You know what’s worse than 3 people dead and 176 injured? Millions of people thinking they have constitutional rights, but finding out they actually don’t.
And a right that the government can selectively take away when it feels like it? That is not a right. At that point, it’s simply a privilege.
Pointing a gun at somebody IS violence. This is violence against citizenry. At this point, it’s almost a collective punishment for allowing a terrorist to attack.
The worst part is how many people are lined up saying this is okay — Americans have completely and utterly forgotten what freedom is supposed to be.
They now just want a security force that keeps the maximum bodies alive, regardless of consequence to free will.
Fuck that, and Fuck Boston, city of pussies. From the great boston tea party of the 1770s to the pussydom of today, there’s no city in the country that’s pissed harder on its own legacy of freedom.
Adding extra insult to all this? The raids made no difference. The suspect wasn’t in a house, and was found by civilian tips. The police made little difference. This was about training people to obey Big Brother.
When will Joe Arpaio’s despotic rule end? This guy needs to drop dead.
Her medical form was dated after she went to the hospital.
A videotape was erased.
Her phone calls were erased.
Written guard testimony was destroyed.
Her diabetic bracelet “disappeared”.
Yup. Jaywalking = death sentence. You can see it in the video. A man running away is not a threat, and certainly a man that’s been shot in the back 4 times is not a threat either.
Supposedly they found a gun on him, but there were none of his fingerprints on him. Doesn’t matter if he did have a gun — carrying a gun is our constitutional right.
Imagine how much more this happened before we had surveillance cameras everywhere — back when the violent crime rate was higher than it is today.
Isn’t it funny how the cop’s name is protected from the public, but people who are arrested are a matter of public record? One set of laws for us, another set of laws for them.
…And then the teen (who had committed no crime before the cops decided to mess with him) spent 4 months in jail based on a struggle the cop made up…. He went to jail 4 months for “assaulting” an officer so bad that a gun “went off” in the struggle. But oops. Caught on camera. It was the cop doing the assaulting, and even if the kid had gotten in a physical fight with the cop, it is no excuse to walk up and sucker-pistol whip someone so recklessly that a gun shoots in a random direction.
Where were the tasers again?
Yea.. these kids seemed like stupid pranksters, but now they are a waste of our tax dollars instead. I hope he wins the $10M lawsuit. Corporal Donald Taylor should get the fate that awaits cops who go to prison. This is injustice.
Freshly released: Actual video of police killing a homeless man. The video is FORTY MINUTES IN LENGTH, with TWENTY MINUTES OF BRUTALITY.
If 6 officers couldn’t take this guy down in less than 20 minutes, none of them deserve to keep their job.
For once, the pigs are actually charged with murder and manslaughter. But wait. Only 2 of the 6 officers were actually charged. Seems to be that if you mindlessly dogpile onto an existing situation, you’re just fine. They never charge everyone who actually did it.
“I just started smashing his face to hell” -one of the officers
The guy had meth in his blood, therefore it’s okay for a group of taxpayer-funded thugs to murder him in cold blood while he screams for help, right?
The audio was released before. PBS just released the video. Unlike Rodney King, this guy died. Unlike Rodney King, there were twice as many officers surrounding this guy.
And here it is – watch your tax dollars being used to murder a man. Now on video. (Of course they tried to confiscate said video.)
All caught on video. Because smart black people know that catching it on video is the only way anybody is ever going to believe anything (if you’re black). If a cop gets shot, the whole county is supposed to have a parade and be all sad. If a black person gets shot — well, they were probably on drugs or in a gang, right? [sarcasm]
Here’s the thing. The law states that expired plates over 3 months are an arrestable offense. Don’t be surprised if you get arrested when committing an arrestable offense. That’s how laws work. THREE MONTHS.
This, apparently, wasn’t news ’til they did it to a white woman from another state. You can bet this was going on with black people in D.C. ever since the law was written.
