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Examining the Determinants of Extra-Judicial Killings in the Philippines at the Subnational Level: the Role of Penal Populism and Vertical Accountability

• Published: 28 September 2018
• Volume 20 , pages 67–101, ( 2019 )

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• Rollin F. Tusalem 1  

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Since the election of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016, extra-judicial killings (EJKs, hereafter) have become commonplace as a result of his administration’s declaration of war on drugs. Empirical cross-national work on examining determinants behind state repression remains scant especially in understanding the phenomenon at the sub-national level. This study investigates what accounts for variations on EJKs at the level of Philippine provinces. Using monthly panel-data for 62 provinces and employing various count-model regressions, the findings indicate that Philippine provinces which have large populations, stronger state capacity, and are more affluent in terms of the human development index are more likely to exhibit higher rates of EJKs. Furthermore, the vote share of the President in the 2016 elections and presidential visits to specific provinces are correlated with higher incidences of EJKs—corroborating theories on delegative democracies and penal populism. Lastly, it is found that drug-prone provinces are more likely to experience a higher share of human rights violations in terms of EJKs, compared to provinces that have lower affectation rates. The implications suggest that the Philippine war on drugs seem to promote vertical accountability as international criticism and domestic opposition mounts.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Ryan Craig for research assistance and Michelle Allendoerfer, Nicole Curato, Veena Kulkarni, and participants in the panel on human rights and state repression at the MPSA annual conference held in 2018 for providing feedback, comments, and suggestions on an earlier draft.

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Tusalem, R.F. Examining the Determinants of Extra-Judicial Killings in the Philippines at the Subnational Level: the Role of Penal Populism and Vertical Accountability. Hum Rights Rev 20 , 67–101 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-018-0535-1

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Extrajudicial Killing In The Philippines: Protecting Human Rights In The Wake Of Presidential Endorsement

• Sebastien Miller
• July 17, 2016

On the 30 th of June, Rodrigo Duterte took office as the president of the Philippines. In the first five days of his leadership a reported thirty “drug-dealers” have been killed and US$20 million worth of narcotics seized in police operations across the nation. Duterte’s presidential campaign was heavy on anti drug and drug related crime rhetoric, announcing his aspirations of reinstating the death penalty and encouraging the extrajudicial executions of individuals suspected in participating in drug related activities.

Section 3 (a) of the United States Torture Victim Protection act provides a legally accepted definition for extrajudicial killings as:

“A deliberate killing not authorized by a previous judgment pronounced by a regular constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized people. Such term, however, does not include any killing that, under international law is lawfully carried out under the authority of a foreign nation.”

Widespread use of extrajudicial killing, or similarly summary executions, across the globe has consistently received international criticism, particularly from international law organisations and human rights bodies that argue that in bypassing due legal process, the basic human rights of individuals subject to extrajudicial violence are violated. Therefore, those perpetuating said violence are in breach of human rights law, or indeed if contextualised in a certain way, guilty of committing crimes against humanity. It is the purpose of this paper to consider the current promotion of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines and propose an alternative approach in order to minimise human rights violations.

In order to provide context for the current situation in the Philippines, brief consideration will be paid to the lead up to Duterte’s election. Whilst President-Elect Duterte openly encouraged the extrajudicial killing, offering both bounties and medals to members of the public for the summary executions of suspected drug dealers. “Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have a gun, you have my support […] shoot him and I’ll give you a medal”, he announced to a group of supporters in the southern city of Davao, where he had previously served as mayor for over 22 years. Recently, rewards of P5.5 million (USD $120, 000) were offered for every drug lord slain, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

Whilst many attributed Duterte’s hard-line stance against drug offenders in the lead up to his ascension to office simply as campaign rhetoric, a consideration of his time as mayor of Davao raises cause for concern. The now President of the Philippines is alleged to have links to already existing vigilante groups such as the Davao Death Squad (DDS), whom Human Rights Watch (HRW) have attributed 1424 summary executions to, as well as other copycat groups in the local area since 1998, and reported that membership numbers had climbed beyond 500 personnel by 2009. At the time, the U.N. General Assembly reported that “the mayor of Davao City has done nothing to prevent these killings, and his public comments suggest he is in fact supportive.” HRW stated that victims were selected because they were suspected of being criminals. Amnesty International added in a separate report that the victims of these summary executions included minors. More recently, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon released a statement condemning Duterte’s “apparent endorsement of extrajudicial killings, which is illegal and a breach of fundamental rights and freedoms.”

