Cops

Safety, My Ass

Florida does not require a concealed weapons permit. They also tell you that, if you comply with a police officer’s demands, you won’t get shot. The traffic stop that involved Jason Arrington proved that to be a lie. I tried to find a copy of the bodycam video that I could embed, but that was a no-go. Here are two links to the video:

When you watch this video, note that the man was completely compliant in every way. He answered every question, and complied with every request and order. He was pulled over in a traffic stop and the cop asked him if he had “anything crazy in the car.”

Mr Arrington replied that he did have a gun on his person. The cop then made some small talk and asked if he had a concealed weapons permit, and the man replied that he did not. (That isn’t required under state law.) The cop then asked Arrington if he was a convicted felon, to which he replied that he was not.

Then the cop said that they would have Arrington step out of the car and would disarm him, for the safety of both Mr Arrington and the police. That turned out to be a lie. The statement from the Sheriff’s office tells the rest of the story:

The firearm was secured in a holster and Officer Cardwell [a female backup deputy] had difficulty removing it. When [she] was finally able to remove the firearm from the holster, she unintentionally placed multiple fingers inside the trigger guard of the firearm, causing the firearm to discharge.

The bullet from this negligent discharge struck Arrington in the leg. I don’t blame the female deputy for this. She was placed into this situation without the proper training, and one would assume that the JSO takes guns from people during traffic stops as a matter of course. This wasn’t her fault. The real fault lies in a department policy of unnecessarily seizing firearms, and in not training deputies in how to safely handle unfamiliar firearms.

Unnecessary gun handling increases the odds of a negligent or accidental discharge from near zero to some other, higher chance. A gun that is in a proper holster has a near zero chance of discharging unexpectedly. Additionally, a person who has been pulled over for a nonviolent, noncriminal traffic violation and is otherwise compliant has a near zero chance of attempting to use that firearm to illegally injure or threaten police officers.

This unintentional discharge was the direct result of:

  • Police who are paranoid in believing that everyone who has a gun is a threat to their safety. They are not.
  • Police attempting to handle firearms with which they are unfamiliar is a hazard to everyone around them. Contrary to popular belief, police training in firearms and firearm safety is poor. If official policy of a department requires cops to disarm people, then the department has a responsibility to train officers to handle firearms in a much safer manner than what was displayed here.

For those reasons, the man is suing the Sheriff’s office. As a result of this incident, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s office sent a memo to the entire department, notifying deputies that a person who is in possession of a firearm but not otherwise demonstrating that they are a threat to officers who are present, is not subject to having his firearms seized.

As it should have been all along.

This is also why I don’t inform cops that I am carrying. Florida doesn’t require me to, and I don’t. Asking me “Do you have anything crazy in the car?” isn’t asking me if I am armed, and I will respond in the negative.

By Divemedic, ago

What if the entire Barrel is Bad Apples?

Check this arrest of February 2023 out:

The guy was arrested for making an obscene hand gesture and 2 counts of obstruction for refusing to provide ID as a result of the unlawful stop. It’s a violation of the man’s Constitutional rights to initiate a traffic stop because you don’t like his hand gestures. The fact that the cop even admits this as a reason for the stop makes this case a slam dunk, IMO. The officer even put this in writing in his arrest report, claiming that giving the middle finger isn’t allowed, as it is a hand gesture that is not being used to signal a turn. You can read the arrest report here.

He was held in jail for four days on a cash only bail. The charge for hand gestures was dropped, and one of the obstruction charges was dropped. I expect the second one will go away as well, since the entire pretext for the stop is unconstitutional and a violation of Mr. Lambert’s rights. There is a lawsuit pending.

This is the same police department that paid a $3.5 million settlement when they stopped a pedestrian for not walking on the sidewalk. They shot the man 22 times, and even though he had been armed with a knife, it was after he was incapacitated, not moving, and was lying on top of the knife, thus he was no longer a threat to the officers.

