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.

Categories: Crime

19 Comments

Joe Blow · December 13, 2023 at 7:17 am

The pessimism that pervades our world is being deliberately forced on us by people who are known to all of us. I freely admit it has been very effective at demoralizing me.

It really, REALLY IS, time to stop taking the high road, or whatever one uses to comfort your cowardness. I am generally quiet snd avoid confrontation – no more. And you should too!
It will continue, until We The People stop it.
I believe folks are starting to wake up to that, we are seeing pushback in places. This needs to comtinue, become massive, and not stop.

Don W Curton · December 13, 2023 at 8:46 am

As many have said before, there is no situation so bad that the presence of the police can’t make it worse.

I had some false charges against me many years back. Different situation, but still. And yes, it cost lots of money and time and aggravation to resolve, and the mere presence of a charge (without any guilty/not guilty conclusion) will haunt you for years. Over 20 years later it somehow came up again and cost me more money and 6 months of dealing with various branches of the judicial system to convince them that the charge was dismissed because they couldn’t bother to look up their own records.

Don Shifylt · December 13, 2023 at 9:30 am

What the heck is wrong with the cops in Florida? I know there are issues all over the place, but it seems like some parts of the country just have hotspots where this kind of behavior happens. Whatever happened to the days where they’re handling officer would tune them up for being informants and doing this stuff?

noway2 · December 13, 2023 at 12:19 pm

So much for innocent until proven guilty.

The legal system is a joke and a disgusting one at that. We really need to do away with prosecution by the State and tax funded career enforcers and go back to a more colonial era model.

Beans · December 13, 2023 at 12:26 pm

I believe, under Florida Law, that if the CIs continue to commit felony crimes (possession of Meth is a felony, by the way) that the CI can’t be used anymore.

Your brother may have a good civil lawsuit against the PD.

Bad Dancer · December 13, 2023 at 12:46 pm

The snitch/CI program needs to be gutted. During my time it never resulted in anything useful because the alive ones knew who they couldn’t inform on and what we did get passed was either out of date or usually bad info to settle their scores. Yet anyone who had their sources would act like they had a crystal ball.

I’m sorry that happened to your brother at this point there isn’t any use to pretend we’re not seen as lesser by the system.

Aesop · December 13, 2023 at 12:55 pm

If that story were most people’s brother’s under similar circumstances, I have an inkling that city would be shy at least one detective and a couple of transient drug addict criminals in due course, possibly with none of them to ever be found, depending on the local hog and gator situation. Fate and circumstance is a funny thing.

If the state wishes to default on its ironclad duties, recourse remains with the people, and actions have consequences. As ever. Ambrose Bierce’s commentary on homicide comes to mind. This would be the fourth type.

D · December 13, 2023 at 1:15 pm

> Tell me again that our legal system isn’t broken

Our legal system isn’t broken.
It’s functioning as designed by the elites in black robes.

Dirty Dingus McGee · December 13, 2023 at 1:54 pm

Lucky for your brother, I guess, that he had at least one friend in the cop shop. Otherwise he might be under the jail currently. As for doing business with the city and police department, I would imagine that source of income is now gone like his CCW.

As for cops lying? Quick, fetch my fainting couch.

Anonymous · December 13, 2023 at 2:05 pm

I’m not sure what advice to offer other than “perhaps not continue doing business with the PoPo”.
“CI” shouldn’t be a thing, it seems that’s a program for criminals to continue being criminals while occasionally tossing the cops a bone, but with the bonus of having “protection” from some stuff.

I also find it hard to argue your assertion of “broken beyond repair”.
How does this get fixed.
One side of the Poly Tick argues “only cops have guns/defund the police”.
I agree with “defund” when it gets rid of the “CI” program.
Past that…
I don’t know.
Something like this, say the PoPo lie about “we don’t know who that is”, ought to be grounds for being fired and, ideally, “charges for aiding and abetting crimes”.

Big Ruckus D · December 13, 2023 at 2:46 pm

A couple of drug addicted shitbags with multiple felonies on their sheets? And known to confront people sneakily at that? Sure would be a shame if these two turned up dead somewhere. Better still, it’s Florida, find a swamp and let the gators have a little extra protein. If these two just up and disappeared, it could easily be written off as a product of their lifestyle.

Oh, and fuck the police. Nothing but a bunch of dirty, crooked, power abusing two faced cunts.