I’ve had family get stolen vehicles recovered from the police in D.C. They had an invalid plate, so they looked into it further, ran the VIN, and recovered my father in law’s vehicle that was jacked. Guy pretended to be hurt, he tried to help and 2 other guys took his truck. Police got his vehicle back. He tried to tip them $200. They mailed his check back to him.
So while this seems excessive, license plate laws have been found to be valid. You can’t just ignore the law and think there are no consequences. You commit an arrestable offense; you get arrested.
As much as I blog about abuses of authority and civil rights, this is just a case of someone whining about getting caught. Enforcing license plate laws is not a waste of resources. It’s arguable more important than most of the bullshit the police do, like the bullshit war on drugs.
Enjoy your low insurance premiums – they’d be a lot higher if officers ignored license plates and were unanble to figure out which vehicles are stolen. (more…)
After seeing some people scream “police state” in some rather ridiculous situations — I’ve decided to introduce a new tag to my links: “NOT Abuse Of Authority”.
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It is harmful to the cause of liberty if people scream “Abuse Of Authority” in a situation where it is not. It makes it look like there are those who simply have no respect for the rule of law, or those who simply can’t differentiate from two kinds of situations, and thus aren’t worth listening to. And it sends a message to the conservative half of our country that we need more enforcement, less police accountability, and more rules — to counteract these “anarchists” who have “no respect for rule of law” and are “against” them.
We need law.
We need order.
If you don’t like it, live in Somalia or rural Mexico. See how well you fare without the police around to ensure a modicum of order. If you’re rural, you’ll probably be fine. If you’re around large groups of people with no law, good luck. You’ll need it. Especially if you’re a woman, or are demographically different from the prevailing group.
The problem with police is they are power-hungry abusive violent thugs and abuse their authority; that does not mean the authority itself is wrong, or that this is true for all cops. I don’t want cops killed. Cops have pretty much saved my life. I don’t want cops killed; I want injustice stopped.
Specifically what brought this tag on is people shouting “police state” at the “girl punched for jaywalking” [simpleton's summary] story. But anyone with an ability to discern should know that, as expert photojournalist Carlos Miller so well put, “Seattle Girl Had It Coming To Her“.
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The story as I understand it:
1) School builds taxpayer-funded skywalk for students to cross the street without interfering with traffic.
2) Students ignore taxpayer-funded skywalk, and instead walk in the street, not in an intersection, to the detriment of the drivers, who paid taxes for the road, for their car, and for the gas they are wasting when they hit their brakes to save the lives of idiot kids who walk in front of traffic.
3) School asks police to come enforce jaywalking, in order to make the kids use the fucking skywalk they’re supposed to use. I’m pretty sure any reasonable parent would support this, as nobody wants their kid run over.
4) Police send one officer, as we shouldn’t have to fund TWO officer’s salaries every time we want anything done. We already spend enough tax money. One officer is enough; they have guns, they have the power to get a job done without a partner, even if a partner would be a better way to do it.
5) Cop tickets male for jaywalking.
6) Two females decide they don’t like this, and go over and push the cop, interfere with his duties, and assault him. If I went up to you at your job, and pushed you out of your chair, I would be guilty of assault too. But these girls were guilty of assaulting an officer.
7) Cop shows amazing restraint in not whipping out billyclub, taser, or gun, and simply tries to wrestle the girl. But, as any schoolteacher knows, even a 10-year-old can be hard to overcome, let alone two 17-year-old girls with a major attitude problem.
8) Crowd gets close enough to the cop that they could have grabbed his gun, hit him in the head, etc, etc. Meanwhile girls are still assaulting him.
9) After the girl struggles with the officer for OVER TWO MINUTES, cop makes one punch. A pulled punch. Girl isn’t even sent to the hospital with a broken nose, because it was not a full-on punch.
10) Situation is immediately put under control, girls are arrested, I’m thinking the actual jaywalker was only ticketed because he did not resist, and the kids know to USE THE FUCKING SKYWALK WE PAYED FOR WITH OUR TAXES.
