Merry Christmas!

Judy and I wish all of our readers a very Merry Christmas!  Enjoy the day with friends and family and stay safe and warm (warmth is something hard to find in the US today!).

Refugees being beaten by blacks in Denver, get cellphones for security

Here it is Christmas Eve and every bit of news I’m seeing is troubling.  This story, hat tip Mars, is headlined ‘Denver cops give 911-only cellphones to refugees worried about recent attacks.’  What do you think the chances are that hate crime charges will be brought against the thugs?  And, where is the ‘diversity is beautiful’ in this story?

If they kill me and my son, who will take care of my wife?  Not the refugee agency that is for sure!

From the Denver Post:

Recent beatings of South Asian refugees have prompted Denver police to hand out cellphones to newcomers from abroad.

The hope is that the emergency-only phones, which require no payments, will help refugees reach paramedics and police to prevent future trouble, said Scott Snow, director of the Denver police Victim Assistance Unit.

“It gives a sense of security,” Snow said.

A dozen refugee victims of recent attacks now carry police-issued phones. Police are talking with a potential corporate partner to supply 50 phones, he said. Ultimately, police aim to give phones to all refugees, along with orientation information and safety tips.

On Dec. 11, a group of men beat and robbed teenage refugees from Bhutan in east Denver, following them from an RTD bus, according to police.

Six were beaten, one requiring emergency-room treatment. The attack spread fear among refugees from Bhutan, Burma and elsewhere — who are concentrated in low-rent apartments and have been victims of previous robberies.

“If they kill me and my son, what will my daughter and wife do?” said Dambar Bhujel, father of an 18-year-old victim, who is now wary of letting his son go to school.

“At first, I was happy to come to the United States. After one year, I’m feeling very bad and I don’t want to stay longer. But we can’t go back to Bhutan and we can’t go back to Nepal,” Bhujel said. “They told us America was secure.”

[.....]

…when police arrived, about 50 refugees approached. Many spoke little English. “Several members of the group had been assaulted by a large group of black males,” the report said.  [Were they Somali or American blacks? That is what I would like to know.]

No arrests have been made. “It’s possible it is bias-motivated,” police spokesman Lt. Ron Saunier said. Detectives “are still looking at that aspect of it.”

Who told the refugees America was safe and who put them in squalid neighborhoods?  Bingo!  You guessed it—-their federal refugee resettlement contractors, that is who!  

These efforts are appreciated, said Paul Stein, director of refugee services in the Colorado Department of Human Services. Federal funding for refugee resettlement is insufficient for safer apartments, Stein said.

It’s always about the money!  Not enough taxpayer money!  Mr. Stein, how about raising adequate private funds so that refugees like the Bhutanese (ethnic Nepalese) and Burmese aren’t living in slums.  If you can’t raise the money, don’t bring the refugees!  New readers should know that the resettlement of refugees is supposed to be a public-private partnership, but is increasingly the responsibility of the taxpayer.

Readers, I told you previously that someone I know had the occasion to be in one of the Denver slum apartments of a Bhutanese refugee woman.  She and her daughter were living miserably and scared to go outside.  Some life!   I think refugee agencies, not taking proper care of refugees, should be required to offer them airfare home.

Meanwhile over on the East Coast, Bhutanese refugees were seriously injured this week in an apartment fire in North Carolina, here.  Was it a slum too?

Oh, and lest we forget, a promising young Bhutanese man was murdered at point blank range by a black thug in Florida last July here.

Ft Wayne, IN: World Relief keeping it in the family?

Here is a story from back in May which I missed at the time from Ft. Wayne, Indiana, home to more than 5000 Burmese refugees that is your usual puff-piece about how refugees are doing great in America.  An engaged couple (he is Burmese and I assume she is Thai) were lucky to get to the top of the list of hundreds of lower-income applicants  in the Ft. Wayne area to get a house built for them.  I wondered right off, why a house didn’t go first to a whole family, but there is more to wonder about.

