Police State

Defamation

Being tough on crime is one thing, but grandstanding for votes is entirely another. It began with Arpaio’s tough on prisoner approach of making prisoners live in tents and eat baloney sandwiches. Then it morphed into Grady and his political grandstanding. Now it’s gotten to where Sheriffs are posting people’s names and pictures on television to tell the world that those people are criminals, even when they aren’t.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not against being tough on crime, but there is a process for that. We don’t allow police in this country to punish lawbreakers. There is a process for that, and it doesn’t include destroying people’s lives because you are trying to garner a few votes. In this case, they were putting people’s pictures on television with the accusation that they are criminals without actually making sure that those people were actually accused of having committed a crime.

Keep in mind that Florida Sheriffs went to the state legislature and lobbied against carry laws. They went to the state legislature and lobbied against SB 234, which would have allowed those people in Florida who have a concealed weapons permit to carry a weapon openly. This proposed law wouldn’t have changed who may carry a weapon, only how they carry it.

The rule is innocent until proven guilty. Things like this show, red flag laws, and ex parte court hearings are destroying that principle. Everyone is entitled to their day in court, and I don’t mean the court of public opinion. I hope the guy wins.

By Divemedic, ago

California Tracking

It turns out that the new electronic license plates being issued in Michigan, California, and at least one other state have GPS trackers in them, which allow anyone to track the location of the car that they are attached to. The government having the ability to track everyone all of the time disturbs me enough, but complicating this is the fact that securing them from outside parties tracking them is something that apparently didn’t occur to the company that makes them.

White hats were able to hack into the plates, giving them the ability to see the GPS location, name, address, and other information about the registered owner. In addition, they were able to alter the plates to make them appear to be dealer tags.

This is a bonanza for criminals. A robber sees someone buy something that they want in a store, so they track you through your tag so that you can be robbed in a remote location. Cut someone off in traffic? It would be easy for them to find out where you live. Is your wife pretty? Maybe they can track her home for some easy raping.

This is a major security fail. Remember, just because you don’t do business on the cloud, you are still vulnerable to cyber crime. I am not sure how I would defend against this, but the time to figure that out is BEFORE these plates become mandatory where YOU live.

By Divemedic, ago

Late to the Party

I can’t believe that I missed this story, but better late than never.

At first glance, you would not think that Nikki Fried would be suing the Florida Department of Law Enforcement because the FDLE declared that a woman was ineligible for a Florida CCW. After all, Fried is a notorious antigun asshat. But sue the Florida Department of Agriculture did.

It all started when a woman, identified by her initials of M.S., tried to get a concealed weapons permit. In Florida, it is the Department of Agriculture that issues the permits, but it is the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that does the background checks. So FDLE did the background check and declared that M.S. has items in her criminal past that would make her ineligible to receive a CWP. The woman did what any of us would do and appealed the decision, demanding to know why she was denied. That’s when things went sideways.

In preparing for the appeal, the Dept of Agriculture asked FDLE to list the specific disqualifying offenses, but FDLE replied that her offenses must be kept secret due to Federal Law. Since Florida case law is explicit on this- if the Dept of Agriculture can’t list the specific disqualifying events, they must go ahead and issue the CWP.

I fully support this. If the government wants to take action against someone, they have to provide the evidence. If the providing the evidence is counter to the government’s interest, then they have a decision to make- release the evidence, or respect the rights of the citizen. There should be no “Open your mouth and close your eyes, you can trust us” stuff going on with regards to citizen rights.

At any rate, Fried’s department wanted to deny M.S.’s permit, so they filed a lawsuit against the FDLE, intending to force them to release the evidence. Now that Fried is out of office, that lawsuit has been settled out of court. I certainly hope that M.S. got her permit, or at least was able to see why not. A people cannot be free when they are subject to secret courts, hearings, laws, and decisions.

By Divemedic, ago

SB Tactical Gets Pwned

A company that makes pistol braces gets its customer database breached. There are four possibilities here:

  1. ATF was doing a little illegal sneak and peek so they know whose dogs to shoot
  2. ATF had one of their partner informants do it for them
  3. A freelance SJW is planning on outing everyone
  4. Criminals are just doing what they do

I am betting that the incident is either 2, above. Some lefty is going to anonymously notify the ATF that they have a list of lawbreaking owners of SBRs. Since the new rule outlawing unregistered pistol braces was published today, you have 120 days to register your (now) SBR or become a felon. Isn’t that a sweet little coincidence?

The miscreants got away with each user’s credit card number, expiration date, CCV code, cardholder name, address, phone number, and email address. If you have ever done business with SB tactical, you should consider all of that information as being compromised and in the possession of people who mean to steal your money, your life, or your freedom.

We know that the feds are now enlisting people in the private sector to do their unconstitutional dirty work. It can’t be too much longer before the informers are everywhere and people become vzyali.

On a side note, as of today I will no longer be in possession of a pistol brace equipped firearm. I am not registering shit.