Of course, the cops tried to hide behind qualified immunity. Sorry, but that legal concept has to go. Force cops to buy malpractice insurance. It’s one area where I disagree with Trump. Cops don’t deserve more immunity, because this will only get worse.

There are some who are trying to make this about race, but I don’t think that police abuse of power is about anything other than power corrupting those who wield it. It’s time that cops lost a bit of that plenipotentiary power.

By Divemedic, ago

Automatic Money Generators

Osceola county is installing cameras at schools that will issue speeding tickets to drivers who exceed the speed limit in front of schools. The county claims that a law enforcement officer will verify each infraction before a citation is issued.

We all know how that really works. About a decade ago, 2,000 Baltimore red light camera traffic citations which require a police officer to swear that he or she has reviewed the photos as showing a traffic violation when it was discovered that all the verification signatures on the citations issued were from an officer that had died a year before the citations were issued.

By Divemedic, ago

Gangs with Badges

Read this story about cops selling NFA weapons to criminal gangs and then tell me again how only the government can be trusted with guns.

ICE lost $100 million worth of firearms and no one cares. BATFE says that police departments are let off off with warnings. They claim that prosecutors are reluctant to charge these cases, and the bureau stated that “it is our goal to educate, not investigate.”

“We’re not looking to prosecute fellow law enforcement officers,” said Eric Harden, former special agent in charge of the ATF’s Los Angeles field division.

What would BATFE do to a citizen or FFL who did this?

It’s time for Federal law enforcement to be disbanded. All they are is a tool of government tyranny.

By Divemedic, ago

Just a Criminal Gang at This Point

In April of 2023, a Kissimmee Police officer illegally and without a warrant entered the home of a man. The cop claims that he saw the man push his father, so the cop attempted to arrest the man, using force by kneeing the man in the face and shooting him with a Taser more than 7 times. The force used did extensive damage to the man’s face, breaking his nose and requiring dental work.

When questioned about the incident, the chief of police had this to say:

The video was surprising because the knee spikes went against training. However, she said the repeated use of the taser was within what’s considered proper use to gain compliance.

“I couldn’t see it on the video, but I will take Officer Baseggio’s word that he saw what he thought was a battery,” Holland said. “And so with that being said, he doesn’t know if he was going to go arm himself.”

As a result, the cop got an 8 hour suspension. That is the end of it. Or so it seems. It turns out that there was much more to the story.

It turns out that the cop lied on his incident report, as well as intimidating witnesses to tell the story of the incident in a way that was favorable to the officer and his actions. As a result of that, he was indicted by a grand jury on charges of felony battery, misdemeanor battery, official misconduct, solicitation for perjury and two counts of tampering with a witness. He was fired as a result.

Still, that isn’t the entire story. It turns out that while the AG’s office was investigating the rogue cop, they were questioning his fellow officers, and 11 of them lied in official statements in order to protect and cover for him. Those 11 cops were also indicted, and as a result both the chief and deputy chief of police were terminated.

As I have said before, the bad cops lie, abuse their power, cheat, and steal. The so-called “good” cops will lie and cover for them, which makes them all bad cops. At this point, the only difference between most police and a criminal gang is that the cops have badges and immunity.

I repeat what I have said before- we as citizens need to demand one of two things:

  • Eliminate qualified immunity and force police to get malpractice insurance
  • Pass a law that any lawsuit against police for unlawful behavior against citizens be paid directly from the police pension fund.

Make cops have skin in the game.

By Divemedic, ago

Entitled Asshole is Above the Law

An NFL player by the name of Tyreek Hill was pulled over in Miami on Sunday for travelling in excess of 80 miles per hour while driving his McClaren 720 in traffic on a road with a 40 mph speed limit. The police wound up pulling him out of the car and handcuffing him. During the game, Hill scored a touchdown and mocked police by mimicking the arrest during his celebration in the end zone.

Hill and his teammates claim that the police used excessive force and there was no reason to pull him out of the car. He claims that he could have been shot if he wasn’t so awesome and famous.

“If I wasn’t Tyreek Hill, Lord knows, I probably would have been, like, worst-case scenario, I would have been shot or would have been locked up” and “put behind bars, you know, for a simple speeding ticket,” Hill told NBC News.