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This is not police state bullshit.
This is how the system is supposed to work.
Jaywalking laws ARE VALID.
Laws are to be challenged IN COURT.
Car accidents are the biggest accidental threat to life that exists.
Safety measures related to cars are about the only valid safety measures our government actually deals with. (Our terrorism safety measures are a joke; terrorism kills 300 Americans a year on average [10 yr average], car accidents kill OVER FORTY THOUSAND A YEAR.)
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Those who want to fight and argue about this issue are actually HELPING THE POLICE ABUSE in 2 ways:
1) Ignoring ACTUAL cases of police abuse and spending energy against REAL VICTIMS to whine about these FAKE victims.
2) Providing conservatives with an example of liberalism that they can use and gloat for for the rest of their lives. “Yew librawls dun even wan jaywalkin’ laws, of course yew canuh stand up to terrarism or hav anythun worth thinkin’ bout law!”
I’ve said time and time again that POLICE CANNOT SHOOT AT MOVING CARS. It’s not only against policy, but it’s also using deadly force in a situation where a person is not a threat. It’s also stupid. Typically it is someone running away from police that police shoot to death. Typically it’s for a lesser crime that does not carry the death penalty. Typically it represents 1 death versus a situation that otherwise would have 0 deaths.
However, all generalities are made to be broken, and this is a situation that breaks the general rule that police cannot shoot at moving cars. This guy wasn’t just running away from police. He wasn’t just speeding, or smuggling drugs. He was driving on the WRONG side of the road, and hit *FIVE* — yes FIVE — cars. Possibly going 100MPH, but nobody clocked him. Doesn’t matter. He hit 5 cars on the wrong side of the road.
Then he started driving away AGAIN after the police came. They shot 5 or 6 times, and he was killed.
Now, I would have liked for the police to have been able to end this in another method. But the fact of the matter is, 5 cars + wrong side of the road + continuing to do it more. This guy was a threat. If he had gone on to kill somebody, then people would have whined that the police did not do enough. This isn’t 1 death versus 0 deaths, this is 1 death versus many potential deaths.
If a tiger was loose and about to attack me, I would hope the police would shoot it. This person, by hitting 5 cars going the wrong way on the highway and STILL not stopping, had, in effect, turned himself into a metaphorical tiger. He was a wild animal. There is no time for a trial. He had to be put down before he killed somebody. He was damn lucky to NOT have killed someone already by hitting FIVE CARS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD.
And now his parents are suing.
And for once, I’m on the side of the police, and against the people suing. I’m, more or less, in support of the police shooting, to death, an unarmed man fleeing in his vehicle.
I may change my mind if I find more circumstance, but for now, let this serve as an example that I *AM* capable of discerning. I do not simply think “everytime a cop does something, it’s wrong”, or “everytime a cop shoots someone unarmed, it’s wrong”. THE REAL WORLD IS NUANCED. I’ll try to be too. This is a case of saving lives by stopping a killer. Vehicular manslaughter is still death. This guy fucked up not once, but twice. He continued to do it AFTER injuring people.
So anyway, I shall, from now on, occasionally post “NOT Abuse Of Authority” stories, just to show that I don’t universally rule against the police, and to provide a bit of balance to this blog.
After all, if Carlos Miller did it, I can too. He’s an idol of mine at this point. (more…)
“When a person, being without fault, is in a place where he has a right to be, is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel by force, and if, in the reasonable exercise of his right of self defense, his assailant is killed, he is justified.” Runyan v. State, 57 Ind. 80; Miller v. State, 74 Ind. 1.
“These principles apply as well to an officer attempting to make an arrest, who abuses his authority and transcends the bounds thereof by the use of unnecessary force and violence, as they do to a private individual who unlawfully uses such force and violence.” Jones v. State, 26 Tex. App. I; Beaverts v. State, 4 Tex. App. 1 75; Skidmore v. State, 43 Tex. 93, 903.
