Archive for the 'Police' Category

News from N.C.

A new federal lawsuit alleges that when a Mooresville police officer ordered Chris Craven to raise his arms and get on the ground, the father of three had only four seconds to live.

That’s all the time that ticked off before officers Christopher Novelli and Alex Arndt unleashed a barrage of gunfire from their high-powered rifles, striking the 38-year-old Craven about 20 times from close range, according to the complaint filed this month by his widow, Amy.

The officers’ action were not only excessive, the lawsuit alleges. They were illegal, too.

Amy Craven’s lawsuit names Novelli, Arndt and the Town of Mooresville as defendants. It accuses them of excessive force, violation of constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure, negligence and gross negligence, assault and battery, wrongful death, among other claims.

[ … ]

After ordering Craven to get on the ground, both officers stated that they saw him “reach into his waistband with his right hand and pull out a pistol,” Gregson said.

The lawsuit offers a radically different account.

It claims Craven was experiencing a mental health crisis when his eldest daughter called 911 that night, reporting that her father was carrying a gun and threatening to kill himself.

At least six Mooresville police officers surrounded the home. They found Craven seated on his front steps. According to the lawsuit, when police started shouting at him, Craven rose to his feet and began walking toward a camper parked in his driveway.

When the officers ordered Craven to put his hands in the air, he complied, according to the lawsuit. When they ordered him to get on the ground, he began to lower his hands.

Novelli was the first to shoot. Arndt joined in. Several of the rifle shots went through the walls of the home, where Craven’s wife and children had taken cover, striking a fire extinguisher and causing it to explode.

It’s the fault of the person who called the cops.

You’re never in more danger than when the police are around.  We talk incessantly about knowing your backstop around these parts, even linking and spending time watching penetration tests to see what gun and ammunition are safest to shoot in self defense inside homes made of siding.

If you’re a cop, no worries.  Shoot first and worry about the results later.

Seen at WoG, this report from Missouri.

A Missouri lawmaker is planning to introduce a new bill that he claims will strengthen the state’s “stand your ground” law.

Sen. Eric Burlison (R-Battlefied) pre-filed the legislation Wednesday. It would grant a person criminal immunity for using deadly force in self-defense unless the force is used against a law enforcement officer in the line of duty.

Now why would it be necessary to add the part I’ve bolded?

Because they can’t allow anything to escape the blanket indemnification they grant to all LEOs in every circumstance.

And what about a home invasion by SWAT in the wrong home where they bust in and point guns at your children, with you not knowing anything about who they are?

How about that one, Burlison?

Reason.

A SWAT team destroyed an innocent woman’s house after a fugitive barricaded himself inside. Last week a federal court ruled that she can sue the government for damages.

In July 2020, Wesley Little—who Vicki Baker had terminated as her handyman about a year and a half prior—arrived at Baker’s home in McKinney, Texas. Baker’s daughter answered. Recognizing him from news reports that he was wanted for the abduction of a 15-year-old girl, she left the premises and called the police.

SWAT agents soon arrived. They set off explosives to open the garage entryway, detonated tear gas grenades inside the building, ran over Baker’s fence with an armored vehicle, and ripped off her front door, despite being given a garage door opener, a code to the back gate, and a key to the home. The house was unlivable when they were through.

She sued. So the city asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

“In its pursuit of the fugitive and pursuant to its police powers, Baker alleges the City caused significant economic damage—over $50,000—to her home. Then, the City refused to compensate her for the damage,” writes Judge Amos L. Mazzant III of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. “Baker has alleged damage to her private property—and the City’s refusal to compensate for such damage—that plausibly amounts to a Fifth Amendment violation.”

The fact that this needed to be spelled out is a commentary on how difficult it has become to get meaningful accountability from the government.

The ability to do this sort of thing without accountability turns cops into nothing more than home invaders, hoodlums, gangsters and vandals.  Those who do this are deserving of no respect at all.  I would have been just fine if the cops perpetrating this had been shot.

They had no right to do this to anyone’s home.

Asset Forfeiture even under criminal conditions is immoral and should be illegal.  This case is all the more galling because no illegality occurred.  The ability to seize assets turns cops into highway robbers, and deserving of absolutely no respect at all.