Here is the basic story to help make you feel warm all over:

The yard is mostly still piles of dirt and gravel, but the house is finished. Cheery flowers are planted in front, and a few items, including a Mac computer, sit on the front porch, ready to be moved in.

After being built by Habitat for Humanity volunteers, the house at 523 Douglas Ave. now officially belongs to Tha Wai, a native of Myanmar, formerly Burma, and his fiancée, Thailand native Mai Shwe.

At a dedication ceremony Saturday, the couple [when is the wedding?] moved into their new home.

The house is the 126th home Habitat for Humanity has built in Fort Wayne. It was funded mostly by proceeds from the organization’s aluminum can-recycling program.

[.....]

Pastor Jeff Keplar gave the house blessing. He and his wife, Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Carol Keplar, were Tha Wai’s family advocates. Advocates support families and help them acclimate to owning a home.

Besides being the husband of Carol Keplar, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity, who is Jeff Keplar?

The article about the Habitat house fails to tell readers that besides being a pastor, Keplar (we assume there aren’t two Jeff Keplars!) heads up the relatively new World Relief refugee resettlement office in Ft. Wayne.  That is the office that I said was in a ‘cat fight’ with Catholic Charities way back in June 2008,  here and again here in December.  I pointed out that there were so many refugees coming to Ft. Wayne that agencies were fighting over the lucrative turf.

From Everyday Christian about Keplar’s new office:

FORT WAYNE, IND.—Jeff Keplar has lived in the Fort Wayne, Indiana, area for 30 years. As a former instructor at the Christian-based Taylor University and a well-connected [his wife is too] member of the local church community, Keplar knows the northeast Indiana city as well as anybody.

That knowledge is an asset which also gives him pause as the new director of World Relief’s office in the city.

Go read the article, you will love the discussion about how having lots of people on unemployment is good for refugee resettlement because those people are looking for useful things to do instead of sitting around home!

“Because I know the churches and know the network of people here, I anticipate we’ll be able to mobilize quickly,” Keplar said. “We already have five refugees and 30 to 35 more in the pipeline awaiting travel arrangements. We’re going to have some substantial needs pretty quick.”

That was in April when 30-35 were in the pipeline.   Funny that World Relief , three months earlier in January, told the News-Sentinel this:

At the outset, World Relief is going to work with refugees already here. Whether the agency will sponsor more refugees to the area – and how many – is undetermined.

Were they afraid there would be a public outcry over more refugees arriving in an overloaded city with a second resettlement office now in town?

Well, I guess they made the determination to bring more refugees pretty quickly and just think, lucky, well-connected refugees, may get a house too!

Does anyone know if one or the other of the fortunate couple happen to work for World Relief ? Surely not, that would be way too obviously ‘keeping it in the family!’

New readers:  Use our search function for Ft. Wayne.  We started following the problems there way back in 2007.  Most recently we posted this controversial comment.

Somalis ripping-off welfare and health care in Maine; so what else is new!

Thanks to Susan yesterday, here is the latest from Maine and lucky Lewiston.   From the Sun Journal, a paper that has been doing some good reporting (see this story last week) on the subject of Somalis and crime:

LEWISTON — An Auburn man and a Portland woman were indicted on 23 combined federal counts in an alleged attempt to defraud the government of thousands of dollars from state and federal programs in a case that likely is linked to a federal raid of a Lewiston office building in June.

According to the indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, Yusuf Guled, 74, of Auburn arranged to have Dahabo Abdulle Osman, 58, of Portland serve as his personal care assistant to provide services for him at his home.

The indictment says Osman was paid based on false and fictitious time sheets that totaled more than $61,000.

Guled allegedly made false statements to nurse assessors to qualify for the services Osman was to provide, but which weren’t necessary.

Both defendants were charged with making false statements on their applications or for their continued eligibility to receive federal benefits, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Chapman said Tuesday.

Those benefits included:

• Supplemental Social Security income payments.