By Divemedic, ago

More Airline Problems

Southwest airlines cancelled flights over the Christmas holiday. The passengers in Nashville who were stranded at the gate by these cancelled flights were standing at the counter, wanting solutions. What they got was a cop threatening to arrest them. What happened was this:

The flight was cancelled. The ticket agent didn’t want to deal with irate customers, and instructed police to have the people removed. The theory that the cop is using is: The flight was cancelled, therefore your ticket has also been cancelled. Since you can’t be in the sterile area without a ticket, you are now trespassing.

The only problem is that this is a bullshit argument. The ticket represents a contract between the passenger and the airline. There was an offer, an acceptance of that offer, and valuable consideration changed hands. The fact that one party (the airline) failed to perform under the terms of that contract doesn’t mean that the contract no longer exists, nor does it mean that the person who is the victim of this nonperformance is a criminal. What is happening here is the cop is inserting himself into a civil matter to the benefit of the party that has breached the contract.

That ticket is still a valid contract. The fact that the airline has chosen not to perform (no matter if that is a good reason or not) doesn’t cause the ticket to cease to be a contract. A person who is merely standing in line and inquiring as to what the other party is going to do to remedy the situation is not a crime, nor is it evidence of a crime.

Why do airlines get special police protection? Can I call the cops if McDonald’s fails to include the fries in my combo meal? Can McDonald’s call the cops if I pay for food that they can’t deliver, but I am still standing there with a valid receipt, waiting for my food or at least a refund?

For years, airlines have overbooked, oversold, and failed to honor the terms of their contracts. It is long past time that people demand a change to these practices. What other industry would get away with selling more of a product than they are capable of delivering? Can a car dealer sell more cars than they have or can reasonably provide?

This cop is an asshole, but then again most of them are. The Nashville airport has issued an apology, but that doesn’t change the fact that police officers have no business inserting themselves into a contract dispute. Honestly, it is stuff like this that makes me think perhaps we WOULD be better off if the police were defunded.

By Divemedic, ago

Professional Negligence

Imagine that a man’s truck with half a dozen guns inside of it is stolen. The man uses the “Find My Phone” app to locate his phone, which is presumably still in the stolen truck. The app tells him that his phone is somewhere within a 4 block radius of a location, so he drove around the area in a rented car and somehow came to the conclusion that his phone, and presumably his stolen guns and truck, were located in a woman’s garage.

The cop assigned to the case somehow bought into this hunch, secured a warrant, and performed a SWAT raid of the house. The resident of the house, a 77 year old woman, opened her door to an armed and armored SWAT team who handcuffed her and placed her in the back of a patrol car, leaving her in there for hours without food, water, or her medication. The search, which lasted for several hours, didn’t turn up a truck, a cell phone, or any guns. In fact, there was no evidence of any criminal activity found there at all. The entire incident happened in Denver.

The woman has filed a lawsuit against the police (pdf alert), as she rightly should have. A search warrant is only supposed to be issued on “probable cause” that evidence of a crime is located on the property to be searched. The circle drawn by “find my phone” is an approximate location based upon the cell tower that the phone is connected to. In this case, the circle was four blocks wide and covered six different properties. That isn’t an indication that HER house was the one where the phone was. It isn’t even an indication that the phone is located within that circle.

The lawsuit alleges that the detective failed to disclose his inexperience using the “Find My” app, failed to explain how the ‘Find My’ app works, identify what technology it uses to produce its results, or establish that the app was working correctly. Going only on a screenshot from the “Find My” app that pointed to Johnson’s home, the search warrant was approved.

The police damaged the woman’s home by breaking her garage door and climbing atop her new dining room chairs to break holes into her ceiling, they also damaged irreplaceable collectables in the home. The detective then told the elderly woman on the day of the raid that the Denver police would pay nothing to cover any of these damages.

People need to have a belief that the police are not just another criminal street gang. The more I interact with and see how police work, the more I come to believe that we would be better without them. I have only called them a few times, and each time they did nothing more than write a report. It was a waste of time.

I have said before: the police need to clean up their ranks. I don’t think you can, because I believe that the bad cops far outnumber the good ones. The police have become just another group of criminals who prey on the people in this nation who actually produce wealth. They are a street gang with badges and qualified immunity.

By Divemedic, ago

Don’t Answer Questions

This encounter is why you don’t answer a cop’s questions. Hand over the license and registration, and then respond with “I am not trying to be disrespectful, but I don’t wish to answer any questions at this time,” and then shut up. If you get officer road rage, it likely won’t help, but at least you have a stronger case later.

By Divemedic, ago

Another Boiling of the Blood

A guy wearing a motorcycle helmet in a WalMart is approached from behind by the manager and told to take off the helmet or leave. Since he was listening to music on earbuds, the man never heard the manger. The manager calls the cops.

