Detained

The sharp cracks echoing from the East Bakersfield street were loud enough to jolt Ruben Ceballos from a midnight slumber. Then he heard screams. The 19-year-old jumped from his living room sofa and hurried to the kitchen door, which offered a view of the violent scene outside - Kern County sheriff's deputies repeatedly striking a man in the head with batons as he lay on the pavement. "I saw two sheriff's deputies on top of this guy, just beating him," Ceballos said in an interview Monday.

The federal government has the authority to detain and deport immigrants who violate the law. But it also has the responsibility to ensure that those it holds while they fight their deportation cases aren't locked up for months, or years, without an opportunity to appear before an immigration judge who can determine whether their prolonged detention is warranted. This week the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the Obama administration's obligation to provide such hearings to immigrants detained for more than six months, at least in Southern California.

The Cuban government has arrested a U.S. contractor working for the United States Agency for International Development who was distributing cellphones and laptop computers to Cuban activists, State Department officials and congressional sources said Saturday. The contractor, who has not been identified because of federal privacy rules, works for Development Alternatives Inc., based in Bethesda, Md. Jim Boomgard, company president and chief executive, said in a statement that his firm was awarded a government contract last year to help USAID "strengthen civil society in support of just and democratic governance in Cuba."

Israeli police detained five women for wearing prayer shawls at the Western Wall on Thursday, days after a new proposal emerged to set aside part of the holy site for men and women to pray together. Female worshippers at the sacred site are barred from performing religious rituals that Orthodox Jewish religious authorities say are solely for men. Women have repeatedly been detained for violating those rules, a continuing clash between the Orthodox rabbis who steer Israeli religious institutions and more liberal strains of Judaism in which women can use prayer shawls and lead congregations as rabbis.

"Not Having a Nice Day" (photos, July 29) shows LAPD officers with drawn guns prepared to board a bus in search of two riders who reportedly had threatened to harm the driver. The officers detained all of the passengers with their hands over their head as if they were all criminals. Clearly, these photos illustrate the need for LAPD reforms. The indiscriminate detention of these bus-riding citizens regardless of constitutional rights must not be allowed. Bring in the feds. Pleeease!

On the eve of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the United Nations, the families of three young UC Berkeley graduates detained in that country while hiking pleaded for their release. "This is not a political situation at all, it's totally humanitarian," Patrick Sandys, cousin of detainee Sarah Shourd, said Tuesday. "We don't want it to get mired in the already difficult political situation between the U.S. and Iran. We just want our family members home." Shourd, 31; Shane Bauer, 27; and Joshua Fattal, 27, have been in Iranian custody since they allegedly crossed into the country July 31 while hiking through a mountainous area of Iraq's northern Kurdistan region.

Mexico City police said they have detained five suspects in the kidnapping and killing of a 14-year-old boy, a crime that prompted protests across the nation. Officials said kidnappers dressed as police and set up a fake checkpoint on a busy street to snare victim Fernando Marti, revealing the complexity and sophistication of Mexico's organized crime gangs. City prosecutor Miguel Mancera said the suspected ringleader, Sergio Ortiz, posed as a well-heeled society type to move among the wealthy and collect information on potential victims.

Six days ago, a Pakistani journalist on the run from Taliban militants landed in the United States holding a valuable key to sanctuary: a visa granting him the right to work for the Voice of America radio service for one year. But today Rahman Bunairee is in an immigration lockup in Virginia after being detained upon his arrival at Dulles International Airport. "We are concerned and upset" about the detention, said Joan Mower, a spokeswoman for the VOA, which is funded by the U.S. government.

Iran detained 10 spies carrying $500,000 in cash who had entered the Islamic Republic illegally from neighboring Pakistan, state television said. Modern espionage cameras and maps of sensitive regions in Iran were found when the group was detained in Iran's southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, the report said.

A Woodrow Wilson High School student was stabbed multiple times on campus, and a classmate was detained for questioning, Los Angeles police said Tuesday. The attack about 1:30 p.m. prompted school officials to lock down the campus for more than an hour as police searched for the assailant. Police said the assailant came up from behind the victim, 17, while he was eating lunch and stabbed him in the face with a screwdriver. Police said the attack may have stemmed from a gang rivalry.

