Standing into danger

My brother had cancer. It is an extremely rare, extremely deadly form of leukemia. People with this form of cancer have a median survival time from diagnosis of 18 months. He was diagnosed last summer. He has been flying back and forth to Houston every two months for treatment.

The first phase of his treatment ended in February. Now he has to return to Houston every month for the next year to receive chemo. He reports to the hospital once a month, stays as a patient for five days, and then returns. The problem here is that he is immunocompromised and cannot fly because he is EXTREMELY susceptible to COVID. He can’t even be near his family when he returns home, unless they want to be isolated, too.

So, he hatched a plan. He bought a 55 foot RV. He won’t be able to drive it home to Florida from Houston, because the chemo will make him too sick to drive for long distances. Since the RV is so large, his wife can’t drive it, so knowing my experience driving fire trucks, he asked me to drive it and him home.

So we leave on Friday for Houston, where we will arrive on Sunday. He will be admitted to the hospital on Monday morning, and will be staying there as a patient until Saturday morning. I will stay in the RV with my wife in the RV and then drive us home on Saturday the 13th. We expect to be home by Monday the 15th.

So watching the upcoming trip, there is a tropical storm headed that way. The funeral of George Floyd is going to be on Monday, less than 5 miles from the RV park where we will be staying. Normally, I would be far away from an event like this, but I have no choice but to be there in support of my brother.

The big advantage I have is that the RV is mobile. I can move if the riot or storm get near, as long as things don’t cut off my escape route in a city I am unfamiliar with. My wife is nervous. My other advantage is that I am in an RV and can bring supplies. We will have gas masks, body armor, and weapons. It seems paranoid, but all I will have while I am over 1,000 miles from home is what I bring. I am thinking 2 handguns, a PDW, and an AR15. I will have 3 magazines for each handgun, and 5 magazines for each long gun. I will also bring LODS.

That should do it.

I am going to do my best to avoid, but I need to plan for everything.

Riots in Harlem

The nurses who volunteered to go to NYC to care for the people afflicted with COVID have been staying at the New Yorker Hotel in midtown Manhattan. There are charter buses that leave from the hotel every 12 hours from that hospital, transporting the medical personnel from the hotel to the various hospitals in the city. Shift change occurs, and then the bus returns to the hotel with the nurses who just went off shift.

That changed tonight. Rioters managed to stop the bus and attack its occupants. From one of the nurses who was there:

Our bus driver, Roger, was attacked last night by these despicable people. I’m the first that will respect every American’s right to peaceful protest. I’m seeing it firsthand the protest had been hijacked by Antifa and thieves. I’m headed home tomorrow due to this exact reason. I came here to help the people here during the pandemic and now having to leave due to riots. It’s so disheartening to witness the lawlessness exhibited not by the protesters, but the groups(Antifa) hiding behind the peaceful protest. I can’t and will never support their behaviors. 

My son is fine, he is not one of the people who rides that bus, and is not staying in that hotel. However, he is not happy at all with the situation, and is looking forward to getting out tomorrow. He has decided that he will not return. He told me the other night: “The way I have been treated makes me want to say, ‘Fuck New York. I don’t care if the entire city is dying, I don’t want to come back.'”

This attitude is one I am beginning to see from all of my first responder friends.

Arrest report

Here is the entire arrest report for Derek Chavin, the Minneapolis police officer that is accused of killing George Floyd. I got this from the Law of Self Defense blog, written by attorney Andrew Branca. If you want to understand how self defense law works, his blog is a great resource. He does charge for access, but it isn’t much. I will only include the complaint, I will not repeat Mr. Branca’s professional opinion here.

When a criminal complaint is filed, every word is important. Read the complaint, and remember that it was written by the prosecutor. Most importantly, read the account of how Floyd was resisting arrest. That is something that was not seen in the video.

Antifa medical section

Antifa member cries “I don’t want to lose my leg” as fellow members place a tourniquet on his leg after he was hit by a rubber bullet. It isn’t even bleeding any more. This is what we would be fighting, if we had the balls.

Looks like Biden got his wish….Police should be trained to shoot them in the leg and not the heart.

Have they begin the attempted coup?