I published Idiot ATF Agents thinking that it was the full story.  How stupid of me.

Well, well, well.  The truth comes out, and the irony bites.

CAMDEN COUNTY, Mo. — Camden County Sheriff Tony Helms says the ATF raid on a local gun store in Osage Beach on Tuesday caught him by surprise.

“It makes me mad I was not notified,” Helms said. “ATF agents were in my office the day before, to discuss a separate issue and they did not tell me a thing,” Helms said. “They called me at 1 p.m., on Tuesday, and apologized for not telling me, saying they were not comfortable having too many people know about the raid before it happened. They were hitting several gun shops as part of an annual thing.”

“Before SAPA, (the Second Amendment Preservation Act, passed in June 2021) they would have notified me if they were going to be in my county,” Helms added.

Oh.  I see.  You know where this is headed, don’t you?

According to the gun shop owner Jim Skelton, approximately fifteen agents entered the Skelton Tactical gun shop on Tuesday, seven deep, in full riot gear, bearing automatic weapons. The agents seized all of the firearms from both the gun shop and from his brother Ike Skelton’s store next door. “They said it had to do with the way I was selling firearms,” Jim Skelton said. The ATF also demanded Ike stop filming the raid on his cell phone. The ATF took Jim’s license to sell firearms. “I will appeal and fight this with everything I have,” Jim said.

“The feds regulate guns coming from the factory, to the shops, to the persons who buy them,” Helms said.

“I am all for second amendment rights,” Sheriff Helms said. “I pushed for SAPA. We were the first county to endorse SAPA. I own 20 guns and I teach a conceal and carry class. I am all for responsible law-abiding gun owners. I don’t want the feds coming and taking our guns.”

[ … ]

“Besides the cut in partnership, the county is now limited to access to ATF resources and technology,” Helms said. “Before, if a gun was used in a crime in Camden County, we could ask ATF to run a check, to see if the same gun was also used in another crime, anywhere in the country.”

It’s that horrible 2A preservation act that caused the ridiculous ATF raid for selling a muzzle loader to someone without a Form 4473 (even though one isn’t required).

Moreover (whimper, sigh, cry), we don’t get access to ATF resources, and we don’t talk anymore, not really, not like it used to be.  I don’t want anyone to take our guns, but I do miss my buddies so much!

You see, the ATF is playing hard ball, and the Sheriff is a little girl.  They’ve (the ATF) got the perfect patsy.

Someone who initially supported the 2A preservation act, but who now sees the error of his ways and wants it to be repealed, or so we must conclude.

Rather, if he had any balls, he’d have the ATF agents followed and harassed by his own deputies, and eventually run out of town or otherwise make it so uncomfortable to infringe on the 2A in his county that the ATF has been defanged.

Or, he could find a way to perform his own raid of ATF offices and throw them in the hoosegow for a few cooling off days.

These are just starting points.  There is a whole host of things he could do.

But he buckled and cried like a little girl that he wasn’t notified by the ATF because of that awful 2A preservation act when he could have stopped the raid (or maybe he could have, he doesn’t say, just that he wanted to be notified).

Exactly how being notified of the raid before it happened would have done anything useful, he doesn’t say.  He just wants to be buddies with he ATF again because he misses them.

It all falls into place, and it all makes sense now.

The ATF must really dislike the 2A preservation act if they’re going this far out of the way to insult local law enforcement.  If I was local law enforcement, I’d make sure they knew how I felt about their presence in my county.

But then I’m not the Camden County Sheriff, and I don’t whimper when people don’t want to be my friends.

Cowards.  They have no functional email that accepts URLs or I would send this commentary to them.

BCE weighs in (via WRSA).

As it is right now, as RA said further in the email: “Why would anybody go with the goons from Just-Us going forward? I mean why would you cooperate with Just-Us in any way knowing you will be tortured and abused?<snip>  “The current government has shown they will take you, they will torture you, and withhold medical treatment.

He goes further and asserts with some authority that it was the three letter agencies who were doing the rendition.  I’m certain it was too.