• Public housing or Section 8 subsidized housing.

• MaineCare.

• Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.

• Food stamps.

Guled failed to disclose or falsely reported the number of bank accounts he held and the amounts they contained, the indictment says.

Someone has got to find out who is training these Somalis in the art of ripping-off the taxpayers.

Then here the Sun Journal reminds us of the story we posted on the raid of Home Health Care Offices in Lewiston last June and makes a connection to these two.

In early June, federal agents swarmed two floors of a downtown Lewiston office building, apparently seizing documents from two health care related organizations that provide personal home care assistants. The agents worked for the FBI as well as inspector general’s offices at Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Health and Human Services and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agents spent hours packing up boxes of documents, then loaded them into government vehicles and drove off without answering reporters’ questions.

The two agencies that were raided were Global Home Health Care and Decent Home Care Inc. The two Lewiston agencies to which the indictment refers are not named but are identified generically as Agencies 2 and 3.

A similar raid was carried out that day on Allen Avenue in Portland.

In July 2006, Guled arranged for Osman to be hired as his personal care assistant, according to the indictment. From that date until November 2008, Osman was paid by the two Lewiston agencies and the unnamed Portland agency to provide Guled with services. At various times in 2006 and up to around March 2007, Osman lived with Guled in his public housing, the indictment says.

Just a reminder, we wrote about how Maine’s welfare was a big reason that secondary migrants (Somalis who had been resettled elsewhere in the US) were attracted to Maine in the first place, here.

Think about it, if Obama’s expanded health care plan goes through there will be expanded opportunities to rip-off the taxpayer, not just in Maine, but from one end of the country to the other!

More Somali crimes reported on Debbie Schlussel

Thanks to Richard at Blue Ridge Forum for the tip, here is a post at Debbie Schlussel this week that includes some Somali crimes we hadn’t yet  heard of.

Please go read her post. 

Readers should know that in the first two months of this fiscal year, FY 2010, October 1- November 30th, 2009 we resettled 670 new Somali refugees.   See these handy statistics updated monthly, here.

For new readers :

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.  That specific program has not yet been reopened (that we know of), but will be soon.  Nevertheless, thousands of Somali Muslims continue to be resettled as I write this.

Comment worth noting: Burmese in Bowling Green update and questions

Yesterday we had a comment from Cindy (an American friend of the Burmese) writing from Bowling Green, KY.  For new readers you might want to first visit this post that set in motion a controversy last month about the care, or lack of care,  Burmese refugees are receiving from their resettlement agency in an obviously overloaded refugee resettlement community in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

This is what Cindy asks yesterday in response to a post about the Office of Refugee Resettlement Match Grant program, here.

Recently, one refugee family in Bowling Green, KY was placed on Match Grant by the International Center.

They will receive $460.00. $240.00 is cash and the other $220.00 is a Walmart gift card. This is how the International Center will distribute the $$ from the Match Grant monthly. They are receiving Food Stamps. Why would International Center give them a Walmart Gift card in lieu of the $460.00 cash?

They said the International Center has not helped them to locate a job. They have been communicating with other refugees to locate employment.

Lovers Lane Apartments is charging $500.00 per month in their uncleaned roach infested apartments which needs to be turned into the Housing Authority once again.

I wonder how is this refugee family will come up with the $500.00 for rent in January? Will Lovers Lane apartments evict them immediately (from what I am told by other refugees) or will they go through the legal process for eviction by Kentucky law.

Answers anyone?   What’s up with the Walmart cards?  Do Walmart and the International Center have some sort of deal going on?   And, on the rent coming due issue, maybe the refugees could better use their entire ‘cash’ payment for rent?  Any lawyers out there who could help them with making sure Kentucky law is followed regarding evictions?

I know it makes no sense but it’s almost like the US State Department and the US Dept. of Health and Human Services (Office of Refugee Resettlement) and the volags (supposedly voluntary organizations but really federal contractors) want this program to explode because that is where it’s headed!   Eventually even the mainstream media will see behind the presumption of good intentions.

