LAPD has sent out a memo notifying officers that they can no longer carry any handgun magazines with a capacity of more than 18 rounds, on or off duty.
It seems to be an oddly specific number, until you remember that the LAPD has been armed with the FN 509 MRD-LE for over a year and a half now, a pistol which is being sold by FN for LEO use only. The FN 509 is considered by California to be safe for cops to own by the state, but not for the subjects that they rule over. The FN 509 can accept FN’s 24 round magazines, which is where I think that this memo came from.
The handgun is being restricted by FN to Law Enforcement only, but the only differences that I can see with this handgun and the FN 509 MRD are that the LE version has a flat trigger face, the LE handgun ships with 17 round magazines, while the “normal” version’s magazine capacity is only 15 rounds, 10 in CA.
I also want to note that LAPD uses the Speer G2 ammo as their duty ammo. I have blogged on that ammo before, it’s quality stuff. (They used to use Winchester SXT)
This post is about a video of a police interaction in Virginia, which is included below. Let me say that the cops really need to stop being total dumbasses, because I really don’t want this blog to become an anti-cop blog. It just seems like they can’t help themselves. They are just hiring tyrannical dumbasses to be cops.
Here is the basis of the video that follows:
Police received at least one call complaining about shots fired in a rural area. The vehicle involved was reported to be a red pickup truck.
A deputy sees a vehicle matching that description and initiates a traffic stop. By the deputy’s own admission, he is not aware if the shots were fired in the vicinity of houses or a road, meaning that he has no idea whether or not a crime has been committed. In other words, there is no reasonable suspicion to believe that the driver of the red truck has committed a crime, because you can’t even point to a crime that you would suspect him of, thus making the traffic stop illegal. Note that Virginia law is plain on this:
Any law enforcement officer may detain any person whom the officer encounters under circumstances creating a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime, and require the person to identify himself. Any person so detained shall identify himself by giving his full legal name, but may not be compelled to answer any other inquiry of any law enforcement officer.
Here is what happened next:
Note that the deputy claims “You can’t shoot within so many feet of a home,” but by his own admission, he has no idea how far away any homes are from the location where the shooting was talking place.
I believe the cop is wrong about what the law says. For starters, the law in Virginia says that you can’t discharge a firearm on public land, AT a building, across or from a road, from a vehicle, or in a reckless manner. None of which has been alleged here. Watch this second, longer video of the traffic stop, and the second cop says that merely operating a vehicle on the roadways of Virginia constitutes reasonable suspicion to initiate a traffic stop and demand to see the ID of the driver.
He says that “Evidence of a crime isn’t reasonable suspicion. You need to get a better lawyer.” The cop is clearly wrong. The law says:
A police officer may have reasonable suspicion that a crime is being committed if based on all of the facts and circumstances of the situation, a reasonable police officer would have the same suspicion.
The cop is not being reasonable, which is the standard here. He can’t even articulate which law, if any, he believes is being broken. How can a police officer believe that this man is committing a crime, when he can’t even point to a crime that he reasonably believes is being committed? The statement that merely driving down the road constitutes reasonable suspicion is extremely incorrect.
He says that I don’t have to point to a crime to initiate a traffic stop. This fucking dumbass of a cop then proves beyond a doubt that he doesn’t know what he is talking about when he admits that this isn’t a Terry stop. A Terry stop gets its name from the Supreme Court case, Terry v. Ohio. In a Terry stop, if a police officer has a reasonable suspicion that an individual is armed, engaged, or about to be engaged, in criminal conduct, the officer may briefly stop and detain an individual for a pat-down search of outer clothing. Since, under this cop’s own admission, this isn’t a Terry stop, then he has no reasonable suspicion that a crime is being committed.
So instead, the cops go to the man’s property and arrest the father on a trumped up charge to teach the property owner (the son in the red pickup) a lesson. The cops went to the man’s property and arrested the man’s father because, in the cop’s own words, “He ain’t gonna curse me out.” This is a clear violation of the First Amendment rights of the father.
NOTE: A look at Sussex county court records shows that the father, Robert Steven Huffman, has been charged with a violation of 18.2-416, abusive language to another, a 3rd degree misdemeanor. His next hearing is December 18.
The Supreme Court of Virginia has limited the sweep of § 18.2-416 to abusive language that has “a direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the person to whom, individually, [the language is] addressed.” Mercer v. Winston, 214 Va. 281, 199 S.E.2d 724, 726
So is the police officer alleging that the man saying “Leave, get the hell off of my property” is language that would tend to cause him to commit acts of violence? No, this officer is a tyrannical asshole.