Steve · December 13, 2023 at 2:53 pm

“Pointing a firearm at someone is, under Florida law, NOT lethal force.”

Wish that were the case here. I’d much rather be only 5 pounds away from defending myself while still hoping the situation would de-escalate. Here, if you clear leather, you might as well shoot, and shoot to kill.

Anonymous · December 13, 2023 at 5:01 pm

He should have killed the vagrants and “disappeared” the bodies. Would have probably saved him a hell of a lot money/ hassle. These Pigs are going to get their just rewards; pretty soon by the looks of our country.

TCK · December 13, 2023 at 6:09 pm

The abuse will continue until soulless inhuman gestapo monsters and the grotesque filth they call family members are given what they deserve.

Every last fucking one of them.

Rick · December 13, 2023 at 7:37 pm

I have firsthand knowledge that cops will do somersaults to protect their informants. In my experience these informants have, and continue to, engage in criminal enterprise.

Probably that’s how it works; do what we say or we’ll send you up for a long time. We’ll even make up stuff to pad the charges.

So there I was, absolutely no criminal record faced with multiple felony charges because I unknowningly associated with the bad guy. Cops told me forcibly that if they ever saw me again they would arrest me. A few years later, I read 2 of those 4 bad cops got sent up on federal charges.

I found out this week that my brother had surgery, malignant biopsy, and will start chemo in time for Christmas. He and I are close, real tight.

Jester · December 14, 2023 at 12:19 am

CI’s are pretty good at ratting out their associate low level feeders or a couple levels up or down. The theory I guess is that you might get ahold of someone that can shake the entire enterprise down. Movies speak of this. It might occasionally happen but takes years and is a real small shot. Meanwhile the CI’s get space to just do low level shit like this right until the snitch gets busted by someone other than a cop like this. That’s problem number one.

Problem number two is that I’d guess there’s a miniorty but perhaps majority of the cops involved with this that are some how profiting. Either though career advancements, bonuses or just stealing (confiscating) shit from their CIs.

Problem number three is that there is such a lazyness on the part of the cops with this shit. Unless it gets really big with a series of events, fuck it let insurance take care of any loss/damage right? Not all cops but enough of them only will move if there’s enough of a community back lash (That just happened here with some youths that had cost well over 20K in damage and stolen multiple firearms. Went on for many weeks till enough people said they would shoot to kill I’d guess knowing this local PD)

Fourth issue I’ve seen is well fucking balls almighty there’s so little actual tracking on shit that it’s mind blowing. I happen to know of a couple situations of the county I grew up on where someone was busted with weed. They knew the county folks were corrupt and decided to push for trial. Where was the evidence upon trial? Just… mysteriously missing. They walked in that situation.

I”m not tring to bag on cops but man most people take the path of least resistance. Why would anyone be surprised to see that in the PD? Having done some time in the Army I can tell you that population is better than the most average citizen but I’d guess 20% of them are nothing more than grifters and sham artists. There’s a lot of cops that are just there to act like they are important and abuse folks. I’ve had some situations where that was clear with them.

I think there should be a limit for CI stuff to some extent. Like what are you going to bring me and are you not going to fuck people over. Like hey you narcing out some trash like yourself is not really that helpful, we will get them (as cops doing our jobs) anyway. And hey, perhaps unless we authorize you to commit a crime you, well are fucked if you commit one. (har har har) Seriously having vagabonds running around in this situation is just fucked. And you tell most these jerks they are in a CI program boy if they won’t stretch it out and the cops are complicit with it. Every. Time.

Anonymous · December 14, 2023 at 2:48 am

The government employees aren’t broken, they are doing what they are chartered to do: intermittently hurt the serfs (middle class taxpayers) to keep them weak and vulnerable and unwilling to challenge the elites.

Rob · December 14, 2023 at 8:21 am

We’re going to have to wait until one split second before getting shot to fire back. They need to have a weapon in their hand and in process of pointing it at you. You need to win this race. Their gun should be in their hand or near their body.

I’ve changed my mind on self defense insurance too. Too many loopholes and possibilities to have to repay them your defense costs. Now I’m looking at Attorneys on Retainer. Not insurance. I dropped USCCA and am going with them.

Anonymous · December 14, 2023 at 9:45 am

The broken beyond repair part is peasants thinking government is anything other than kings making them peasants.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2004/10/jeff-snyder/walter-mittys-second-amendment

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