Furthermore, I’m certain that they got no actionable intel from it all.  If they had wanted actionable intel rather than making enemies, they would have fed them well, treated them with courtesy, and made friends with them.

BCE further discusses the fact that January 6 wasn’t an insurrection.  Good grief no.

January 6 was a made-for-TV circus act orchestrated by agent provocateurs.  But I sort of disagree that the protestors are in prison because the FedGov fears them.  I think they’re in prison for the FedGov to make an example of them.

No one chooses to stop what’s happening – not powerless senators, not the courts, not law enforcement, not the DoJ, not anyone.

They don’t choose to stop it because the three letter agencies run the country.  And while I’ve said before that we went into Iraq in order to test weapon systems and learn COIN (counterinsurgency), I think that’s wrong.

The U.S. has always known how to do this.  We went into Iraq for other reasons, you can fill in the blank (the military industrial complex, to hone our skills, etc.).

Don’t be surprised or astonished at what you’re seeing now in the D.C. prison, exclaiming that it violates this and that and the other, the right to a speedy trial, the right to counsel, the right to face your accuser, cruel and inhumane conditions, and so on and so forth.

They don’t care.  When you look at everything around you symbolic of the system – local law enforcement, state law enforcement, the federal protection police, the DHS, the CIA, the FBI, the fusion centers, the NSA, think of it this way.

This is all COIN and stability operations.  We did it in Iraq because we learned to do it in America.  American law enforcement isn’t practicing the concept of the local constable or peace officer.  They haven’t for a long, long time.

This is classic COIN and stability operations, all for the purpose of keeping those in power who are currently in power.

That’s why the protestors are in the D.C. prison.

Report from Florida.

TAMPA (WFLA) – A young Bradenton mother says she was in fear when she looked at her Ring App and saw armed men at her door.

Kada Staples says the men had their weapons pointed at her door and when she said hello, they ordered her to come out and said “we know he’s in there”.

The armed men were U.S. Marshals. Staples believes they were looking for a murder suspect, but they had the wrong apartment. At the time she opened her door and still didn’t understand what was going on.

“I cracked the door open and they pushed the door open and pushed me and my baby out of the way. They are holding us at gunpoint, screaming, there is a gun about a foot away from her face, ” said Staples as she held her three-month-old baby.

She said the U.S. Marshals kept saying,” We know Jamar is in there.”

“With that, they run in my apartment. There’s probably 6 or 7 of them out there with guns. 3 or 4 of them run into my apartment and are running around. They are still yelling at me that I’m lying,” said Staples.

She says she had been napping with her infant and was the only one inside when the Marshals soon realized their mistake.

“Then one of the guys in the hallway is like, wait, this is apartment and then said my apartment number and then kind of repeated it again and then they ran out and said, that’s the wrong apartment,” said Staples.

She says the Marshals left, but never even apologized for their actions or their mistake.

“No sorry, no nothing, they tell me, you’re good and another one said you’re fine,” said Staples.

She says when she called the U.S. Marshals Service to ask why officers had entered her apartment, she asked if they could provide a mental health counselor to help her deal with the anxiety brought on by the event.

She says a man on the phone told her to take melatonin and “get over it.”

In the end it would have been better if a U.S. Marshal had been shot and the homeowner exonerated of any wrongdoing.  It’s the only thing that will convince law enforcement that they simply can’t do this sort of thing.  That way, lives will be saved and everyone will be safer.

When Art Acevedo was police chief in Austin, he allowed and sponsored forcible blood draws at random traffic stops, conducted by the FedGov.  When he left and went to Houston, his folks perpetrated a deadly SWAT raid on innocent people based on trumped up and false accusations, and they knew them to be false.  Now, he’s being discharged from the Miami PD.

City Manager Art Noriega moved to fire embattled Police Chief Art Acevedo Monday night, ending weeks of speculation and tumult at City Hall and after a pair of circus-like public hearings in which commissioners lashed out at the chief for everything from a misguided statement he made about the “Cuban Mafia,” to the tight jumpsuit he wore during a fundraiser in another city. Technically, the manager suspended Acevedo pending termination, giving him the choice to resign or have a hearing before the city’s five commissioners, the majority of whom have publicly questioned his brief six-month time at the helm.