As aforementioned, in the first five days after Duterte assumed office, the police have reported the summary execution of thirty alleged criminals. This takes the total number of suspects subject to extrajudicial execution to over 100 since Duterte won elections in May, The Guardian reported. In addition to the apparent injustice that is the revocation of a suspected criminals right to life before being afforded their right to trial, the deployment of state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings has seemingly extended to other criminal classes. That is, there have been reports that in addition to drug dealers, rapists and car thieves are also among those that have been subject to summary executions. Furthermore, and certainly challenging the already precarious legitimacy of the use of extrajudicial executions, Duterte called upon Filipino civilians to kill drug addicts: “if you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself”, reports the Australian agency ABC news. Considering these reports, the blurred legal, ethical and procedural lines that exist around the state endorsed extrajudicial killings by police and civilians of criminal suspects are seemingly getting worse as the pool of potential suspects grows larger.

As police are bestowed with a certain level of judicial responsibility and power there are circumstances in which summary executions may be permissible or justified whilst they are performing as state actors. For example, a number of recent police reports pertaining to the shooting deaths of criminal suspects feature occasions in which police were met with violent resistance or engaged by small arms fire, and therefore, it is within their power to engage in the use of lethal force. Although, this becomes problematic in the current context when you consider that alleged criminals, or even innocent civilians, understand that state actors such as the police are imbued with extrajudicial power over their lives and are not obliged to process them through the legal system. It is therefore not unreasonable to expect individuals to resort to violence when approached by members of law enforcement when the potential for a summary execution may be just as likely as questioning or an arrest.

It is likely that this problem will grow exponentially worse as the number of innocent deaths increase. In addition to the expansion of public distrust against state actors, the prevalence of extrajudicial violence employed by non-state actors, as encouraged by Duterte, may lead to a further break down of law and order nationwide, rather than serving as a solution to preexisting crime. The Guardian reported on the 1 st of July that an unidentified body had been found in Manila, the nations capital, with its head wrapped in tape and wearing a sign that read: “I am a pusher”. This suggests that a new wave of civilian-led extrajudicial killings may now be underway. Similarly, as demonstrated by the emergence of the DDS in Davao, violence at the hand of non-state actors, although legitimized by referring to public needs, can have a devastating effect on lives and undermine the nations legal system.

In 2003, Thaksin Shinawatra, then prime minister of Thailand launched a war on drugs to reduce international drug trafficking and local drug use. Human rights organization Human Rights Watch reported:

“In the first 3 months of the campaign, there were some 2,800 extrajudicial killings. In 2007, an official investigation found that more than half of those killed had no connection whatsoever to drugs.”

This is the very same issue that currently threatens the Philippines. The main difference being, however, is that where the Thai government launched a war on drugs, Duterte has instigated a total war on crime, the scale of which has the potential to be much larger, and thus, the death toll higher.

In addition to being an effective method for achieving campaign support and evoking a sense of national social responsibility, Duterte’s appeal to the public for help may also suggest that the preexisting state institutions may be ill-equipped for dealing with the current level of crime plaguing the Philippines. In granting police the power to perform extrajudicial killings, strain is removed from the judicial system, and by extending this power to civilians the police are in turn relieved of pressure. Additionally, widespread corruption throughout all levels of state infrastructure could certainly be a factor in the new governments reluctance to utilize bureaucratic processes and instead revert to street-level problem solving. To quote Duterte:

“The problems that bedevil our country today which need to be addressed with urgency are corruption, both in the high and low echelons in government, criminality in the streets and the rampant sale of illegal drugs in all strata of Philippine society and the breakdown of law and order.”

Whilst this paper has argued the currently proposed methods for dealing with the “rampant” crime are likely to encourage the breakdown of law and order rather than prevent it, the corruption condemned by Duterte could lie at the heart of the problem.