“An illegal arrest is an assault and battery. The person so attempted to be restrained of his liberty has the same right to use force in defending himself as he would in repelling any other assault and battery.” (State v. Robinson, 145 ME. 77, 72 ATL. 260).
Each person has the right to resist an unlawful arrest. In such a case, the person attempting the arrest stands in the position of a wrongdoer and may be resisted by the use of force, as in self- defense.” (State v. Mobley, 240 N.C. 476, 83 S.E. 2d 100).
“One may come to the aid of another being unlawfully arrested, just as he may where one is being assaulted, molested, raped or kidnapped. Thus it is not an offense to liberate one from the unlawful custody of an officer, even though he may have submitted to such custody, without resistance.” (Adams v. State, 121 Ga. 16, 48 S.E. 910).
And on the issue of actually killing an arresting officer in self defense:
“Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer’s life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. This premise was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case: John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529 (more…)
Of course I suppose somebody’s going to say the law is the law and every rule should be enforced 100% of the time against 100% of the people? I’d love to face people with THAT reality and see how well they fare. Put cameras in their house and see if everyone can really obey everything all the time. :)
And of course, CNN is a load of crap anyway. If they really cared about the news, they wouldn’t take their stories down later. But try going back to old stories that you saved the link to — they’re gone. So when they do things like report on the FBI turning on cellphone microphones without the phone making a call — it makes it kind of hard to convince skeptical people that they actually did it. That way they get to maintain their “mainstream” image even when reporting on things that some people might not want to believe. Nice tactic. Personally, I think anything a news organization posts online should remain static for perpetuity.
So anyway — CNN protects the officer here?
I’m so sick of mainstream news. They’ll name “persons of interest” but they wont name a cop who did this? Obviously the ticket is not a forgery. This is real fucking news.
So someone please — tell me who it is. Whoever it is deserves to have their name as public knowledge as much as Jennifer Davis, the pregnant woman ticketed.
I’d like to know exactly what the ticket is for. If they pulled up behind a cop already writing out a ticket to ask him for help — I don’t see how it could be a speeding ticket. Did he literally ticket them for being in the “brakedown lane” by asking him for help?
I have some firsthand experience with this. I once pulled behind a cop to ask for help. I got a gun pointed at my head, and verbal commands that I could not hear due to heavy winds that day in the opposite direction. I put my hands up and hoped for the best. All I wanted was directions to my first day on the job, which I was late for after chasing a raccoon out of the living space of my house that I had just moved into. I was not familiar with the local roads and thought I could ask for help. Nearly fatal mistake. Fortunately I’m white and it was day time and it was clear that my hands were up.
What a scumbag. Watch the video for yourself. This is an annual bike rally *to promot safety* for bicyclists. And Patrick Rogan’s first move after doing this? Arresting the guy for “attempted assault” (bullshit), and the 2 catch-all charges of “disorderly conduct” and “resisting arrest”, which any officer can give any human at any time and have it be sustained in most courts of law.
How was he obstructing traffic if he’s riding in a rally with 100s of other bikers? He seemed to be picked at random. The officer couldn’t have communicated with him prior to shoving him down, because he was on foot and would have been out of vocal range.
Asshole Officer Patrick Rogan had the gall to say that the bicyler tried to run him over. Judging from the video, he certainly seems to be a lying pig:
One bad cop ruins the good that 1000 good cops can do. Better for traffic to be obstructed than any american having a random chance of winning the police brutality lottery. This fucker should get his ass pounded in prison, and should be individual sued with no immunity by the biker. He should have to pay for any injuries out of his own pocket. But of course he wont. He’ll just get a new cop job in another state, like they almost always do. Come back to this post in a few months or years to see how it turned out.
2) He plead guilty and was convicted of assault — so he is now officially a criminnal.