Brits worried about Somali terrorists in their midst

And, boy do they have a large Somali population.  I don’t think it’s as large as ours but for a tiny country the Somalis must make up a higher percentage of the population than they do in America.

From The Times, are the Somalis the enemy within?

In Northolt, two miles away, another Somali immigrant family is struggling to recover after their 21-year-old son quit Oxford Brookes University, went to Somalia and blew himself up at a checkpoint in the town of Baidoa in October 2007, killing 20 soldiers.

It is easy to think of the war in Somalia as being, to quote Neville Chamberlain, a “quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing”. That is a dangerous illusion.

This is a conflict that has driven tens of thousands of Somali refugees to Britain. They are probably the poorest and most disadvantaged ethnic community in the country, a people whose disaffected young are all too easily recruited by gangs or, worse, Islamic extremists.

Government officials say that dozens have already returned to Somalia to join al-Shabaab, the brutal militia with links to al-Qaeda that is fighting the Western-backed Government. They fear that these battle-hardened jihadists will bring their newly acquired skills back to the UK. One senior official told The Times that Somalia had risen sharply up the list of threats to Britain’s security and was probably now second after Pakistan. “It’s something we worry about a lot,” he said.

Lord Malloch-Brown, the former Foreign Office Minister, warned before leaving office in July that “the main terrorist threat comes from Pakistan and Somalia, not Afghanistan”. Radicalised Somali immigrants have already launched botched terrorist attacks in Britain and Australia.

The Government has no reliable statistics on how many Somalis now live in Britain. One official reckoned that there were 150,000 legal immigrants and three times as many illegal ones.

For new readers :

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.  That specific program has not yet been reopened, but will be soon.  Nevertheless, thousands of Somali Muslims continue to be resettled as I write this.

To learn more about our ‘Somali missing youths’ type those key words into our search function—we probably have a hundred posts on the topic.

Remember the Christian Palestinian refugees at Christmas time

Daniel Schwammenthal reports in the Wall Street Journal on The Forgotten Palestinian Refugees:

Meet Yussuf Khoury, a 23-year old Palestinian refugee living in the West Bank. Unlike those descendents of refugees born in United Nations camps, Mr. Khoury fled his birthplace just two years ago. And he wasn’t running away from Israelis, but from his Palestinian brethren in Gaza.

Mr. Khoury’s crime in that Hamas-ruled territory was to be a Christian, a transgression he compounded in the Islamists’ eyes by writing love poems.

“Muslims tied to Hamas tried to take me twice,” says Mr. Khoury, and he didn’t want to find out what they’d do to him if they ever kidnapped him. He hasn’t seen his family since Christmas 2007 and is afraid even to talk to them on the phone.

Speaking to a group of foreign journalists in the Bethlehem Bible College where he is studying theology, Mr. Khoury describes a life of fear in Gaza. “My sister is under a lot of pressure to wear a headscarf. People are turning more and more to Islamic fundamentalism and the situation for Christians is very difficult,” he says.

The reporter points out that the western media rarely report on the plight of Christians in Gaza and the West Bank. It doesn’t fit into their narrative of everything being Israel’s fault. And it is rare for Palestinian Christians to speak out about their situation. Most of the time they try to keep a low profile so as not to antagonize their Muslim neighbors, and deny any suffering.  The article highlights this attitude:

Samir Qumsieh, the founder of what he says is the holy land’s only Christian TV station, also stresses that there is no “Christian suffering” and that the Christians’ problems are not orchestrated by the PA. Yet his stories of land theft, beatings and intimidation make one wonder why, if the PA doesn’t approve of such injustices, it is doing so little to stop it?

Christians have only recently begun to talk about how Muslim gangs simply come and take possession of Christian-owned land while the Palestinian security services, almost exclusively staffed by Muslims, stand by. Mr. Qumsieh’s own home was firebombed three years ago. The perpetrators were never caught.

