THURSDAY, APRIL 9, 2009

75¢ DESIGNATED AREAS HIGHER © 2009 72 PAGES WST latimes.comD

LOOKING FOR WORK? GET IN LINE

Gina Ferazzi Los Angeles Times

Caught in a tough job market, an estimated 4,000 people showed up Wednesday for an employment fair in RanchoCucamonga. Organizers said the turnout set a record for the 6-year-old event. Employers hiring included HomeDepot, Coca-Cola and UPS. California’s jobless rate hit 10.5% in February, one of the highest in the nation.

With a U.S. warship on sitekeeping watch early today, So-mali pirates and American sea-men engaged in a standoff onthe high seas after the crew of afreighter loaded with food forAfrica fought off the hijackers— who fled in a lifeboat withthe captain as a hostage.

The assault on the U.S.-registered Maersk Alabamacargo ship far off Somalia’scoast marked the first attackagainst a U.S.-flagged vessel offAfrica since the days of theBarbary pirates more than 200years ago, a maritime officialsaid.

The 20-member crew, un-armed, according to the ship’sowner, managed to overpowerat least four pirates and regaincontrol, U.S. officials said. Butthe captain, 55-year-old Ver-mont resident Richard Phillips,was being held by the pirates, aU.S. Defense official said.

The attempted seizure ofthe Danish-owned vesselmarks the latest chapter in thepiracy saga off Somalia. Pover-ty, civil war and the lack of afunctioning government since1991 have turned the watersaround the Horn of Africa nation into the most crime-infested on Earth.

The attack on the cargo shipwas the second in two days,U.S. officials said. After rebuff-

U.S. SHIPCAPTAINHELD BYSOMALIPIRATESAn American warshipkeeps watch after thefreighter’s crew repelshijackers, who flee in aboat with the hostage.Edmund Sanders

reporting from

nairobi, kenya

Julian E. Barnes

reporting from washington

[See Pirates, Page A25]

Father Louis Vitale haslost track of howmany times he hasbeen arrested. Morethan 200, he figures,

maybe 300. The gaunt Francis-can friar figures he’s spent ayear and a half behind bars. At76, he is ready to go to jailagain.

Last month, he appearedbefore a federal magistrate inSanta Barbara.

Dressed in the traditionalbrown robe and the knottedrope belt that signifies vows ofpoverty, chastity and obedi-ence, Vitale explains in hisgravelly voice that he had ahigher purpose when he tres-passed two years ago at Van-denberg Air Force Base: call-ing attention to the perils ofnuclear war and persuadingmilitary personnel to embracenonviolence.

“The biggest threat to theworld is our nuclear arsenal,”he tells Magistrate Judge RitaCoyne Federman.

More than two dozen familymembers and friends, includ-ing actor Martin Sheen, are inthe courtroom to show sup-port for the friar and his threeco-defendants.

Vitale tells Federman, whohad found him guilty in De-cember, that sending him to

COLUMN ONE

A Franciscan friar’squest for a nonviolentworld leads him to jail,again and again.

His spiritwon’t beconfined

Richard C. Paddock

reporting from

santa barbara

[See Priest, Page A14]

Frank Eddy pulled off his dusty bootsand slid into a chair, taking his placeat the dining room table where mostof the critical family issues arehashed out. Spreading hands as dry

and cracked as the orchards he tends, thestout man his mates call Tank explained whatdamage a decade of drought has done .

“Suicide is high. Depression is huge. Fami-lies are breaking up. It’s devastation,” he said,shaking his head. “I’ve got a neighbor in ter-rible trouble. Found him in the paddock, sit-ting in his [truck], crying his eyes out. Grown

men — big, strong grown men. We’re holdingon by the skin of our teeth. It’s desperatetimes.”

A result of climate change?“You’d have to have your head in the

bloody sand to think otherwise,” Eddy said.They call Australia the Lucky Country,

with good reason. Generations of hardy cast-offs tamed the world’s driest inhabited conti-nent, created a robust economy and cultivat-ed an image of irresistibly resilient peoplewho can’t be held down. Australia exports it-self as a place of

Brian Vander Brug Los Angeles Times

‘IT’S DEVASTATION’: Frank Eddy leans on his truck near a pile of heat-stressedpeach trees he uprooted from his orchard near Shepparton, southern Australia.

The writing on the wallDrought, fire, killer heat and suicides — scientists sayclimate change fears have become reality in Australia.

Julie Cart

reporting from the murray-darling basin, australia

[See Australia, Page A26]

Doctors at College Hospitaldiagnosed Steven Davis as suf-fering from schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and schizoaffec-tive disorder. Doctors at theCosta Mesa mental institution

prescribed him numerousdrugs to deal with paranoid de-lusions that had led to an earli-er suicide attempt.

But that didn’t stop the hos-pital from hauling Davis into avan and driving him more than40 miles north to downtownL.A., where they dropped himoff outside the Union RescueMission. When mission officialscomplained to the hospital, thevan returned and drove Davis afew miles south to anothershelter. Davis wandered awaywithout ever entering.

Davis turned out to be thekey to uncovering what Los An-geles prosecutors described asthe largest case of homelessdumping they’ve investigatedto date.

In a settlement announcedWednesday, the L.A. city attor-ney’s office said that CollegeHospital had dumped morethan 150 mentally ill patientson skid row — long a magnetfor the region’s most vulnera-ble citizens — in 2007 and 2008.

As part of the settlement,the hospital will pay $1.6 mil-

lion in penalties and charitablecontributions to a host of psy-chiatric and social-serviceagencies. The hospital alsoagreed to a first-of-its-kind in-junction that prohibits it fromtransporting any homelesspsychiatric patient dischargedfrom their facilities to thestreets or any shelter within anestablished “Patient SafetyZone,” a swath of downtownand South Los Angeles wheremost of the region’s homelessshelters and missions are con-

Hospital to pay in dumping caseFacility was accused ofdropping 150 homelesspatients off on skid row.

Cara Mia DiMassa

and Richard Winton

[See Dumping, Page A9]

Rennison Vern Castillothought his legal troubles werenearly over at the end of a jailstay for harassing his ex-girl-friend. But then a U.S. immi-gration hold order blocked hisrelease.

“They think you’re here il-legally,” a jailhouse guard saidto him.

Castillo, mystified, insistedit was all a mistake. Thoughborn in Belize, he had come ofage in South Los Angeles,spoke fluent English, served astint in the Army and had be-come an American citizenabout seven years earlier.

He had some legal prob-lems, but being in the countryunlawfully was not one of them.Castillo said he wasn’t worried— not until he was shackledand transferred to a federal de-tention center. He spentmonths in custody before anappeals panel blocked his de-portation and an immigrationjudge finally ordered Castilloset free.

Citizenssnared inthe netImmigration sweepsland legal residents indetention with thethreat of deportation.Andrew Becker

reporting from

tacoma, wash.

Patrick J. McDonnell

reporting from los angeles

[See Immigration, Page A23]

Lean machinesfrom ‘baby fat’?Studies show it persists,and that can be a goodthing. NATION, A20

Scams go viralon YouTubeYou’ve been warned:Mini-Madoffs awaityour click. BUSINESS, B1

Next on CBS:bloody entrails“Harper’s Island”breaks new and goryground. CALENDAR, E1

Complete Index ........A4California ............A3-18For the Record ........A4Nation .......................A20World .........................A24Obituaries ...............A28

Weather Page: Partlycloudy, morning fog.L.A.: 67/53 BUSINESS, B8

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