Divemedic

Poor Reaction Times

A car ran into the Presidential motorcade last night. The sedan struck a trailing vehicle as the President was exiting his campaign headquarters and heading towards his vehicle. The collision happened less than 100 feet from the President. What’s important here is the poor reaction times displayed by the USSS agents in his detail. Watch closely. The collision happens 10 seconds into the video.

The agents spend the next 5 seconds looking around and trying to decide what to do. Their first reaction should be to get the President to safety. They don’t get him into the armored SUV until 14 seconds after the collision. Had this collision been an attack involving an VBIED or a gunman, there is a fair chance that the President would have been caught in the open.

By Divemedic, ago

New Generation is Helpless

Sometimes you see something so stupid, you have to make time to comment on it.

The fact that no one knows how to use a map astounds me. There was a book with every street written in it in alphabetical order. You looked up the street, and it would say D 7, for example. If it was a map in the book, there would also be a page number. If it was a large wall map, the letter and number is all that you got. In later books, there would also be a “cross street” which would be the name of a large street that intersected the one you were looking for.

You would then look on the map, with letters down the side and numbers across the top. Your street was found on the map using those. As to which house number, the acronym “NEON” was useful, and it meant North and East are Odd Numbers. Meaning that the North and East side of the street is where Odd addresses were found.

Now comes the tricky part- what if you are looking for a large street that ran a long distance? Well, for that we had to memorize “address breaks.” For example, let’s say that Vine street runs the width of the town from North to South. I know that the 100 East and 100 West blocks are separated by Main Street. Going South on Main street the numbers would start at 100 South main and increase. Then I had to know that Elm was the 400/500 South Main divider. I also had to know that Pine Street was the 1000/1100 divider, etc.

You would be dispatched like this: “Rescue 14, reported seizures to a child. 1124 15th Street. Map page 27, D-14. Select tactical three for updates. Time out 1457.”

When we hired a firefighter, he would have two weeks to learn where all of the equipment on every vehicle at the station was located. The test was “where are all of the spanner wrenches found,” or perhaps “how many SCBA bottles are on the engine?” and then “Where are the nonrebreather oxygen masks on the rescue?”

At one month after hire, you were given a map book test. You had to know how to use the map book, and more importantly, you had to know where all of the major address breaks in the city were located. The test would be “You are driving west on Central Avenue, approaching Main Street. The address you are looking for is 1884 Main street. So when I reach Main, do I take a left or a right?” You better know the answer, probie.

I am sure that pizza delivery drivers, taxi drivers, cops, and even the electric company did something similar. I can’t believe that this new generation is so helplessly stupid about anything that isn’t on Tik Tok.

By Divemedic, ago

Pause

You will note that there was not really a post yesterday. There really isn’t one today, and there may not be one tomorrow morning, either.

Events in my personal life have been taking up all of my time as of late. We went to retrieve Mom’s ashes from the Funeral Home, then there are work obligations, preparations for the coming holiday, final inspections on our new home, completing financing and preparing to close on the same, and preparing for our upcoming move.

In other words, something has to give, and there is no spare time for me to post for now. Maybe by Tuesday.

At least college is on semester break right now, so that helps a bit. College sure is easier when you are younger and have fewer responsibilities. The only nice thing about being so busy is that my life and time are so full that I don’t have time to dwell on the loss of my mother and the grief that would otherwise consume me.

By Divemedic, ago

Bailing Out with Munter

If you spend time on the second to fourth floor of a building, you have to ask yourself how you will get out of that spot in an emergency. Enter the bailout kit. I carried one clipped to my gear when I was a firefighter, and I’m telling you that this a great to use in an emergency if you need to get out of a tall building in a hurry. Some of you have asked for more firefighter on the job tricks, so this post is one of those.

When my son was 14 years old or so, the two of us got in a bit of hot water with the apartment complex manager when I was teaching him how to use this system. What we were doing was climbing the stairs to the third floor, and then using it to rappel down to the ground. Over and over. She saw this and came over to yell at us for it. Killjoy.

It’s an easy concept. All you need is a bag with 40 feet of 8mm climbing rope and a pair of locking carabiners. There is a kit here that has the rope and one carabiner. You can get more carabiners here. Make sure that whatever you get is certified for climbing. Buying the cheap stuff will ensure that it fails when you need it.

Store the bag with the rope in it, and one carabiner attached to the near end with a bowline knot. The other carabiners (one for each person who will be escaping) just need to be clipped to the handle on the outside of the bag. When it’s time to bail out, hand each escapee a carabiner, clip the one that is tied to the end of the rope to something sturdy (we will get to that in a minute) and toss the bag out of the window. At this point, you should have a carabiner in your hand and be looking at a rope that is attached to something sturdy at one end, and is trailing out of the window all the way to the ground.