Again, remember that no crime has been alleged to cause the police to even be on the property in the first place. It isn’t a crime to shoot guns on private property. The cop keeps saying “We have complaints in the area of shots fired, and this is an open investigation,” but as we have pointed out already, there is no investigation, because there has been no crime alleged. In my opinion, the cops made the arrest to lure the property owner (the son in the red pickup) to an ambush.
The man in the pickup arrives on his property, and the cop arrests him because he won’t provide ID to prove that he is the owner of the property. Refer back to the law, above. The man doesn’t have to show that he owns his own land, which would mean that he has to prove his innocence. That’s not how this works.
This is a bad cop. The second cop who stood there and told him to “just comply” is also a bad cop. Why? Because he saw this illegal behavior and did nothing. He is also a dumbass that doesn’t understand the laws that he is supposed to be enforcing.
I hope they get a good lawyer, and I hope that they sue the Sheriff’s department of Sussex County. I also would like to reiterate that qualified immunity needs to go away. In the meantime:
Every state has a law allowing individuals to be involuntarily committed in the event that they are in such a mental state that they are an imminent danger to themselves or others. In Florida, it’s called a Baker Act, and it allows a doctor or law enforcement officer to hold a person for up to 72 hours for the purposes of medical and psychological evaluation, if that professional reasonably believes that they are a threat to themselves or others.
My last day at work, I placed a woman under a Baker Act after she told me that she had ingested several handfuls of pills in an attempt to commit suicide. If you do this, your documentation had better be able to stand up in court. Because if you misuse this power, you will and should get your ass sued. It’s one of the reasons why I carry a million dollars worth of malpractice insurance, and why that policy includes coverage of my legal bills.
But what happens if you are a cop with qualified immunity? What if you decide to misuse this power by lying in order to place an ex-girlfriend on an involuntary hold, then use force to enforce it? That’s exactly what Pennsylvania State Trooper Ronald Davis did. One of her friends got it all on video:
As I was watching this, I was thinking to myself, “What if this was my sister, or a close friend? Would I stand by and allow this, while just filming? Or would I use force to protect her from this felony domestic battery?” If I *did* intervene, would I go to jail? Would other cops automatically take this cop’s side, and either arrest or ventilate me? I think we know the answer to both of those questions. If you are a cop and are reading this- This is what you should be asking yourself:
This cop is obviously a bad cop. Would I arrest someone for intervening in this situation? What if that person was holding the cop at gunpoint? Would I shoot them for pointing a gun at a cop? Even if it was being done to stop the officer’s felonious battery of an innocent woman? If so, can you still call yourself a good cop?
Something needs to be done. For starters, I think that qualified immunity should be eliminated. Let cops get personally sued into oblivion for stuff like this. They can go out and get malpractice insurance, just like medical professionals do.
Second, I think that cops should have *every* use of force judged by a panel of at least 7 people, and that panel should consist of: A judge, two current or retired police officers, and 4 citizens who are not convicted felons. That panel would have the power to fine police officers or refer them to the Grand Jury and suspend their LEO certification pending completion of the Grand Jury’s deliberations. The judge is there to advise the others on the meaning of the law, and only gets a vote in the event of a tie.
We have talked about how you should never talk to the cops. In the video at the end of this post, a heroin addict who is under arrest because he was found near the scene of a robbery conducts a master class in applying this tactic:
Cop1: Reads Miranda Warning, and says “Do you understand your rights?”
Heroin Addict: Remains Silent
Cop 2: If you have something to show you didn’t do it, this is your time to talk
HA: Are you the good cop?
Cop 2: No, I’m the prick
HA: You look like a prick.
Cop 1: I’m not asking you to talk to me at this point. I just want to know if you understand your rights.
HA: Am I under arrest?
Cop1: Yes
HA: Then take me back to my cell, because I don’t talk to you motherfuckers.
They took him back to his cell, but questioned him again two hours later, and this time they brought him sodas. Still he didn’t talk.
Cop 1: Talk to me.
HA: You’re not my friend. You’re just trying to get some stupid ass confession from me.
The video talks about cops using the Reid technique. It is a trick used by cops, especially the FBI, to trick people into confessing. This technique is a form of psychological manipulation that is designed to trick people into agreeing to a set of facts that is a confession.
The best way to avoid this technique is not to say anything beyond:
Am I being detained?
Am I free to go?
I don’t wish to make a statement
I want to call my attorney, or I want to be provided with an attorney.
That’s it. I’m guessing that psychological games and manipulation are why the J6 supporters are being held in the deplorable conditions that they are. A person who has been denied nutrition, sleep, and social interaction is easier to manipulate. At this point, they are political prisoners or even POWs.
Father calls police to report a child sex predator preying on his 11 year old daughter. Police show up 6 hours later and threaten to arrest 11 year old little girl.