Now the encounter could have gone two ways:

  1. They ask for his ID, see his receipt, see that he paid for his items, and heard both sides of the story. He didn’t have an attitude, even. So seeing all of this, chalk it up to misunderstanding, ask the manager if he wants the man to receive a trespass warning, if yes, do issue it and tell the man he is no longer welcome in the store. Everyone leaves, encounter deescalated.
  2. No, instead we get officer badass. By 7:45 into this video, he tells the motorcycle rider “You seem like an argumentative person. You need to take your hand, go like this, and pull your head out of your ass. Don’t mess with me, I am not the guy you want to mess with. You hear me??”

My answer at that point would be, “I know about the First Amendment. Spare me your roid rage bullshit. Go fuck yourself, and I am not saying another fucking thing until you get me a fucking lawyer, douchebag.” Then I would go to jail and be the state’s next winner of the “sue the cops” lottery.

Instead, he followed the cop’s instruction to stop talking, and they arrested him for not talking.

The manager lied. The cops violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights, and possibly others. I would be a money making individual. As he will hopefully be. He wound up suing them for malicious prosecution, illegal search, and illegal arrest. Mr. Pfaendler offered to settle with the city and department for $250,000 but the offer was rejected. The case, Pfaendler v. Sahuarita, Town of (4:20-cv-00188-JCH) has been running through the courts for more than two and a half years.

Cops like this are douchebags. When they are harassing compliant, law abiding citizens, firing beanbag rounds in random drive by shootings, tossing flashbangs into baby cribs, or using armored vehicles to clear people out of a bar during COVID, they are total bad asses. When it comes time to stop a mass shooter from killing a bunch of third graders, they stand around outside, texting people on cell phones that are emblazoned with Punisher logos, or take cover behind cars filled with children and soccer moms.

I swear that cops like this make all of you look bad. Either you cops need to clean up your ranks, or if there are so many of these meatheads that you can’t accomplish that, then walk away. I also don’t think that a WalMart in Arizona can trespass you from WalMarts in Maine. He may be mistaken there, but I would have to check.

By Divemedic, ago

Clean Up Your Ranks

In the last 22 years, I have had 9 interactions with with the police:

  • In 2000, my car was broken into, and my stereo, radar detector, cash, and other items totaling about $600 was stolen from it. The crime scene investigator came out and took fingerprints. They got a hit, gave me the name of the person, and asked me to sign a paper saying that this man did not have permission to be in my vehicle. A month later, I was told that the criminal would not be arrested because the crime was too minor to waste resources on.
  • In 2001, I was pulled over for running a red light. I let the cop know I was carrying, even though Florida law doesn’t require me to. He then threatened to kill me. I don’t inform any more.
  • Same year, I got a traffic ticket for $184, which I paid. Eleven years later, the court sent me a letter saying that they miscalculated the fine for the ticket, and I owe them another $32. I refused to pay it because the statute of limitations had passed and there was nothing that they could do about it.
  • In 2004, a cop told my girlfriend how to use the courts to steal my stuff by claiming that I had committed domestic violence. It took me months to get it straightened out. (I foolishly told this story to a GF in 2012 and that one copied the scheme)
  • In 2005, I had someone steal a check for over $200 from my mailbox, forge my name and deposit the money into his bank account. The number of the account that the check was deposited into was printed on the back of the check. I went to the station to report the crime. I had a copy of the check. All the cop had to do was go to the bank, get the name of the account owner, and make the arrest. Anyone could have done it, it wasn’t a hard crime to solve. The cops told me that they didn’t have the manpower to solve a crime for such a small amount of money. On the way home from the police station, I passed 6 cops with cars pulled over, writing traffic tickets.
  • As a paramedic in 2010, I ran a call on a report of man who was unconscious and slumped over the wheel at an intersection. When I got there, he was obviously drunk, so I reached in and took the keys out of the ignition and put them on the vehicle’s roof. When the cops got there, they let the man call his girlfriend and let her give him a ride home. They said that they couldn’t prove that he was behind the wheel. I told them I would testify, but then the cop told me that his shift was over soon, and he didn’t want to stay late to do the paperwork. I found out later he was a friend of one of the cops.
  • In 2016, I had to draw a gun on someone who then fled the scene. I called the cops and the one who showed up didn’t even take a report. Exactly zero effort was made to catch the guy.
  • In 2018, I had a police supervisor tell me that silencers and machine guns were illegal. I offered to bring in NFA items with the proper paperwork, so the cops could be trained to recognize the proper forms and know the law. They refused, and told me “Keep that stuff out of my town or you will be arrested.”
  • Also in 2018, an armed man was burglarizing cars in my neighborhood. He was caught on my security cameras. The cops used my footage to catch the burglar, but he reached a plea deal that included expunging his record. All he got was probation, even though he broke into four vehicles, stealing one of them.

I am giving the good cops some advice: clean up your ranks. I don’t think you can, because I believe that the bad cops far outnumber the good ones. The police have become just another group of criminals who prey on the people in this nation who actually produce wealth. They are a street gang with badges and qualified immunity.

By Divemedic, ago