“We have never suffered as we are suffering now,” Mr. Qumsieh confesses, violating his own introductory warning to the assorted foreign correspondents in his office not to use the word “suffering.”

The article is datelined Bethlehem. Christmas is a good time to point out that Bethlehem was a Christian city for almost 2,000 years, with its holy site of the Church of the Nativity, built on the site of Jesus’s birth. Mr. Qumsieh pointed out that Christians are abandoning Bethlehem (which is located in the West Bank) in droves.  Sixty years ago they were about 80 percent of the population there, and now they’re down to 20 percent. Of course Muslims have no respect for Bethlehem’s status as a city important to Christians. In fact, they desecrated the Church of the Nativity without a qualm in 2002 when a group of Palestinian gunmen took it over during an Israeli action, using priests and nuns as human shields. (One account of that incident is here.)

Guest column: Americans should know how Karen people have stood with America

From Madeleine Blu of the Bwetee Pe lulu Team:

I have been reading various USA’s newspapers on line. Over a period of time I have read posts, comments and articles from the USA on line. Most recent has been the Fort Wayne discussions on the Refugee Resettlement Watch Web Site. I was perturbed to read of the confusion regarding just what ‘Burmese’ means. I have written the short comment below to attempt to clarify who was who in Burma. I am most fortunate in the Refugee Resettlement Watch’s impartiality in this matter. I have been unable to get this information on Fox News, BBC TV and Radio, other TV stations in the USA and the U. K. Ditto with the newspapers. Given the daily horror of innocent lives lost by bullet, by torture, or by landmine there should be a News Bulletin every night.

GREAT AMERICANS AND THE KAREN AND KACHIN OF BURMA (Myanmar)

Prior to and during the 2nd World War the various ethnic groups were addressed and known by their ethnic names, there was no confusion. The Karen were known as the Karen, whose homeland was in the Hills (Karen State) and the Delta, then there is the Kachin in the north, Kachin State, then there is the Shan, the Wa, the Naga, the Burman and so on. It is only sometime after the War that the word ‘Burmese’ came more and more into use to mean all the people who lived in Burma. Yet this is against the expressed will of the Karen and the Kachin.

During the 2nd World War, a Burman, Aung San, led most Burmans and the majority of other ethnic groups to fight for NAZI Germany and Imperialist Japan. Aung San established the Burma Independence Army (BIA) in 1941, which grew out of the Burma National League (the Dobama Asi-Ayon or The Thakin Party) which Aung San joined in 1938. The British, American and Allied Soldiers referred to them either as fifth columnists or as the Burma Traitor Army. Along with the ever present danger of the fifth columnists were other ethnic groups and the Japanese. The Allies had to traverse the immense difficulties, which we can only guess at, of jungle terrain with its blood-sucking insects and deadly diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.

This is what the American forces, known affectionately as MERRILL’S MARAUDERS, were up against; fortunately, they could depend on the Kachin, our Allies. One of the well-known battles was at and around the Kachin capital city called ’Myitkyina’. Merrill’s Marauders were to know the great loss of many, many brave and fine men, who fought with great courage, in much pain and distress. These men and all like them in the 2nd World War are a great loss to the world.

The Karen were not only regular soldiers but played such a vital role volunteering in levies that it has been said that without them it is possible that Burma could not have been re-taken from the Japanese and Aung San’s BIA. Aung San was and still is regarded as the ‘Father of modern Burma‘. He is also the father of Aung San Suu Kyi. The modern roots of the present day horror for the Karen and Kachin dates from this War.

Going further back into history, the Burman grossly subjugated the Karen, despised and debased them. If caught they would be killed, enslaved or tortured by the Burman. When the British arrived the relationship that developed between them and the Karen, was that the British protected them from the Burman. The Karen, no longer having to be wary were able to settle and build homes and villages for themselves. Although it is said that during the reign of the British they favoured the Karens, colonial documents show that the British still gave sway to the Burman Court and gave far more favours to the Burman than the Karen; although they thought greatly of the Karen person and their ‘plucky little nation’.

