Cops

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

More on the Cop Ambush

More to the story on the cops who were ambushed in Eustis last week. The cops entered the house and split up. They obviously didn’t clear the rooms very well, because one of the occupants got behind one of the cops and shot him in the back. The other cop fled, and the arriving backup didn’t have the balls to go in and rescue their comrade.

When the wounded cop ran out of ammo, the occupants of the house simply walked up and shot him. When the dead cop’s phone rang, the occupants answered it to find out it was the dead man’s wife. They taunted her.

Local media is making a big deal out of the fact that the home had a stockpile of guns, ammunition, food, and bottled water, and lacked cell phones, regular phones, or a television. OK, a stockpile of guns, ammo, food, and water describes most of the households in Florida.

By Divemedic, ago

This Is Me Not Caring

When we last heard from the Eustis police, they were being tyrannical pricks*. So the news that an ambush style attack was carried out against police in that area doesn’t surprise me. It doesn’t look to me like it was a deliberate ambush, but an impromptu one. The article also doesn’t mention whether the other people who were killed in the shoot out were bystanders or were involved in the ambush.

It could be that the two people killed in the house were victims of the original nutball who prompted all of this, or it could be that they were struck by bullets fired by the “brave” cops who were indiscriminately firing at the sound of gunfire in a “spray and pray” tactic.

Either way, I don’t care about the cops who were killed, and I don’t care about the crazy bitch who likely bought it. I will reserve my sympathy for any innocent bystanders. To anyone reading this who is a cop- stop being tyrannical cowardly assholes that slap unarmed citizens around, toss grenades into baby cribs, arrest parents who are demanding that you do your jobs, and rid your profession of the dead wood, and maybe I will care again.

It’s really a shame, because I used to have lots of love and respect for a profession that has lost its way.

* On a side note, the driver in the original Eustis case does not have any record of charges actually being filed against him in that county at any point this year. I am guessing that the State Attorney didn’t think that his behavior warranted criminal charges, still it cost him money to get his car out of impound. All for telling a cop that where he worked was none of his business. I would consider an attorney, were I in his place.

By Divemedic, ago

Poor Tactics

Your property is stolen, including a credit card. Your bank calls to tell you that the stolen credit card was just used at a fast food restaurant right down the street. You and a couple of friends head down the street to confront the thieves.

I would argue that, should this happen, you should go down there expecting an armed confrontation. These people didn’t, and the accused thieves opened fire on the would-be detectives.

Go down there to confront them, while your friends who are heavily armed standby with heavy weapons. If the thieves shoot, you overwhelm them with a large volume of return fire (situation permitting, of course).

Before you argue about whether or not you will be prosecuted, remember that if you are really worried about that, you wouldn’t choose to head up there to confront the thieves in the first place. if you DO choose to confront them, don’t hold back.

Expect to see more evidence that people are sick of the cops simply taking a report and then doing nothing. We might as well do away with most police and simply replace them with an online reporting form.

By Divemedic, ago

Another of those supposedly rare bad Apples

The description of the crime I am about to give is disturbing, but I think that it is needed, so that we all can understand the nature of the evil that we are looking at here.

A police officer in Bartow, Florida has been arrested after he went to a party and had four girls naked in his home in Lake Wales: two were 18 years old, one was 17, and the last was 16 years old. All were nude, all of them were high school students, and he gave them alcohol and marijuana before he directed the 17 year old to perform a sex act upon one of the 18 year olds. He had sex with all four girls, and even choked some of them.

He compounded this by recording the entire thing before showing the recording to his police officer coworkers. I guess he felt that the blue wall of silence was strong enough that his fellow gang members in blue would support him. At least one of them was brave enough to come forward, and for that I recognize that there is at least one cop with a conscience in the Bartow police department. As a result the police chief turned this over to the Polk County sheriff’s office, and Grady Judd himself made the arrest announcement. Judd, who occasionally does the right thing and never misses a chance to look tough on camera, then ran with it.

I know from personal experience that Bartow cops doing the right thing isn’t always the case, since one of them was part of a scheme to get me in some serious hot water a few years ago. That failed for two reasons:

What is most revealing about this, is that the cop thought that he would be safe in telling other cops about molesting kids, and that they would be OK with it. It makes one wonder what the police culture looks like, and how many crimes cops ARE cool with covering up.

Still, in this case, the police who decided to do the right thing are to be commended.

By Divemedic, ago