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 Who am I? Where did I land from?
My parents were Holocaust survivors from Eastern Europe. I was born in Florence, Italy, where my father taught handicrafts while he and my mother awaited a visa to join relatives in Argentina. Ten years later we emigrated from Buenos Aires to Los Angeles.
What is my professional background?
Retired August, 1998 after 23 years as an ATF special agent (criminal investigator) and supervisor. Most of my work experience is in gun trafficking and bombing investigations. Duty stations in Phoenix, Helena (Montana) and Los Angeles. Also served as a police sergeant in Cottage Grove, Oregon and as a U.S. Army military policeman (thatīs what they called them) in Vietnam and the U.S.
Most recently, between 1998-2017, I was a Lecturer in the Division of Politics, Administration and Justice, California State University, Fullerton. My courses included Research Methods, Policing, Crime & Delinquency, Criminal Investigation, Criminal Justice Ethics, Police Misconduct, Public Management, Research & Analysis, Public Personnel Management, and, my favorite, Russian Justice, which includes staging a play about the Moscow show trials.
What is my educational background?
Ph.D., Criminal Justice, School of Criminal Justice, State University of New York at Albany.
M.S., Criminal Justice, Arizona State University.
B.S., Police Science and Administration, California State University, Los Angeles.
What else do I do?
I consult with local governments and nonprofit groups on gun control policy. A collection of my essays on gun control is here. “Stalin’s Witnesses,” a historical novel, was published in 2012 (see below.) I have also written several screenplays. Here are my publications:
Book
“Stalin’s Witnesses,” a historical novel about five “witnesses” who got caught up in the Moscow Show Trials of 1936-1938, was first published by Knox Robinson in December 2012. An updated second edition was released on Amazon and Ingram in June 2018. It includes a Prequel that can be freely downloaded here. Check it out!
Book chapter and journal articles
“Firearms and Public Policy.” In C. L. Gardiner and P. Fiber-Ostrow, eds., California’s Criminal Justice System (2nd. Ed.), Carolina Academic Press, 2014, 296-303.
“The Road to Stalin’s Witnesses: Seeking Truth Through Fiction.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 2014, 15 (2), 365-375. Excerpt here.
“Sources of Crime Guns in Los Angeles, California.” Policing, an International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 1998, 21 (2), 220-239. Click here.
“From Morals to Practice: Dilemmas of Control in Undercover Policing.” Crime, Law and Social Change, 1992 (18), 137-158. Click here.
“Production and Craftsmanship in Police Narcotics Enforcement.” Journal of Police Science and Administration, 1985 (13:4), 263-274. Click here.
Op-eds
- How to Defuse Police-Civilian Encounters (The Crime Report, July 18, 2022)
- Memo to Joe Biden: Focus on Neighborhood Safety (The Crime Report, Dec. 7, 2020)
- Why Do Officers Succeed? (Police Chief magazine, July 2020, p. 26)
- Want an Assault Weapons Ban That Works? Focus on Ballistics. (Washington Post, Dec. 6, 2019)
- Ex-ATF Agent: America is Only Pretending to Regulate Lethal Firearms (Washington Post, Dec. 8, 2015)
- Tookie’s Fate is the Wrong Debate (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 8, 2005)
- Davis is Paying For a Big Transgression (Los Angeles Times, Aug 6, 2003)
- Police Are Pressured to Cross the Line (Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2000)
Screenplays
(Click here for the synopses)
- Three-Eighty (based on factual account: The Pistol That Killed Officer Heim)
- A Heritage of Terror
- A Very Naughty Christmas
- Bums
- The Second Amendment
- Gun Squad (pilot for T.V. series)
Conference presentations
“Back to the USSR.” Presentation at 2016 ASEES (Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies) annual conference about my novel, “Stalin’s Witnesses,” and its use in the classroom.
“The Craft of Policing.” Paper presented in 2005 at the Law Academy of Ukraine, Dnepropetrovsk. Click here.
“Illusion of Gun Control”. Paper presented at the 2000 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology. Click here.
“Unanticipated Consequences of Community Policing.” Paper presented at the 1998 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. Click here.
“Retaking Mean Streets: the Occupation Response.” Paper presented at the 1990 meeting of the Western and Pacific Assoc. of Criminal Justice Educators.
My “real life”
  My wife is a (retired) endoscopy nurse (you donīt want to know).
Our daughter, an NYU grad, lives and works in New York City.
Our beloved mutt, Sheba, a crazy Shepherd mix (see left) passed
in winter 2015 at the ripe age of fifteen. Koko, a wild-and-crazy
Husky/Shepherd mix, now shares our home. She even has her
own couch!
Enjoy the website!
Contact
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