It wasn’t just a simple speeding ticket. Police claim that he was going more than double speed limit in an area where pedestrians were walking to see the game he was about to play in. That’s reckless driving, which is a crime, not a traffic infraction.

Then they go on to blame racism and state that Hill’s lawyers are going to sue.

It’s hard,” Hill said. “I don’t want to bring race into it, but sometimes it gets kind of iffy when you do. What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill? Lord knows what those guys would have done. I just wanted to make sure I was doing what my uncle always told me to do whenever you’re in a situation like that — put your hands on the steering wheel and just listen.”

Were the cops out of line? Let’s take a look at the body cam.

The first thing that I noticed is that the cops aren’t white. There goes the racism charge. We all know that in today’s environment, you can’t be racist unless you are white.

The second thing you see is that the first words out of Hill’s mouth are “Don’t knock on my window like that,” which is setting the stage for how you will be treated. He says something else, followed by “Do what you gotta do,” then rolls his window back up. His windows are tinted far darker than Florida law allows, and it is impossible to see into the car. That is a sure recipe for a cop to demand your windows be rolled down, and that is exactly what happened.

When the cop again knocks on the window, Hill gives more attitude, so he is told to get out of the car. Hill doesn’t comply, so the cops threaten to break the window. As the cops are pulling him out of the car, Hill is busy calling his agent or perhaps the teams security chief ( both are named Drew) for help on the phone.

As they finish cuffing him, several of his teammates show up and begin interfering with the traffic stop. One of them eventually gets cuffed as well.

“Tyreek was in handcuffs for like 20 minutes, probably more. Team security came and was able to squash everything. Other officers pulled up — I think some superior officers pulled up. And everything worked out. But it was a crazy situation. It was not necessary.”

Note that the USA today article spends a good bit of time detailing the football accomplishments of the people involved in the incident: NFL man of the year, Heisman this, statistics on the football field that. Also there was Hill’s agent and the director of team security. Any bets on whether or not the director of team security is a former cop, and that’s why Hill was let go with only a ticket? The team had this to say:

It is both maddening and heartbreaking to watch the very people we trust to protect our community use such unnecessary force and hostility towards these players, yet it is also a reminder that not every situation like this ends in peace, as we are grateful this one did,” they said in part. “‘What if I wasn’t Tyreek Hill?’ is a question that will carry with resounding impact. 

The Dolphins also called on the Miami-Dade Police Department to take “swift and strong action against the officers who engaged in such despicable behavior.”

What if he wasn’t Tyreek Hill? Well, he would not have gotten out of driving nearly 100 mph on a surface street without a valid driver’s license, that’s for sure. The left keeps lecturing us on how “no one is above the law,” but that isn’t true, and everyone knows it. Although he was cited for speeding, reckless driving, and driving without a valid license, there are currently no pending traffic tickets in Miami-Dade’s system for him. They have been magically erased.

The cop is on a paid suspension pending an investigation.

My opinion on what caused this incident to escalate of control?

This isn’t a race issue. It’s an issue of entitlement. He’s good at playing a child’s game, and for that reason he has never had to follow the rules. Schools don’t discipline them as children, because they are good at sports. The same happens as adults. They are the puppy from Starship Troopers- never disciplined, then everyone is surprised when they turn out to be criminals with no respect for the law or the rules. You know what? They are right- being good at playing with a ball means being too rich and famous to follow the same laws that the rest of us must follow.

This article here was also used for material for this post.

So was this one.

By Divemedic, ago

But is it, really?

Two men were arrested for stealing a firearm. But was it really stealing? A moron of a Seminole County deputy left his firearm in a gas station bathroom, where it was found by a pair of men. One of them refused to pick it up because he was a convicted felon. The other took it with him and sold it for $40.

Both have been arrested for theft of a firearm, and the ex-felon was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. If they get a decent lawyer, they just might beat those charges.

