Government

The story

I heard screams coming from the other end of the emergency room. I went to investigate. In all, there were three nurses and a paramedic who walked into the patient’s room. The patient in that room was the source of the screaming, and he was a prisoner who was shackled to the bed by cuffs on all four limbs: his hands were cuffed to the bed, his feet were cuffed together, and a fifth cuff attached his left ankle to the bed. He was naked, except for the suicide vest that the cop had put on him. The smock looked like this:

The cop that was in the room with him was pulling on the prisoner/patient’s wrist so hard that he had pulled him into a sitting position, and the cuff had cut into the patient’s arm and was causing bleeding. The cop looked dead at me and yelled, “He’s trying to escape! He’s wriggling his hands to get out of the cuffs!” The prisoner was yelling back, “No, they are just too tight! I’m just trying to get comfortable.”

The cop drew his Taser, pulled off the cartridge, and pressed it into the patient’s back to use in drive stun mode. All of the medical personnel in the room cried out for him to stop.

We all filed written complaints. The cop outweighed the guy by at least 100 pounds, he was handcuffed, and wasn’t going anywhere. When they came to do the investigation, we were called together and told:

I am recording this conversation so that there is a record of it. You people here don’t know this guy. We do. He isn’t a nice guy. You don’t know police procedures, and you don’t know what happened. The prisoner was trying to escape. I spoke with the officer, and he says that he never drew his taser. You all must have misunderstood what you saw.”

I walked away at that point. Should it matter whether or not the prisoner was a nice guy? Doesn’t he have rights? Including the right to not be tortured? Mean guy or not, isn’t he presumed innocent?

If the officer really felt that force was needed to prevent an escape, then why did he lie and say that he didn’t use his Taser? Why not own it? If the cop had to lie, that tells me that he was wrong and he knows it. The only guys that I saw not being nice in this incident were the cops.

Since he lied, I will never trust that cop’s word again. Since his fellow officers lied to cover his ass, I will never trust another cop from that agency again. One lies, and the others swear to it.

I watched a police officer torture a prisoner who was in his custody, then I watched him lie about it. With my own two eyes. I know what I saw, and I know what my fellow nurses saw.

and it was disgraceful.

Oh, and I looked the guy up. He has a clean record- not even a traffic ticket in his past. His drug and alcohol screens were negative. Sounds to me like the guy pissed off a cop, and the cop decided to give him a bit of “stick time.” The charges in this case? I can’t mention them without giving away details, but he was ridiculously overcharged. He wound up pleading out to a misdemeanor and got time served. I have seen people try to escape, and I have seen people resisting. This was neither. Wriggling your hand while all 4 of your limbs are cuffed is not an escape attempt, and certainly doesn’t justify being hit with a Taser.

By Divemedic, ago

My Opinion

Getting a ticket for violating a law that the officer can’t quote. She is making shit up as she goes. “Ignorance of the law that I just made up on the spot is no excuse.”

I would add that she is incorrect in her interpretation of the law. The ordnance she quoted doesn’t say any of what she says it does. The issue here is what it will cost you to show up with an attorney to fight this.

By Divemedic, ago

Incommunicado

In March of this year, a retired Air Force officer was sentenced to two years in prison for his role in the J6 protest. He was found guilty in November of 2022 in a bench trial after waiving his right to a jury trial. There were six counts in his indictment, including obstruction of an official proceeding. The obstruction charge is a felony; the other five counts are misdemeanors.

Mr. Brock lost his pilot’s license. He was fired from his job. When he tried starting his own business doing home inspections, the State of Texas also revoked that license. Then he reported to prison.

He was calling his parents every day. Then, on July 24, the calls stopped. Word has come down that he was transferred to a Supermax prison. Supermax prisons rely heavily on intensive (and long-term) solitary confinement, with prisoners being held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, which is used to isolate and punish prisoners. Communication with outsiders is minimal to none, with the prisoners only receiving one phone call per month, if that. Once transferred to a supermax prison, incarcerated individuals tend to stay there indefinitely. Correctional officers have ample authority to punish and manage incarcerated individuals, without outside review or prisoner grievance systems.

