Sprint Nextel Corp. said Tuesday they will create a central database to track stolen devices and prevent them from being reactivated.

WASHINGTON - The nation's largest wireless carriers are banding together with regulators and law enforcement officials to launch an effort to make stolen cellphones and other mobile devices as useless as an empty wallet. The goal is to cut down on increasing thefts of smartphones by making them less appealing to criminals. AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless,T-Mobile USA andSprint Nextel Corp. said Tuesday they will create a central database to track stolen devices and prevent them from being reactivated.