It was the arrival of the Americans, in particular that great American, Adoniram Judson, (Dr.) the Baptist missionary, which brought the true renaissance and well-being for the Karen. He was not the first missionary to arrive in Burma, indeed, there have been reports of the Roman Catholics and other missionaries before him, but it was to Pastor Adoniram Judson that the key was given to discovering a gem, indeed a treasure trove of precious gems in the Karen.

Pastor Judson had been in Rangoon for some time enduring hardships and imprisonment for his Faith, completely unaware that to the east, in the Hills, were a race of people whose own spiritual tradition was not only Biblical but also Christian. The Karen would walk by the British and Pastor Judson singing of the God of the Holy Bible and the awaited Holy One in their own language which neither the British nor Pastor Judson understood.

I need to take a few moments to explain the word ‘missionary’. It is often misunderstood or used negatively by people of different religions or of no religion, to accuse the missionary or the country where the missionary is from of some sort of wrongdoing. So I emphasize that the Karen were never converted to Christianity, they were already Christian and Pastor Judson’s mission (meaning ’a task’) with the Karens was over when Ko Tha Byu was hired by him as a water-carrier. Pastor Judson had been translating the whole of the Holy Bible into Burmese and compiling a grammar.

Ko Tha Byu had seen part of what had been written and although he had great difficulty in understanding Burmese he read enough to realise that it was very similar to the God traditions of his own people. He took this message (his mission) to his people and the response from them was immediate too. The Karen were fired with joy and relief that their God traditions had been validated.

Ko Tha Byu was Baptised in 1828 and started immediately as the Karen Apostle, teaching his own people. It has been said that this was the most remarkable Christian event in modern times. Several suffered for their Faith at the hands of the Burman authorities and were even crucified. Pastor Judson went on to form a way to write down the Karen language; he used the Burman alphabet, adding more letters and translated the Holy Bible into both Karen dialects of Sgaw and Pwo. This most remarkable man did many, many other things.

Endnote:

Technically, all the other ethnic groups in Burma (Myanmar) are entering America on the definition of the UN’s refugee statement. Meaning that all people in other ethnic groups are fleeing the Military Junta … on political, religious and ethical grounds. Therefore, as they are all ‘pro democracy’ they should get hap hap happy along together. However, this is not true, there are ‘economic refugees’, false refugees, fraudulent claiming refugees and people who have bribed, stolen or impersonated the identity of another group.  Many of the very old Karen’s (over 70) are preyed upon by other ethnic groups who harass, intimidate or threaten the Karen to cough up his identity. There have been murders.   There are also the Burman ‘spies’, people, usually young student looking types, hired by the Junta to enter the camps and find out what is going on, or to further harass the Karen (by rape, by thieving their identity), or to go America/UK etc as a refugee and spy directly on the American/UK etc governments – as well as on what the Karen are up to.

Ft. Morgan, CO Somali murder update: gruesome rumors spreading

Do you remember this story from back in the first week of November.   From time to time, I’ve returned to the Ft. Morgan Times to see whatever happened with the case of the Somali woman stabbed to death by a Somali man with the same last name (honor killing?).  Initially a gag order was placed on the case, but to the generally politically correct Ft. Morgan Times credit they appealed to have the gag order lifted and it was. 

However, effectively there must be a gag order because I haven’t found another word printed about it since, until I saw this innocuously titled article from a few days ago:  ‘Coffee with a Cop draws Ft. Morgan locals.’  The article begins with a boring paragraph about the mundane issues affecting the everyday lives of Ft. Morgan residents.   But, then launches into what appears to be on many peoples’ minds—the Somali murder.

Gruesome details spreading on blogs?   Gosh I would love to know which blogs!  And, by the way, Ft. Morgan Times, if straight factual news reporting on the case would be occuring there would be no rumors spreading!  I have seen no further reporting on the murder since early November (if there has been, someone send me a link!).