Time needs to be taken to investigate said corruption and to carefully restructure the government and state institutions in order to allow the nation to move forward. Establishing a safe society as Duterte seemingly intends to do, is of the deepest importance, although, his frustration with widespread corruption and hardline approach to crime may be interfering with his ability to do so. Superficially, the government’s current trajectory seems to be laying down the groundwork for the further decay of law and order, but it is still early days. An exploration into the social issues that may be the root cause of the high levels of crime is also necessary.

There is a popular assumption that the rampant drug crime is closely associated with widespread poverty. It would be responsible for the government conduct research into pressing social issues and consider establishing social institutions and programs to assist disadvantaged citizens. One such example would be the provision of social support for those affected by drug addiction rather than the current approach that favours their extermination. A shift away from retributive rhetoric and justice and a stronger focus on restoration and rehabilitation could be the directional change the Philippines needs to establish a safe society that values and protects human rights.

Further, the notion of extrajudicial killing is not directly addressed by international law. Whilst the summary execution of civilians or combatants is deemed a war crime under the law of armed conflict, the same provisions are not afforded to civilians in times of relative peace. Similarly, widespread murder enacted upon a civilian population is encompassed in the legal definition of crimes against humanity. However, once again, the specific notion of extrajudicial killing is jarringly absent from international legislation.

In the case of the Philippines, the widespread nature of the current extrajudicial violence is certainly reminiscent of both the aforementioned international criminal law paradigms, although abstract enough for them to remain inapplicable. The specific criminalisation of extrajudicial killings on an international level could prove an effective safeguard against the perpetuation of such violence in the future. International law must address the killings that take place outside of the judicial process and work towards further clarifying any grey areas such as those pertaining to extrajudicial violence. The right to life is arguably the most important of the human rights and thus must be preserved and protected in as many ways as possible.

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Extrajudicial killings in the Philippines

This country spotlight refers to data published in 2019. For the most recent data, go to our Rights Tracker .

‘War on drugs’ is a denial of the right to life

Since the election of Rodrigo Duterte in June 2016, a violent ‘war on drugs’ has claimed upwards of 5,000 lives in the Philippines. Executions by police and militia groups that target drug dealers and users not only exacerbate the drug problem but constitute a violation of the right to freedom from execution by extrajudicial killing.

On July 1st 2016, Oliver Dela Cruz was shot to death in Bulacan province during a police sting operation. He was playing cards at a friend’s house when a group of armed men broke in, interrogated and executed him. Police denied any responsibility, blaming vigilante violence.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the Philippines has signed, recognises the right to life. The death penalty was abolished in the Philippines in 1987, and the country signed the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, becoming part of the global movement against the death penalty.

Under the ICCPR, the right to be free from execution also covers arbitrary and extrajudicial killing. The Human Rights Measurement Initiative tracks the performance of countries around the world on upholding these rights.

The killings of Mr Dela Cruz and thousands of others are a denial of the right to life, the right to freedom from execution.

While the current administration is not directly responsible for the authorisation of these extra-judicial executions, Agnes Callamard, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Killings, blamed Duterte’s hard-line approach and rhetoric for exacerbating the violence and denounced the lack of investigation into the killings.

Police and militia groups are not being held to account for their actions. This is a rejection of the government’s obligation to investigate violations of the right to life and the right to freedom from extrajudicial killing.

The right to freedom from execution

According to international law, the right to be free from execution includes freedom from any arbitrary or extrajudicial deprivation of life, as well as freedom from the death penalty even with due process of law (ICCPR, Part III, Article 6; Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, Article 1).

This is a fundamental human right that must be respected and governments are legally obligated to do what they can to prevent such killings and hold those responsible to account.

HRMI’s Civil and Political Rights data collection

In 2019, we collected information on civil and political rights in 19 survey countries via a secure online expert opinion survey  (please note this is a link to a preview of the survey only, and any responses you make will not be collected).

These countries were selected based on the following two criteria:

• Sufficient interest from human rights experts in that country for inclusion (so that we could be sure to have sufficient numbers of survey respondents and active engagement during the survey).
• A sub-set of 19 countries that offered diversity of sizes, regions, cultures, income levels, degree of openness etc (so that we could learn how well our survey methodology worked in different contexts).