  • They didn’t steal the gun- it was left in a public bathroom.
  • There is no evidence that the convicted felon ever had possession of the handgun.
  • The state could argue that they knew it was a crime because they concealed the handgun when they walked out of the gas station, but a decent lawyer will claim that they concealed it because open carry is illegal in Florida.

The only crime that was committed here in my opinion, is that the Deputy left his firearm where anyone could reach it- with the barrel wedged into a toilet paper roll in the stall of a public bathroom. Those two are no more guilty of stealing that firearm than the deputy is in trafficking firearms.

By Divemedic, ago

Another Bad Apple

Via Wirecutter. An intoxicated Sheriff shows up at the home of a man in a neighboring county, making threats and claiming to have used a police database to look the man’s record up. Here is a video of the encounter:

This is why you don’t answer the door. Tell him to fuck off, close the door, and don’t engage him.

  • Misusing police databases is a felony.
  • Then he says “I’m gonna get your ass another way.” That statement is now a lifetime get out of jail free card. If he is ever arrested for anything from spitting on the sidewalk to murder, all his defense attorney has to do is play this video.
  • Then the sheriff walks up to the man and punches him in the face. A Federal felony. (Deprivation of rights under color of authority)
  • Then he and his wife stood on the property making accusations while filming everything, even after being told to leave. That is trespassing, and if he has a police issued firearm with him, this is also a felony.
  • He drove there. That’s DUI.

He contacted the local prosecutor, who told him that he didn’t see any violations of the law in this video. This man doesn’t need to be calling and making complaints. He needs an attorney, and he needs one yesterday.

By Divemedic, ago

Cop Is Right

Those of you who read this blog know that I am not shy about posting and calling out the cops when they screw the pooch. Let’s look at this fatal shooting to see what happened. Youtube won’t let me embed the video, so I will wait here while you take a look.

He passed a cop on the highway at 105 miles per hour. In every state that I am aware of makes it an arrestable offence to exceed the speed limit by more than 30 miles per hour. Not only that, but the tags that were affixed to the Dodge truck were registered to a Subaru Forester. Both of these facts meant that the driver was getting put in handcuffs and probably going to jail.

What the deputy couldn’t have known at the time of the stop was the motorist he had stopped had just been exonerated after serving 16 years for a crime that he didn’t commit. That likely contributed to his actions that day on the side of the road, but again, the cop didn’t know any of this, nor does the exoneration have any bearing whatsoever on the shooting. All the cop knew was that the man was being belligerent, noncompliant, and was physically attacking him.

The family of the deceased man has hired Benjamin Crump (don’t they always?) and are suing the deputy and his department for unlawful and excessive force. This is the dream of black families- you have a family member that runs afoul of the law, fights with an armed person, then sue them to win the ghetto lottery.

As I already pointed out, putting him in handcuffs was lawful in this case, and once he demonstrated his noncompliance, the deputy began using the use of force ladder:

  • Presence
  • Voice commands (that didn’t work- the reply was “I ain’t doing shit.”)
  • Open handed technique- the man grappled with the deputy
  • Less lethal- note that this is another case where a TASER didn’t work. He rode out the shock, then swept his arm to rid himself of the wires, then began to physically attack the officer.
  • Less Lethal 2- Now the ASP baton was brought into play, and the man became even more aggressive, grabbing the cop by the throat with enough force to bend him backwards while yelling, “Yeah, bitch.”
  • Lethal- having exhausted the rest of the force continuum, he shot the man.

Later in the video, you can see that the cop was so exhausted from the fight that he was likely going to be overpowered if it had continued.

“And when they want to use excess force there, you have other parts of the body. You can shoot, you don’t have to always kill somebody,” [the dead man’s mother] said.

This is an example of the “shoot to wound” versus “shoot to kill” myth. That was exhausted earlier in the force continuum when the open hand, TASER, and baton failed to control the attacker.

“I’m not going to jail,” Cure says at one point.

Well, he was right about that. He went to the morgue, instead.

I don’t have a problem with the officer’s actions in this incident.

By Divemedic, ago