3) The man was a stabbing victim. He was unruly because they wanted insurance info and weren’t treating him as fast as he’d like. I’d be unruly too. Hospital’s job is to heal, not bill. If he has no insurance, they’re still required to stabilize any wounds.
4) The man was already handcuffed for being unruly.
5) The man was 60 years old.
6) Pig’s police department didn’t want him, but he used lawyers to bully his way back into a job.
7) FBI wants to investigate, but the guy has ties to the FBI from his previous job as an FBI supervisor.
Wow. Just…. wow. I don’t see how there’s a sliver’s chance in hell this guy can walk around with a gun and play with other peoples’ lives — but then again, Chicago has one of the most corrupt police departments in the nation (systemic torture of blacks, anyone? 10,000 complaints, anyone?). And their new commissioner promised zero tolerance, but this sure as fuck isn’t zero tolerance.
I’m tired of political theatre. We need results. Federal law banning police officers convicted of anything. Federal law making any assault by an officer an automatic felony.
Police need to be held to higher standards – even when off duty.
Good for you, Intel. Win2K is just fine, as is WinXP. The only reason to ever upgrade is forced obsolescence. (I’m talking to YOU, ATI. How dare you stop releasing 2K drivers for your video cards?)
WANT LAWSUIT. And also an 811 service, for people who don’t want armed cops showing up. Yet another mom loses her child by calling 911. Brown and want to live? Drive someone to the hospital yourself. Don’t trust the authorities to not kill you.
Lawsuit won. Seattle taxpayers get to pay $100,000 due to their heavy-handed idiot officers. Of course internal affairs exonerated the officer, as they usually do. Seattle Poliece Chief Gil Kerlikowske is a tool.
This is not the same Homer Simpson vagina that I blogged about many moons ago. Same concept, but multiple pictures. The cucumber is particularly funny. We had a good laugh.
I’d normally wait until I post these on flickr, but a photobucket was started for everyone to dump pics in. So all my pics are dumped here for anyone who wants to see them now.
Or is the issue here that it was in the 3rd trimester? Still, coming from a Christian state like Alabama, which fought desegregation and interracial marriage, this just seems like the religious right trying to advance where the legal line is drawn.
It’s ridiculous for young people to be put on a sex offender list. Something designed to protect children (tho it actually often drives sex offenders underground) being used against children…
It’s amazing how a large section of our country is comparable to a large section of Iran. Fucking religious idiots — wherever you look. But especially in Wisconsin. Julaine Appling should get cancer.
Another good blog from my uncle Sean, firstborn son of the cult my grandfather started. (Yes, I like to mention this every time. And if any cult members want to purchase some holy blood, mine is up for sale.)
Even if the drug dealer really did reach for their gun–that’s not a license to kill. Of course, with the department being so secretive about it (where’s the video?), it’s kind of hard to believe their story.
This guy has abused his authority about 10 times I can find in this article alone. Who knows what else he’s done that the public doesn’t know about? Personally, I think Aaron Nigo is a professional hypocrite and thug. ATTENTION BIG SPRING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS: See if you can drive this guy over the edge and put it on youtube. He just needs on more nail in his coffin; he’s fucked up 10 times. It should be easy. Sadly, this story is not that unique. (more…)
If you think things in America are that different from China, just remember to take a sanity pill every once-in-awhile and to realize that things here are still BAD — very very BAD. Arguably freedom is worse off in America than it has been since McCartyhism. When Tibetans can’t even protest to Free Tibet in front of the fucking UN building with a Tibet flag on it, without officers beating, clubbing, and threatning to kill them — realize that the freedoms we have here are barely left. With the powers that be making big bucks off of trade agreements with China, dissent against China is synonymous with dissent against Big American Business. And Big American Business can most certainly influence how the police treat peaceful protesters. Observe for yourself:
They tried to force him to say his Dad molested his sister — interrogated him for 2 hours without counsel, on video, of course lying to him the entire time – said by most observers to be scarring psychological torture. Granted, the dad seems a bit creepy, but I think West Bloomfield Police Detective Joseph Brousseau should himselff be molested — in prison — after what he’s done. If only there was a way to make him autistic first. Even if it’s technically legal — so was slavery and the Holocaust (Godwin’s Law FTW!). I understand the need to protect children, especially those afraid to come forward … But practically forcing them to accuse a family member is not protecting children. It is the opposite, and an affront to law enforcement and justice everywhere. (more…)
The guy who made Eliza is dead? Maaaan. That sucks. I heard about this from Ryan’s blog. Before you could download on the internet… Before you could download from a BBS… before you could even connect to another machine… They would publish books full of printed programs. You would “download” them by driving them home, and then typing them in. As some computer science professors are fond of saying, “Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truckload of CDs driving down the highway.” Indeed, a few years ago there was a study, and it was found that Netflix alone transmits as much data as 25% of the entire internet. (Data has exploded since then, so this percentage is probably lower now.)