Sadly, this isn't an isolated incident. A very similar situation occurred in NC a couple years ago and it… pic.twitter.com/7NbchKPXQK
In this case, an online predator has tricked a child into taking nude pictures of herself. The father understandably calls the cops, thinking that the cops would protect a child from an online predator. Instead, the cops arrived and threatened to arrest the child for producing child porn. Of course, they were going to do no such thing, because getting such a charge past prosecutors, a judge, and a jury is not going to happen. What this statement was really intended to do was send the message that the cops weren’t going to do anything.
In the old days before organized law enforcement, someone would molest a child or steal a horse, and the members of the community would form a posse, then ride out to find the criminal. The posse would often return without the criminal, but with the stolen object. The issue with this is that these vigilante law enforcers frequently got the wrong person.
Police departments were created to ensure that people accused of crimes receive a fair trial. The cops are nominally there to protect the right of the accused. At some point, they became corrupted into being the enforcers of government edicts, then morphed again into lazy cowards who are sucking at the public teat while doing as little as possible. Normally, it would make me happy that the cops weren’t out there arresting people on trumped up charges, or tossing grenades into baby cribs while searching for weed.
This isn’t the first time we have heard of children facing child porn charges for taking pictures of themselves. In 2015, a pair of children were charged as adults for producing child porn. The act that got them into the adult legal system? Taking nude pictures of children: themselves. So they were simultaneously adult criminals and juvenile victims. Twisted logic, to be sure.
This entire situation just sent a clear message to the father: his child is not going to be protected by the legal system that his is paying taxes to support. There is only one inescapable conclusion to this situation- the father is either going to have to do it himself, or he will have to let this go and accept the fact that his daughter is the sexual plaything of both a sexual predator and the cops who are supposed to arrest freaks like that. In my opinion, an appropriate response would be to duct tape the molester to a fence, cut his genitals off with a dull knife, then leave him there to bleed out.
The lesson that I take from this? A society that can’t protect its most vulnerable members (11 year old children) has already failed. Don’t call the cops. They are as useful as a football bat.
In a blog first, I offered to let my police readers do a guest post, defending this sort of behavior from the cops. I got exactly one response, and it appeared on this blog this morning. His issue was more with my made up on the spot number of 90% of cops being bad ones than any substantive disagreement with the behavior of cops. He was correct as far as that bit of hyperbole goes, but my main point remains- cops who allow this sort of behavior to exist without doing anything to put a stop to it are not good cops.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with someone that I know who is an analyst for a US intelligence agency. I’m going to keep this as generic as I can, because even though he says that he told me nothing that could get him in trouble, well, you never know. We had an hour long conversation. A few of the things that he said were things that I found VERY interesting.
The government collects so much intelligence from American citizens that it is almost too much. That is the reason for the massive data centers. It’s difficult to sort through all of the stuff they collect, but they do get a lot of stuff that they pass on to law enforcement. Apparently, they aren’t allowed to collect intel on American citizens on purpose, but if they cast a wide net and get stuff by accident, well, nothing says it can’t be passed along.
Social media and smart phones are the main source. Many of the Apps that are on your phone are collecting massive amounts of data: your location, your secret information, credit stuff, banking information, and more. Many apps have keyloggers that save any information put into your phone and forward it to other parties.
Burner phones are useless. Ten years ago, using a burner was a good way to dodge those collecting information. Not anymore.
If you are a target of clandestine government investigation, there are pocket-sized devices that allow them to walk nearby and download the contents of your phone. Whatever is in your phone now belongs to the government.
He confirmed that the government can and do clandestinely activate the camera and microphone of any internet connected device, including your phone, smart TV, whatever.
Nearly every electronic device and app has some sort of backdoor access installed in it at the request of one government intel agency or another.
He said that, as far as phones go, iPhones were the most compromised, then Android, and believe it or not, Google phones are the most secure. I’m not sure I trust that, but that’s what he said.
He said that many VPNs are routed through China, and you are giving your information to China by using them. I pointed out that I am less afraid of China than I am the US government. I said China wouldn’t care about me because I am not that important. He smiled and just shook his head.
The US government has its hands in more online porn than almost any other entity. The content/pages/etc of online porn sites is riddled with malware and malicious code that belongs to the NSA. According to him, almost everyone looks at porn, and even in Muslim countries, they catch a lot of people and get a lot of information as a result of this.
The scary part is that talking to spooks like this makes you paranoid. I don’t know this guy THAT well, he is more acquaintance than friend. He is a friend of a friend, and I wouldn’t count either of them as being in my inner circle. So why is he telling me all of this? Is this an official interview? Is he skimming my smartphone? (see 4 and 5, above) Is this really a friendly conversation, or is he working?
Either I am being paranoid, or I am not being paranoid enough. No matter what, I’m going to have trouble sleeping while I think about it.