He was the former Chief of Police of Houston and was hired back in March by the City of Miami to lead its police force. Although Cuban, he was never a Miami Cuban but more Californian RINO than anything else and firmly planted on the side of Gun Control.

How long will it take for PDs to figure out that this guy is trouble and steer clear of him?

A few odds and ends.

Via David Codrea, cops kidnapping children.  Yes, seriously.

How to remove an AR-15 trigger group.  Now do one on proper installation.

Removing an AR-15 barrel nut (hint: he heats it with a torch).

Rex reviews some really, really light Level IIIA body armor.  Yea, it’s not good for rifle rounds, but it’s significantly less expensive and you’re protected against the most probable shot (and more likely to wear it given how light it is).

Reason.

On a chilly December evening in 2017, a group of Wichita cops surrounded a modest house on West McCormick Street. They were there in response to what was purportedly a gruesome hostage situation: a father shot dead, a mother in danger, and a son threatening to burn everything down.

When Andrew Finch opened the door to his home, a sniper rifle killed him within seconds. Thirty minutes passed before anyone rendered emergency aid. Cops handcuffed his mother, sister, niece, and two friends outside in 24 degree weather for over an hour. But Finch was not the son the police were after, nor were he and his family involved in any crisis.

That’s because there was no crisis. Around 5:00 p.m. that day, in a prank known as “swatting,” a California caller had dialed the Wichita Police Department (WPD) and reported a work of fiction, doling out the address and setting the chaos in motion.

The officers involved failed to do the basics before exercising lethal force on an innocent man, according to a lawsuit filed by the family. The suit says the officers subverted department policy by declining to call a SWAT team, opted not to conduct any sort of inquiry despite “obvious warning signs” that the call was a farce, and did not try to negotiate with Finch before ending his life, among several other missteps.

“After Defendant Officers…surrounded 1033 West McCormick, they made no attempt to determine whether an occupant of the house was in a mental health crisis; had shot someone; had threatened to hold or was holding someone at gunpoint; had threatened or was threatening to burn the house down; had threatened or was threatening to commit suicide; was in possession of a firearm; or posed a danger to themselves or others,” reads the suit, which was originally filed against the city of Wichita and officers Justin Rapp (who fired the shot) and Benjamin Jonker (who organized the response).

Whether the family will see anyone face accountability remains uncertain.

“The argument from the police officer seems to be basically: because they thought a heinous crime had been committed…it was fine to shoot Mr. Finch onsite as soon as he opened the door,” says Easha Anand, an attorney at the MacArthur Justice Center who is representing the family. “That’s just not how our justice system works. You don’t get to just shoot someone onsite because you think they committed a heinous crime.”

Anand recently made that argument to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, pushing back on Rapp’s contention that he should be protected by qualified immunity. That legal doctrine allows certain government officials to violate your constitutional rights without having to face a jury in civil court, so long as there are no preexisting court precedents explicitly declaring the specific conduct unconstitutional. Overcoming qualified immunity does not guarantee a settlement; it merely gives victims the right to state their case.

Yet that’s often a tall order for plaintiffs to meet, no matter how shocking the behavior in question. Consider an adjacent case: At 78 years old, Onree Norris was put under arrest after more than two dozen cops broke into his home, destroyed his door, and set off explosives in his house as part of a drug raid. They had the wrong residence. Though Norris survived the skirmish, he cannot sue the officers who left his home partially in ruins, because he was unable to locate an identical court ruling outlining his experience to a tee.

Well, shooting an innocent woman was what Lon Horiuchi did to Randy Weaver’s wife as soon as she stepped into the doorway, and Bill Barr defended the practice.  You’re never in more danger than when cops are around.

There is no system of justice in America.  The judges are corrupt, and the juries are packed with idiots who’ll do what the judge tells them to do.

And make no mistake, if told to confiscate firearms, they’ll obey orders and do it, just like the military will turn on the American public if ordered to by the corrupt generals.  You can bet your bottom dollar on that.