Hitler had the Brownshirts (Sturmabteilung) during his rise to power:

Mussolini had the Blackshirts (Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale) to assist in his rise to power:

Lenin managed to overthrow the Russian government by declaring himself to be a Social Democrat. Rossiyskaya sotsial-demokraticheskaya rabochaya partiya (RSDRP)), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party.

Now we see this:

The current troubles and riots are part of a well organized and well supplied campaign. There are over 20,000 National Guard Troops that have been activated.

The rioting is much worse than anything I have seen before, even the Rodney King riots weren’t this bad. As near as I can tell, the last time there was nationwide rioting on this scale was in 1968. Has the Socialist uprising gone from cold to hot?

Minneapolis neck restraint policy:

Here is the Minneapolis Police Department’s policy on the use of force as applied to neck restraints (applicable emphasis added in RED):

5-311 USE OF NECK RESTRAINTS AND CHOKE HOLDS (10/16/02) (08/17/07) (10/01/10) (04/16/12) 

DEFINITIONS 

Choke Hold: Deadly force option. Defined as applying direct pressure on a person’s trachea or airway (front of the neck), blocking or obstructing the airway (04/16/12) 

Neck Restraint: Non-deadly force option. Defined as compressing one or both sides of a person’s neck with an arm or leg, without applying direct pressure to the trachea or airway (front of the neck). Only sworn employees who have received training from the MPD Training Unit are authorized to use neck restraints. The MPD authorizes two types of neck restraints: Conscious Neck Restraint and Unconscious Neck Restraint. (04/16/12) 

Conscious Neck Restraint: The subject is placed in a neck restraint with intent to control, and not to render the subject unconscious, by only applying light to moderate pressure. (04/16/12) 

Unconscious Neck Restraint: The subject is placed in a neck restraint with the intention of rendering the person unconscious by applying adequate pressure. (04/16/12)

PROCEDURES/REGULATIONS II. 

A. The Conscious Neck Restraint may be used against a subject who is actively resisting. (04/16/12) 

B. The Unconscious Neck Restraint shall only be applied in the following circumstances: (04/16/12)

  1. On a subject who is exhibiting active aggression, or; 
  2. For life saving purposes, or; 
  3. On a subject who is exhibiting active resistance in order to gain control of the subject; and if lesser attempts at control have been or would likely be ineffective.

C. Neck restraints shall not be used against subjects who are passively resisting as defined by policy. (04/16/12) 

D. After Care Guidelines (04/16/12) 

  1. After a neck restraint or choke hold has been used on a subject, sworn MPD employees shall keep them under close observation until they are released to medical or other law enforcement personnel. 
  2. An officer who has used a neck restraint or choke hold shall inform individuals accepting custody of the subject, that the technique was used on the subject.
So the MPD authorizes neck restraints. The only question is: Was Floyd actively or passively resisting? The policy defines that as well:

Active Resistance: A response to police efforts to bring a person into custody or control for detainment or arrest. A subject engages in active resistance when engaging in physical actions (or verbal behavior reflecting an intention) to make it more difficult for officers to achieve actual physical control. (10/01/10) (04/16/12)

Passive Resistance: A response to police efforts to bring a person into custody or control for detainment or arrest. This is behavior initiated by a subject, when the subject does not comply with verbal or physical control efforts, yet the subject does not attempt to defeat an officer’s control efforts. (10/01/10) (04/16/12)



Looking at the criminal complaint

Officers Kueng and Lane stood Mr. Floyd up and attempted to walk Mr. Floyd to their squad car (MPD 320)at 8:14 p.m. Mr. Floyd stiffened up, fell to the ground, and told the officers he was claustrophobic.MPD Officers Derek Chauvin (the defendant) and Tou Thoa then arrived in a separate squad car.
The officers made several attempts to get Mr. Floyd in the backseat of squad 320 from the driver’s side.Mr. Floyd did not voluntarily get in the car and struggled with the officers by intentionally falling down, saying he was not going in the car, and refusing to stand still. Mr. Floyd is over six feet tall and weighs more than 200 pounds.

While standing outside the car, Mr. Floyd began saying and repeating that he could not breathe. The defendant went to the passenger side and tried to get Mr. Floyd into the car from that side and Lane and Kueng assisted

I will leave that up to you to decide whether or not the above statement constitutes active or passive resistance. Either way, try to have an open mind and put yourself in the place of a jury.