KABUL, Afghanistan - An American contractor was detained illegally for 24 hours in an Afghan prison, beaten, denied more than basic medical help and told he wouldn't be released unless his company paid $2.4 million, according to three U.S. congressmen and his employer. Contractor David Gordon was released Friday afternoon after the congressmen wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry and after the company's attorney in Afghanistan appealed to U.S.-led coalition forces.

Re "Who belongs in detention?," Editorial, March 24 The editorial asserts, "No one disputes that immigrants who commit violent crimes should be detained. " In fact, growing numbers of advocates do dispute this. When citizens are convicted of crimes, they serve their sentences and rejoin society. When immigrants - even legal permanent residents - commit crimes, they serve their sentences and are often then subjected to the double punishment of deportation and detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In recent weeks, Republican lawmakers have slammed the Department of Homeland Security for releasing 2,228 immigrants from detention centers around the country, questioning, among other things, whether murderers, rapists and drug traffickers were among those set free. But while it is unclear whether Homeland Security's decision to release the detainees was prompted by the austerity requirements of sequestration or by political theatrics, what is certain is that those who were released didn't pose an egregious threat to public safety.

MOSCOW -- Police detained and questioned a suspect Tuesday in the acid attack that almost blinded Sergei Filin, the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, casting a shadow on Moscow's recently renovated iconic theater and exposing longtime bitter infighting among its dancers. The suspect, whose house was searched, is believed to be one of two or more people who carried out the attack, police said. The unidentified man had no direct connection to the Bolshoi but was involved in the attack on Filin, said Russian tabloid news site Life News, citing an unnamed police source.

MOSCOW - Police detained and questioned three people, including a principal Bolshoi Ballet dancer, as suspects in the acid attack that almost blinded Sergei Filin, the Bolshoi's artistic director, a crime that cast a shadow on Moscow's iconic company and exposed bitter infighting among its dancers. Principal dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko, detained Tuesday, was reportedly suspected of masterminding the attack. Police also brought in Yuri Zarutski, 35, believed to be Filin's assailant, as well as Andrei Lipatov, a man suspected of driving Zarutski to and from the attack, according to a statement on the Interior Ministry website.

WASHINGTON -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have released “several hundred” immigrants from deportation centers across the country, saying the move is an effort to cut costs ahead of budget cuts due to hit later this week.  Announcing the news Tuesday, ICE officials said that the immigrants were released under supervision and continue to face deportation. After reviewing hundreds of cases, those released were considered low-risk and “noncriminal,” officials said.

Security police detained about 120 people as they left a Protestant church after protesting the results of East Germany's local elections, church officials said Thursday. Uniformed and plainclothes officers dragged the civil rights activists to three waiting buses and drove them away Wednesday night, the church aides and witnesses said. Police told church leaders those detained will be freed once their names have been taken but it was not immediately clear whether this had happened.

A lawyer for an Iranian activist says police detained the woman while she was campaigning for equal rights for women in marriage, divorce and inheritance. The lawyer says Nafiseh Azad was detained Friday while collecting signatures. Attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh said collecting signatures is not illegal. Over the last three years, however, Iran has detained many women seeking equal rights.

TUCSON -- Local law enforcement officials detained more than 800 U.S. citizens at the request of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement over a four-year period, according to an analysis of ICE statistics released by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse on Wednesday. These Americans were inadvertently caught up among the nearly 1 million requests for immigration holds that ICE issued from fiscal year 2008 to 2012. An immigration hold or detainer is a notice that federal agents give to local authorities to hold a person for up to 48 hours.

What was supposed to be a brief guest-conducting job with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv has turned into a media frenzy for Gustavo Dudamel, the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Dudamel traveled to Israel in late January to conduct a concert series of music by Mozart and Haydn with the country's top orchestra. Upon his arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, the Venezuelan conductor was detained by security officials and was subjected to lengthy questioning, according to his American spokeswoman.