The graph below shows how the 19 countries in the HRMI survey performed on freedom from execution.

It seems likely that the Philippines would perform poorly relative to the survey countries, due to the number of unlawful executions carried out since 2016, but without data it is harder for human rights defenders to do their work and hold governments to account.

As soon as funding allows, we will extend our civil and political rights data collection to the Philippines and the rest of the world, and expand our full set of data to measure other rights protected by international law.

If you want to help fund our expansion to the Philippines, and all countries in the world, please contact us .

Who can use these data?

All of HRMI’s data are freely available to anyone. You can  explore our data site here , and even download the dataset.

We have data on seven  civil and political rights : as well as  five economic and social rights .

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Thesis Extra Judicial Killings

Related Papers

Fatima Pinto

spencer mwambisi

Yuchengco Center

One of the national issues prior to President Duterte’s assumption to office was the prevalence of illegal drugs in the country. Between 2008 and 2016, 14.8 million Filipinos had used illegal drugs at least once (Dangerous Drugs Board, 2016). In his State of the Nation Address on July 25, 2016, Duterte vowed to launch an intensified the battle against illegal drugs. Observers noted the war against drugs is addressed by incarceration, rehabilitation. However, there have been reports of extrajudicial killings of both abusers and pushers. A more humane approach in the drug war is called for.

Asian Journal of Law and Society

Jon Fernquest

This article focuses on the war on drugs in the Philippines in order to explore issues related to extra-judicial killing, which remains common in many countries that have abolished the death penalty and in many more that retain it but seldom carry out judicial executions. In the first year of Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency (2016–17), thousands of people were killed by police or by vigilantes who were encouraged to prosecute his war on drugs. At a time when democracy is in retreat in many parts of the world, this case illustrates how popular harsh punishment can be in states that have failed to meet their citizens’ hopes for freedom, economic growth, and security.

Moshiur Rahman Shikder

Md. Kamruzzaman

Respect for human rights lies at the heart of good governance. In a democratic society, it is the responsibility of the State to protect and promote human rights. All State institutions whether they are the police department (RAB), the army, the judiciary or civil administration have a duty to respect human rights, prevent human rights violations, and take active steps for the promotion of human rights. Unfortunately, many a time, while discharging this duty, actions of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) conflict with human rights. They are pressured to get quick results, often with unofficial guarantees that they may use any means possible to accomplish the task at hand. However sometimes they abuse their power by the name of " Crossfire or Extra judicial Killing " which is the violation of Human Rights frequently occurred in Bangladesh. The main objective of the study is to explain the nature of Cross Fire in Bangladesh. This is qualitative study and data were collected from various secondary sources which included police statistics, the United Nations special procedure mandate holders various non-governmental organization's information and also daily newspaper from many aspects of incidents.

Pablo Ciocchini

The literature on comparative law has a long and robust tradition, but studies comparing courts and judicial systems are scarce. Comparative studies in the Global South, following Shapiro's institutional approach, have aimed to measure the involvement of courts in politics by assessing the power of the judiciary in society, the level of judicial independence, and their role in the context of the judicialization of politics. The focus was on the high courts, including either Constitutional or Supreme Courts. Criminal courts have not received similar attention despite the influence of their everyday decisions on people's lives and their perception of the judicial system. This article argues that developing a comparative approach for criminal courts in the Global South is needed to help understand the role they play in the development of the rule of law and democratic life. This comparative study helps understand the impact of judicial reform programmes in the Global South. These reforms, inspired by a neoliberal paradigm, have focused on improving the efficiency of the courts. The reforms have promoted managerial techniques detrimental to the standards of due process. Any assessment of the impact of the reforms on the courts in the Global South should start by recognising the widely differing settings under which they operate. This context is characterised by serious economic constraints, such as a lack of material and human resources, and a democratic deficit legacy from the past authoritarian regimes, including widespread police abuse and corruption. Given this context, the role of the courts in ensuring due process and the legality of police procedures is crucial. The impact of the judicial reforms promoting managerial rationality in recent decades must be analysed. To examine the role courts are playing in criminal matters, two cases were explored where courts have undergone extensive judicial reforms, Argentina and the Philippines.