A platoon sized element of cops who are in military camouflage catch an escaped convict. This is only the ones who were there when he was caught. Our police ARE the military that the founders worried about.
All of that for one guy who stole a 10/22. Happy switches, a hundred thousand dollars worth of NODs, and a million bucks in overtime.
It’s easy to run around in the woods wearing camo and play soldier. Yeah, I know a lot of those guys are probably veterans, but still. A lot of guys watched this and took note of the time & manpower necessary to locate one guy. A guy who doesn’t speak English, has no resources, no family or friends in the area, armed only with a .22 rimfire, and no military training.
You need to remember that your average cop is a bully who likes throwing their weight around and roughing up people who can’t fight back: old ladies, children, unarmed people, and soccer moms in traffic stops. Maybe they were bullied themselves, maybe they are drunk with power, or maybe they are just pussies. I don’t know.
That is why they call SWAT for every real criminal, and why they shoot everyone with a full mag dump who even looks at them funny. Why? They are TERRIFIED- scared that the people they are bullying are one day going to have had enough. You see it all of the time-
At the south Florida UPS shooting. The cops took cover behind SUVs filled with soccer moms and their kids, using mothers and children as meat shields to take out a carjacker.
The armed, ballistic vest wearing Broward Deputy that “took cover” at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting in South Florida, and listened to the gunshots as unarmed students without body armor were murdered.
The SWAT team that threw a grenade into a baby’s crib while serving a drug warrant, and the police chief who backed them by saying it was a necessary step in keeping his cops safe
Don’t get me wrong. They aren’t ALL pussies, just the average cop. Some of them are upstanding guys who run to the sound of the guns, but I would say that most cops are not the brave defenders that they claim to be.
So when the governor of New Mexico issues an executive order that no one in Albuquerque is permitted to have a firearm, and a large group of gun owners show up armed in protest, the cops do- nothing. No, the cops didn’t back off because they believe in 2A, because whether they do or not, they will follow orders in order to keep their jobs and pensions. No, it’s because they are not about to get in a running firefight with a large group of armed, pissed off gun owners.
The kinds of guys who, after what happened on J6, show up to a rally like that are some pissed off guys, and some of them are just waiting for an excuse to get their shootyness on. The cops either know this, or are afraid that it is true. How many shooters would be willing to smoke some cops in a crowd of 200 armed protesters? What would the body count be?
They don’t want to find out, which is why they didn’t fuck around. No, if anything is going to be done, it will be handled just like J6 was. They will wait for a few months, then show up in force to each protester’s house with a short platoon of SWAT to arrest the protesters one at a time.
Then the only way to win will be to adopt the same tactics- visit the cops while they are alone and without reinforcements nearby.
Police are used to victimizing unarmed people. That’s why they call SWAT when there is the least chance of facing armed opponents. I want to remind you of this incident, point out that the cops in New Mexico will chase anyone who runs from them instead of allowing themselves to be searched for firearms, and then ask again:
What could a four man fire support element do if they were in an overwatch position 100 yards or so away and this was a planned ambush? How hard would it be to lure police into a kill box and then overwhelm them with large amounts of fire before disengaging and disappearing before the cops can organize an effective counter ambush?
Contact the FBI. They have the codes to your safe. If they won’t give it to you, just trespass in the Capitol while registered as a Republican. They will come over and open it for you. Maybe you will get lucky and the jail cell they lock you in for 22 years will have a digital lock made by Liberty.
Liberty Safe’s policy isn’t to give out combinations or keys to safes that have not been registered.
We all know that isn’t true. There are those who are claiming that the FBI had a warrant, so Liberty gave them the code. There are two problems with that:
The FBI had a warrant to search the guy’s house. That warrant is in no way binding upon Liberty safe, who is an unrelated party in this. In fact, if the FBI wanted the access codes, they would have to serve Liberty safe with a subpoena. Subpoenas are for records, warrants are not.
The fact that a backdoor exists at all is problematic. With all of the data breaches in the news, the mere existence of a backdoor is a significant liability. This calls all sorts of electronic devices into question. Nothing you have is secure from government access. Remember that we are now living in a one-party police state with the full cooperation of big business. Conduct your business accordingly.
There are some lessons here:
You should have backup weapons and cache them somewhere away from your property that they will not be found.
If you were one of the J6 protesters, you are looking at spending the rest of your life in the Gulag. Pay your bail and don’t look back.
EDITED TO ADD: Here are my thoughts on this:
A warrant for a customer’s home is not the means of forcing disclosure of private customer information from a company. What they mean is that they support law enforcement over their customers. This is no different than most so-called conservative politicians, who support… https://t.co/0b4isbI6RZ