So — When I was 6-7, I spent pretty much a MONTH of what was possibly my summer vacation, spending hours each day typing up the Eliza program into my Apple2+ (48k memory). I wanted to chat, goddammit.
Then when I was done, for some reason I decided to type “NEW”, which cleared the program currently in memory. Then saved my work over the filename I’d been saving to. So, I saved an empty program over my one month’s typing.
Suffice to say, that was probably the first time technology broke my spirit (I think socially it was already broken by then).
I did download Eliza later, and remember it well.
And don’t forget Dr. Sbaitso, of course. I even once received a forwarded VirginiaTech PhoneMail (voice mail that you could forward) of Dr. Sbaitso reciting a dirty limerick (I have it on mp3, and it happened on Sep 25 1992 at 9:30PM). (more…)
Story of Abu Omar, kidnapped from Italy by the C.I.A., “rendered” to Egypt, where he was tortured — for years. Imagine 7 months non-stop in handcuffs & a blindfold. Imagine not seeng your husband for 2 yrs. While it was the Bush administration that sent THIS guy to egypt, it was a democrat — Bill Clinton — who started the extraordinary rendition program. I point this out, because people seem to think the democrats care about the constitution. They don’t — and you can be damn sure that under Obama, our rights would continue to erode, albeit at a slightly slowed pace.
His crime? Apparently he didn’t let go of his roommate/girlfriend’s hand soon enough, and she yelled “You’re hurting me”. I should add that they are both retarded, and he is deaf. He let go, and AFTER THAT disgraceful Officer William Smith comes over and beats the living fuck out of him. Then, the officer took advantage of his retardedness, and the fact that he can’t possibly understand his Miranda rights while being both retarded and in an ambulance — and coaxed a “confession” out of him. One interesting thing that the article mentions is that it is against regulation to handcuff a retarded person without their caretaker present. Of course this is an aggravating factor in the ensuing lawsuit! good! Officer William Smith sounds like he would be right at home in Nazi Germany, or some other brutal 3rd world hellhole. The punishment should never be worse than the “crime”! And in this case, the “victim” Marie Kavanaugh had no injury, and, I’m pretty sure did not even want to press charges. And yet, this other guy has to be permanently disfigured (as if being retarded wasn’t bad enough!). His ribs went through his bladder. 4 surgeries. His kneecap was destroyed. I repeat: He was beaten so badly that he had no kneecap left. Complete replacement. Officer William Smith, you are a Grade A thug. You’re not even good enough for Iraq.
This guy has abused his authority about 10 times I can find in this article alone. Who knows what else he’s done that the public doesn’t know about? Personally, I think 
They tried to force him 
COMPUTERS: “Eliza” programmer dead: Moment Of Silence: R.I.P. Joseph Weizenbaum
Story of Abu Omar, kidnapped from Italy by the C.I.A., “rendered” to Egypt, where he was tortured — for years. 