BEST Journals

In general, extrajudicial killing is the killing by law enforcement authorities without the sanction of any judicial proceeding or legal process. Though a person is being suspected as a criminal, he has the legal and constitutional right to have justice. In this paper it is tried to analyze five years (2005-2009) data from some newspapers articles of Bangladesh on extrajudicial killing, find the legal barriers as well as legal shields used by law enforcement agencies to justify the killings. It is also tried to explain extrajudicial killing by several aspects like denying due process, crime control and access to the justice on the basis of secondary data sources.

Rizal Buendia

The article examines torture in the Philippines and the failure of the state to address this violation of human right.

Torture: Global and Asian Perspectives

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Exclusion of Jewish Jurors Prompts Review of California Death Row Cases

Dozens of cases are under review after notes from jury selection in a 1990s murder case indicated that prosecutors worked to exclude Jews.

By Tim Arango

A jury was being chosen for a murder trial nearly three decades ago in California. The state was seeking a death sentence for Ernest Dykes, who had been charged with killing a 9-year-old boy during a robbery in Oakland.

Weighing who should be struck from the jury pool and who should be kept, a prosecutor made notes about a prospective juror:

“I liked him better than any other Jew but no way.”

Other notes about prospective jurors bore evidence of similar prejudice:

“Banker. Jew?” read one.

“Jew? Yes,” read another.

The notes — just handwritten scribbles — were discovered recently in an internal case file from the 1990s when Mr. Dykes was convicted of murder and sent to death row. A federal judge who is overseeing settlement talks as part of an appeal by Mr. Dykes told the Alameda County District Attorney’s office to conduct a top-to-bottom search for any additional documents, and that search turned up the notes, which are now in the hands of the judge.

The notes offered a startling glimpse into a practice that some defense lawyers long suspected was going on, and that a former prosecutor had alleged was common in Alameda County — prosecutors seeking to exclude people of certain faiths, races or genders.

Now, Mr. Dykes, 51, and perhaps others on death row in California as well, may have their convictions tossed out and be granted new trials. The federal judge weighing his appeal has ordered a review of all California capital cases in which a defendant from Alameda County is still on death row. The county includes Oakland, Berkeley and a host of other Bay Area communities.

The inquiry, which may involve as many as 35 cases from as far back as 1977, is just getting underway. But the district attorney’s office says it has already found evidence that the discriminatory practice was widespread for decades and involved numerous prosecutors.

“When you intentionally exclude people based on their race, their religion, their gender or any protected category, it violates the Constitution,” said Pamela Price, the Alameda district attorney and a former civil rights lawyer.

Legal scholars and critics of the death penalty say some prosecutors have long sought to exclude certain groups from serving as jurors in capital cases, even after the courts made clear that the practice was unconstitutional. Given the long history of racial injustice in the United States, Black jurors were presumed to be sympathetic to defendants, especially to Black defendants. And in the decades after the Holocaust, Jews were presumed to be against capital punishment.

A team of prosecutors worked on the Dykes case, and the district attorney’s office said it has not been able to determine exactly who wrote the notes about prospective Jewish jurors.

The lead prosecutor in the case, Colton Carmine, is retired. Reached in Reno, Nev., where he now lives, Mr. Carmine declined to discuss the revelations about jury selection in the Dykes trial.

Ms. Price’s office has been contacting surviving relatives of the victims in the murder cases that are under review, to prepare them for the possibility of new trials and the prospect of reliving the trauma of having lost a loved one so violently.

Retrying the cases would present prosecutors with numerous challenges, like tracking down old case files and witnesses whose memories may have faded, or who have died.

Ms. Price, a former civil rights lawyer who is facing a recall election organized by critics who favor more punitive measures, said her office has reached about half the victims’ families so far. “Obviously people are not happy to hear from us after 20, sometimes 30 years, that the case is not over,” she said.

Lance Clark, the 9-year-old boy Mr. Dykes was convicted of killing, wanted to be an architect, and was “so smart, so bright,” said an uncle, Steve Robello. “He made his own toys. He made his own robots.” Just this week, he said, he visited his nephew’s grave and left flowers.

