US embassy cable - 05ACCRA636

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ACCRA 000636 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: KPAO, SCUL, OIIP, OEXC, PGOV, GH 
SUBJECT: REPORT ON MRP "COMBATTING INTERNATIONAL 
CRIME" FROM JANUARY 7 - 28, 2005. 
 
 
1. Summary.  The Chief Inspector of Police at the 
Women and Juvenile Unit of the Ghana Police, Elvis 
Bawa Sadongo, was among the participants in the MRP 
on "Combatting International Crime" from January 7 - 
28, 2005.  He said his trip was a real "eye-opener" 
because he and the other IVLP participants were given 
an honest assessment of the security lapses prior to 
the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the 
preventative steps against future attacks being taken 
post-9/11.  End Summary. 
 
 
2. In Washington, D.C. their first stop, Mr. Sadongo 
and the other IVLP participants were given a round of 
briefings at the Drug Enforcement Agency, Federal 
Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department.  He 
said he was very surprised to see how the United 
States had been such an active player on the 
international scene but had had such a serious lapse 
in internal security that permitted the terrorist 
attacks to take place on its soil in 2001. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
3. Mr. Sadongo said one of the most fascinating parts 
of the trip was when he accompanied the border patrol 
on its rounds in Tucson, Arizona, near the Mexican 
border.  He said he could not believe the border was 
so expansive and yet so open.  He said that as the 
U.S. authorities are building fences and barricades 
on their side of the border, Mexicans are countering 
the effort by bulldozing tons of soil to higher 
levels to enable Mexicans to continue to cross the 
border even over the fences and barricades. 
 
4.  He and others in the group were perplexed by the 
laws that prevent police from crossing into another 
jurisdiction in the pursuit of a suspected criminal. 
He said members of his group were aghast that, as an 
example, police in Cincinnati, Ohio told them they 
could not pursue a suspected criminal fleeing across 
the bridge spanning the Ohio River into Kentucky.  He 
said they asked the policeman, incredulously, what he 
would do in that case, to which he replied that he 
would stop his vehicle, and then alert police in 
Kentucky to pursue the suspect on their side of the 
state line. 
 
5. The group was also given a tour of a Department of 
Homeland Security research center, near Cincinnati, 
that is being used as a model to determine whether a 
city's water supply has been poisoned.  Mr. Sadongo 
said he learned how U.S. authorities are using the 
simplest means, examining plant and fish life, as 
well as the most scientific means, such as 
redesigning PVC pipes, to help determine whether 
urban water supplies are contaminated. 
 
6. Mr. Sadongo said all members of his group, 
including a Canadian participant, were dumbstruck by 
the sophisticated use of high technology in fighting 
crime in the United States. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
He said the Strategic Operational Center in Hamilton 
County, once fully operational, will be amazing 
because the Center will receive all crime calls in 
its area, and each police commander will be able to 
follow the progress of the cases through their own 
touch-screen computers.  He said he was highly 
impressed to see policemen receive a call from their 
dispatcher and it automatically appeared as a text 
message on a computer screen in their police car. He 
said the group was also bowled over by the fully 
automated court system in Tucson, where all parties 
concerned have a computer screen in front of them 
and, as evidence is shown to the court, it appears on 
each screen. 
 
7. He said an emotional moment came when members of 
the group were able to stand at the exact spot at the 
Lincoln Memorial where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 
delivered his "I have a dream" speech.  He expressed 
his gratitude to post and to the ECA staff and its 
partners for including him on the MRP, which 
represented his first trip to the United States. 
 
YATES