Several people sat down with Fort Morgan police officers Friday to talk about traffic, speeding, the hazards of foliage that blocks the line of sight at intersections and the rumors which abound in the community.

For instance, there are rumors floating around that the murder allegedly involving Ahmed Abdi of Greeley in Fort Morgan last month was a ritual killing, but that’s not true, Police Chief Keith Kuretich said as he sat in Cafe Lotus talking with locals during what he’s calling “Coffee With a Cop.”  [Edit:  Honor Killings are a form of ritual killing]

He was joined by Lt. Darin Sagel and Lt. Jared Crone.

One Fort Morgan resident asked Kuretich about the rumor that the woman who was killed was also decapitated.

That also is not true, nor is it true that her tongue was cut out or that she was stabbed multiple times, he said. Those are things said on blogs, but bear no resemblance to reality.

In fact, the murder was no more violent — perhaps less so — than some other stabbings seen in Fort Morgan, although he could not go into too much detail due to the ongoing prosecution, Kuretich said.   [Chief Kuretich, which is it, we learned previously that murders in Ft. Morgan are very rare, so what stabbings are you referring to? Do you have a lot of stabbings to compare it with?]

Yesterday I discussed the case with Jerry Gordon who writes about Somali Muslim issues (among other things) at New English Review, and here is what he said about this case:

The Fort Morgan Police Chief ‘s kaffe klatch remarks about the murder of the Somali woman, is a bit disingenuous. His dismissal of the ‘rumors’ floating around the blogosphere of grisly details may be appropriate. However, he was less than forthcoming about the relationship between the Greeley Somali assailant and victim who shared the same last name and from eyewitness accounts knew each other. I get concerned about marginalizing any murder, whether it is this one or others that might have occurred in Fort Morgan by saying that this was was no different from others. The chief ought to be taken to task for that and his scrupulous avoidance of the possible family or clan relationship to the Somali woman murder victim. Over all, his remarks were very PC and callous at the same time.

Back to the ‘Coffee with a Cop’ article which abruptly switches to mundane issues like the line at McDonalds as part of a discussion on driving issues.

Many of the things people brought up were fairly common, but Kuretich said he was surprised to hear about the problem with traffic around the McDonald’s restaurant on some days.

Then we return again to what apparently was really on peoples’ minds—the Somalis in their midst.   The Chief assures them that everything will be just fine in the end once the Somalis understand our culture, once they become “Americanized.”  Oh yeh, go check out Lewiston, ME that has a Somali population for many more years than Ft. Morgan has had one, and is where roaming gangs of Somali ‘youths’ are now (years later) randomly attacking and robbing residents.  But in Ft. Morgan everything will be peachy.

One of the challenges officers face is not being able to speak the languages of the different East African refugees who have moved into the community, he said.

Residents should remember that not all of the black people in town are Somalis or Islamic, and groups have their own cultures, Kuretich said.

East Africans are like any other people, with most trying to fit into the community and obey the laws, but there are always some in any group who challenge authority, he said.

The main law enforcement issue is the driving of some Africans, who are inexperienced, Kuretich said.

However, with the help of Cargill Meat Solutions and OneMorgan County, some training is going on and that can be seen in practice at Cargill, he said. [Edit:  Cargill lured the Somalis to Ft. Morgan in the first place]

African community members were concerned about driving, too, especially after one person died in an accident, Kuretich said.

Most other concerns come down to understanding cultural differences.

In Somalia, for instance, people hang out in the village square, but that translates to what Americans call loitering if done in downtown Fort Morgan, Kuretich said.

And they do speak loudly sometimes, which is another cultural expression, he said.

Somalis have been cooperative once they have learned what it means to locals, although there are young refugees who might resist it, Kuretich said.

They truly consider Fort Morgan home and want to fit in, he said. They are becoming more Americanized as the months go by.