Now you need to clip that carabiner to yourself. If you are wearing a sturdy gunbelt (you DO wear a 1 inch or larger leather belt for EDC, don’t you?) that will do. Whatever you wear for a belt needs to be able to support your weight. Now tie the rope in a munter hitch and attach it to the carabiner that is clipped around your belt.

Now you can simply bail out of the window by using the munter hitch to control your descent. Each person who has a carabiner can do this. Please note that this is for emergency escape where remaining in the building will be fatal. I do not recommend using a belt as a climbing or rappelling device under normal conditions.

If you are going to practice this technique, please use a safety line with someone on belay. If you don’t know how to do this, please take a climbing or rappelling course.

Parting thought… Why do they have female firefighters?

Well, who else is going to make the sandwiches?

By Divemedic, ago

For What’s Right

I am posting this as a person who is an atheist, but one who believes in most of the virtuous support of family values that are espoused by those who are religious. In the Iowa statehouse, a Satanic church was permitted to place a statue of Satan and an altar celebrating him. We were told that this was done to allow equal access to all religions.

A man by the name of Michael Cassidy knocked down the statue and cut off its head. There are many who are demanding criminal charges. I disagree and fully support Mr. Cassidy.

This protest by Mr Cassidy was no different than protesters who tore down Confederate flags and statues. If those on the left are going to prohibit and protest Christians and their displays (including displays of the Ten Commandments) under the guise of “separation of church and state,” then that would include ALL religions, not just the Christian ones.

Just my 2 cents.

By Divemedic, ago

The Military Follows Orders

Out of all of the urban legends out there, the one that makes me shake my head in wonder is, “the US military would never fire shots in anger against the American people.”

As if. The civilians who were threatened with force, or subjected to force, by American troops would like to have a word:

  • 1791: The Whiskey Rebellion
  • 1863: The New York City Draft Riots
  • 1877: Great Railroad Strike in 1877
  • 1932: The Bonus Army
  • 1957: Desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas
  • 1962: Desegregation of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi
  • 1963: Desegregation of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
  • 1965 March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama
  • 1967 Detroit Riots
  • 1967: Newark Riots
  • 1968 King assassination riots in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
  • 1970 New York City Postal Strike in 1970
  • 1980 Cuban Refugee Crisis
  • 1989 Hurricane Hugo
  • 1992: Los Angeles Riots
  • 1993: Branch Davidians in Waco

This would play out with NCA finding a way to paint the targets as being insurrectionists, rebels, or some other hated class. This dehumanization reaches its peak, then the military is sent to solve the problem.

By Divemedic, ago

Qualified Immunity

Two police officers beat the crap out of a homeowner before arresting him for standing on his own porch. The two officers were dressed in plain clothes and driving an unmarked police car. They saw a man, later identified as Shase Howse, standing on the porch. Howse was standing there, trying to figure out which pocket his keys were in.

The two officers, who never identified themselves as being police officers, asked him if he lived there. Howse answered in the affirmative, but the officers asked him if he was sure that he lived there.

The cop then asked Howse if he was sure he lived there. “Yes, what the fuck?” Howse responded, still unaware that he was talking to a cop. The cop didn’t like his bad attitude, so exited the unmarked police vehicle and asked him again if he lived there.

The officer then told him to put his hands behind his back because he was under arrest. Howse refused, telling the men that he lived at the residence and that he’d done nothing wrong. The two men then threw Howse to the ground, and handcuffed him while Howse resisted. It was after he was tackled that Howse realized the men were police officers. They had not once identified themselves and produced identification.

Howse’s mother, who also lived at the home, testified that she saw the end of the confrontation, and that she watched the cops beat him once he was on the ground and in cuffs by straddling him and punching him repeatedly in the head. Charges were dropped, and the eventual lawsuit went all the way to SCOTUS, who said the cops had qualified immunity before dismissing the case.

This could easily have been me. I was once stopped by a bogus cop, but in my case I drew a gun on the asshole. What if he had actually BEEN a cop? It would have likely resulted in a gunfight, and there is a pretty good chance that I and one or more cops would have been killed. They would be completely immune.

Qualified immunity has to go.

By Divemedic, ago

Broken Beyond Repair

My brother is undergoing chemo treatment for cancer and is unable to tolerate a physical altercation because the chemo has weakened him enough that he would not survive a violent encounter. He is also a business owner, and even does business with the city and the police department. The cops in the smallish town know him for the most part, as he has been doing business there for about 30 years.