It is likely that Mr. Brock is being tortured because he dared to protest the new order. He is a political prisoner- a POW, if you will.

Welcome to the American gulag. Mr. Brock is vzyali.

By Divemedic, ago

Cry Harder

When you were a kid and played games with other kids, there was always one who decided to cheat. Ever tried to play monopoly when the cheater was the banker? The only thing that can be done is either cheat better, or refuse to play.

There is no longer any such thing as fair government. Everything that the government does is weaponized lawfare. Gun stores being sued into bankruptcy. Or having their ability to accept credit cards taken from them. Fined and shut down because someone misspelled a word on a 4473. Unlike childhood games, you can’t refuse to play.

That’s why I love the fact that Florida just fined an abortion clinic enough money to put them out of business. It’s winner take all. Cry harder, bitches. You don’t like government, the courts, and business being weaponized?

Wait until you see what comes next- weapons being weaponized.

By Divemedic, ago

Teaching

From JKb over at gunfreezone, we read about this six year old kid that brought a gun to school and shot his teacher. Yeah, the young age of the kid is shocking, but what isn’t shocking is that a black student got away with multiple acts of violence. The kid is now staying with his grandmother, who blames the school and his teachers:

‘He’s progressing. He’s progressed more since he’s been at this school than all those crazy years he was in a Newport News public school system,’ he added. ‘And I guess basically what he needed was a stable environment. And he just needed to be in a loving environment.

The mother blames ADHD. The kid had a long list of violent outbursts.

When I was a teacher, one of my biggest complaints was that teachers trying to maintain control of their classrooms had to fight against the students, their administrators, and the parents. You would write a discipline referral, the kid would get a stern talking to, then sent back to class. Why? Because less discipline makes the school look better.

That’s why I was told that I would need to go to anger management after I got attacked by a student in my classroom. That’s why we teachers were told that because 30% of the student body was black, but 50% of referrals were written against black students meant that we were racists.

By Divemedic, ago

Unimpeachable

From commenter D, we get this comment:

The state sees cops as “unimpeachable witnesses” meaning whatever they say is gospel unless you can prove otherwise.

For this reason, I will always side with my fellow citizen and give him or her the benefit of the doubt.

When I was in the Navy, we had a commanding officer who was incredibly authoritarian, Captain Macke. He was a douche, but retired after getting his fourth star. More on that in a minute. Why was he a douche? He would hold Article 15 (Captain’s Mast) like this:

They would put all of the accused on an aircraft elevator at the hanger deck level, maybe 20 or 30 of them, and the Captain would be standing behind a lectern on the flight deck. They would raise the elevator to the flight deck, and the Captain would say: “You all must be guilty, or your officers wouldn’t have sent you here. I find you guilty as charged. You are hereby reduced in rank one paygrade, fined one half pay for two months, restricted to the ship for 45 days, and 2 hours of extra duty every day for 45 days, to be served under the duty master at arms. Dismissed.” (This is the maximum punishment he can give without a courts martial)

The reason that this is important is that Macke believed that officers were absolutely unimpeachable. One of the things he used to say was, “If I have 100 enlisted men with 100 video cameras that show me 100 videos of something taking place, and I have one officer who tells me that isn’t how it happened, I will believe the officer every time.”

Of course, it’s also telling that he retired after being investigated by the Defense Department inspector general for allegations that he used military aircraft for personal trips and improperly fraternized with female subordinates while he was CINCPAC. They dropped him two paygrades for that. His new civilian job appeared to be using his military contacts and influence to arrange funding and lucrative government contracts. So much for unimpeachable officers. The best thing that I can say about the hypocritical sunovabitch is that he died last year.

So you’ll excuse me if I don’t buy into the “unimpeachable officer” trope.

By Divemedic, ago