Kirstie Trias, Lance’s sister, said it was devastating to learn that Mr. Dykes may get a new trial. The notion that he was somehow a victim is “heart wrenching,” she said.

Allegations of religious and racial bias in Alameda County jury selection have surfaced before. In 2005, John R. Quatman, a former prosecutor in the district attorney’s office, gave a sworn declaration that “it was standard practice to exclude Jewish jurors in death cases.”

Mr. Quatman said at the time that a trial judge in a death penalty case had advised him to make sure that no Jewish jurors were selected.

“He said I could not have a Jew on the jury, and asked me if I was aware that when Adolf Eichmann was apprehended after World War II, there was a major controversy in Israel over whether he should be executed,” he said. Mr. Quatman added that the judge said, “no Jew would vote to send a defendant to the gas chamber.”

There is limited polling on Jewish views of the death penalty, but a 2014 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that among Jews support for capital punishment was notably lower than among white Protestants and white Catholics, while higher than among Hispanics and among Black Protestants.

Rabbi Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, the senior rabbi at Temple Sinai in Oakland, which is about to celebrate its 150th anniversary, said that learning of the alleged past pattern of bias among local prosecutors struck especially hard, given the rise of antisemitism today.

“It’s pretty awful,” she said. “The word disappointing isn’t enough.”

Alameda County, with a population of about 1.6 million, is home to about 50,000 Jews, according to a 2020 estimate by the American Jewish Population Project at Brandeis University .

Rabbi Mates-Muchin said the revelations are troubling on many fronts. “I feel horribly for the families of the victims. I also think that it isn’t fair to these defendants, who did not have a decent representation of the community that they’re from judging their case.”

Proving bias in selecting jurors, though, is notably difficult. Using what are known as peremptory challenges, lawyers can strike a certain number of prospective jurors without necessarily having to provide a reason. Even when a reason is required, lawyers can often draw on answers to jury questionnaires for indications of bias that can be used to justify excluding someone.

“For as long as there have been jury trials in death penalty cases, there has been racial discrimination and religious discrimination in the selection of juries,” said Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Policy Project, an independent research organization within the Philadelphia law firm Phillips Black. “And we see it most frequently in the context of prosecutors striking African-American jurors.”

Brian Pomerantz, a lawyer who specializes in appeals of capital cases and represents Mr. Dykes alongside another attorney, Ann-Kathryn Tria, said that exposing jury bias in death penalty prosecutions in Alameda has been “my life’s quest.”

“I’ve been chasing this for a decade,” said Mr. Pomerantz, who also represents two other death row inmates in Alameda cases whose trials he believes were tainted by the exclusion of Black and Jewish jurors.

California has the largest death row in the nation — there are currently 640 condemned inmates — but the state has not executed anyone since 2006. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, is opposed to capital punishment and has imposed a moratorium on executions. He has also shut down the death chamber at San Quentin prison and transferred death-row inmates to other prisons around the state.

It is not difficult to look in any corner of the country and find cases overturned because of jury bias, and prosecutors’ offices where striking jurors based on race or religion was common.

“Historically we’ve seen practices by prosecutors — and we know this to be true, because we’ve seen videotapes of their lectures to their colleagues,” said Robin M. Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “We’ve seen training manuals where it says, make sure to exclude everyone — women, Jews, people of color — anyone who is part of a group that they think could sympathize with someone who was on trial for his life.”

In Philadelphia, a training video that showed prosecutors how to exclude Black jurors was unearthed, leading to overturned convictions. In Mississippi, a Black man, Curtis Flowers , was tried six times in the same murder case, and ultimately the Supreme Court overturned his death sentence after ruling the prosecutors violated the Constitution in selecting the jury. More recently, a court in North Carolina held a hearing last month about allegations of racial bias in selecting a jury in the case of Hasson Bacote , a Black man sentenced to death in 2009.

Mr. Pomerantz said the emergence of such bias in Alameda County, in the heart of the liberal Bay Area, shows how ubiquitous the practice has been in the United States.

“You’re talking about where Berkeley is,” he said. “This isn’t Alabama. This isn’t Texas.”

Kirsten Noyes and Alain Delaquérière contributed research.

Tim Arango is a correspondent covering national news. He is based in Los Angeles. More about Tim Arango