For 25 of those years, he has owned a distribution center that is contained in a large building. The main warehouse and his offices take up most of the building. He leases out several smaller spaces that are contained in the building and uses one of the spaces as a gym that is available for his own and his employees’ use. He also has a parking lot in front of the building, and there is a fenced in area where his delivery vehicles are parked at night. There are a pile of security cameras covering every square foot of the place.

The nature of his business is that he frequently has large amounts of cash on the property, sometimes as much as $25,000. His delivery drivers have been robbed a few times, twice at gunpoint. There is an armored car that comes by to pick up the cash on a regular basis, but because of the large amounts of cash, my brother is armed while at work, and he allows his office staff to carry firearms if they have a CCW. My mother used to be his manager, and she carried a gun at work. Yes, we really are a gun owning family. My sister is the only one of us that doesn’t routinely carry a gun.

(On a side note, he once had to make a large deposit, and I helped him out by riding literal shotgun in the back of the van that was carrying the cash. I was armed with a 12ga and a 9mm handgun. We weren’t robbed.)

One of his employees was working late. A pair of vagrants (1 male, 1 female) approached the employee while he was inside of the fenced area and asked for a handout. The employee refused, and the male vagrant responded by saying, “You are lucky that I asked. I usually just take what I want.” The employee called my brother and told him about it, and my brother called the police. When the police arrived, my brother gave the police a copy of security camera video. The police told him that they didn’t know who the pair were, but stated that they would investigate. It turns out that they were lying on both counts.

A week later, my brother was inside the onsite gym and heard a noise outside. He grabbed his Sig 365 and went to investigate. He found the pair outside of the building, but inside of the fenced in part of the property. When they were told to leave, the male of the pair immediately put his hands into a backpack that was at his feet. My brother, who was on the phone with 911, immediately drew his weapon and screamed at him, “Let me see your hands or I will shoot you.” The pair ran off.

When the cops arrived, they made contact with the pair of vagrants just a block away. They told the police that they were in fear for their lives, and that my brother threatened to kill them. One of the cops even admitted to my son that, if the officer had been faced with the same events, the vagrant would have gotten shot. The police began questioning my brother. A friend of his from the police department called him and warned him that the cops were going to try and flip it on him to make him look like the bad guy. It turns out that there was much more to the story. More on that at the end of this post.

When the detective arrived, he read my brother his rights, and that was when my brother told them he didn’t want to answer any questions without an attorney present. It was at that point that the detective told him to put his hands behind his back and arrested him for aggravated battery and intent to cause serious bodily harm. In the arrest report, the detective used my brother’s earlier statements from before his rights were read to him and also the fact that he refused to answer questions without an attorney once he was Mirandized as the reasons for probable cause to make the arrest. That is a blatant violation of my brother’s Constitutional Rights. You have a right to both remain silent, and to have an attorney present while being questioned, and exercising those rights can’t be used against you.

There is, as I said earlier, more to the story. The pair of vagrants were well known to the local cops. They are both known drug users. Even though my brother was not aware of it, they both have multiple felony convictions for burglary, possession of burglary tools, and drug possession (meth), as well as many more arrests that didn’t result in convictions. However, the cops certainly knew them and were lying about not being able to identify them, because the pair of them is being used by the police as confidential informants. This is a case of the police were trying to shield their informants for the attempted robbery from the week before. That is also important.

Pointing a firearm at someone is, under Florida law, NOT lethal force. Especially when they are on your property and in the process of committing a felony, and you (the property owner) have reason to believe that they are willing to commit violence AND are making furtive movements as if to retrieve a weapon.

My brother hired a good attorney, and they didn’t have a single hearing, with the exception of his arraignment. The attorney made her discovery request and demanded all information in the possession of the police, even a copy of the records of the vagant/informants. The police refused. Taking all of the facts into account, the state attorney decided to enter a notice of nolle prosequi.

This cost my brother three months of worry AND about $3,000 in legal fees. He also lost his concealed weapons permit, which was automatically revoked when he was arrested. His insurance company cancelled his company’s insurance policy because he was facing felony charges, and now he has a criminal record, which will cost him more money in the form of increased insurance fees for the foreseeable future.

The lawyer told him that she can get the arrest expunged from his record, but it will cost him another 5 large, and will take about a year. Meanwhile, the druggie douchebags have been arrested two more times since that night.

Tell me again that our legal system isn’t broken and the cops are mostly good guys. As a side note, my sister and I have had T-shirts made with my brother’s mugshot on them. We are going to be wearing them at Christmas dinner.

By Divemedic, ago