Archive for the 'Police' Category

ABC News:

An off-duty California police officer pulled a gun on a man whom he accused of stealing Mentos candy at a gas station, according to ABC TV station KABC in Los Angeles.

The man had in fact just purchased the candy, according to surveillance video of the March 16 incident posted by KABC.

In the video, a customer later identified as Jose Arreola can be seen paying a cashier for the Mentos at the gas station in Orange County south of Los Angeles.

Moments later, a man in black shorts and a black shirt who is standing in line behind Arreola pulls out a gun and tells him to put the candy back.

After Arreola tells the man he paid for the candy, the man asks the clerk, “Did he pay for this?”

The clerk confirms the purchase, and the officer apologizes to Arreola.

Arreola told the Orange County Register in a story published Friday that the incident left him scared and angry.

Since you’re not a cop, you’re not a “hero of the community there to protect and serve.”  Therefore, you can’t get away with something like that.

This cop had no muzzle discipline, and doesn’t have the brains to understand Tennessee v. Garner.  But that’s okay, since no prosecutor will ever charge him with assault with a deadly weapon (which is what would happen to us if we ever did something that brainless).

Guns.com:

The International Association of Chiefs of Police on Thursday made public a letter directed at Congressional leaders voicing the group’s opposition to the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act pending in Washington. The measures, H.R. 38 and S.446, respectively, would expand carry rights nationwide, in effect forcing states and local jurisdictions to respect all valid concealed carry permits, a move the letter’s signatories feel is a mistake.

“Mandated reciprocity would effectively override the permitting requirements of individual states, such as requiring safety training or prohibiting permits for people with multiple convictions for violent misdemeanors or drug or alcohol abuse problems,” the letter says in part.

Though made up of some 30,000 members, just 473 individuals from 39 states elected to lend their name to the letter. There are no active police chiefs who signed the letter from such conservative bulwark states as Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico or Nevada. In comparison, states with strict gun laws had numerous chiefs support the declaration. For instance, at least 85 signers were from Massachusetts departments and 55 from New York.

“This bill would override state laws determining who is qualified to carry a loaded hidden gun – laws which take into account the unique circumstances and needs in each state– and would force states to allow individuals to carry guns who are not qualified to do so under their own laws,” said Boston Police Commissioner William Evans in a statement issued by the IACP. “During traffic stops and other interactions with the public, our officers would have to be familiar with 50 different state’s laws on concealed carry permitting. Given the split-second decisions our officers frequently need to make, this is nearly impossible and can foreseeably lead to violent confrontations.”

That’s a blatant lie and they know it.  They know in the deepest recesses of their hearts that gun carriers are even safer than they are, and this has nothing whatsoever to do with crime.

They don’t want people to be able to effect their God-given duty of self defense except themselves.  This is the pinnacle of wickedness.  Every single person who lent their support for this lobbying effort is a liar and desires to see the deaths of innocent people, plain and simple.

Still, I’m with reader Fred Tippens on this issue.  Getting the FedGov involved in national carry laws is a profoundly had idea.  Let’s hope and pray that all states that oppose the right of self defense simply go bankrupt, and work towards that end.

Via reddit/r/firearms.

Removing dangerous items from the poor folks in the UK, while they protect Pakistani rape gangs for 20 years.  And doing so without any shame.

Via reader Ned (I get all my best posts from readers, yes?), this video gives us a glimpse into the thinking of cops.  From the description.

Journalist Michael Picard was illegally detained for lawfully open carrying and filming police on public property. During the illegal detainment, Connecticut state troopers confiscated his phone However, the trooper who took the phone went on to make a critical mistake when he and another officer began to make up stories on ways to frame him even after they admitted to each other that he did nothing wrong from a legal standpoint.

When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away, and they may frame you when they get there.  The video speaks for itself and needs no other commentary from me.  Stay safe out there guys.

David Codrea:

“What about people that already had weapons? Well, I’m gonna tell you now, don’t buy into the scare tactics, don’t believe the scare tactics, because you’ve heard people say ‘You’ll have to pry my guns from my cold dead hands,’” Fischer admonished.

“OK, he grinned and shrugged to delighted laughter and applause of the Bloomberg Moms.

So this should be an easy and simple question for Daryl.  You are going to be on those teams trying to confiscate guns aren’t you?  Tell me you’re not going to send deputies to do that alone?  You’re going to be right there in body armor going door to door and breaking into homes to take guns away, right?  Right beside your deputies?  Or better yet, leading the way in through the doorways?

The Washington Post:

Police say they saw an object in Stephon Clark’s hand before they fired 20 bullets that killed him in his back yard Sunday night in Sacramento, a disturbing moment that was made public through body camera footage released Wednesday night.

The two officers were responding to a 911 call about a man breaking vehicle windows when they encountered, then killed, Clark, an unarmed black man.

Video released by the Sacramento Police Department depicts a frantic foot pursuit through darkened streets pierced by white slivers of police flashlight.

The officers spot Clark approaching a house and shout: “Show me your hands! Stop! Stop!”

Clark is seen running, and the two officers round the corner of the house and find him under a covered patio.

An infrared camera on an overhead helicopter briefly loses sight of Clark.

“Show me your hands! Gun!” an officer shouts and ducks behind the wall in a fraction of a second.

The helicopter footage shows one of the officers appearing to grab his partner to pull him to cover.

Clark steps toward the officers. Behind the wall, one of the officers issues another command. “Show me your hands!” And then: “Gun, gun, gun!”

Both officers open fire. Sparks from the bullets light up the helicopter’s infrared camera in sharp white pops.

The sequence, from the first glimpse of Clark on the patio to the first gunshot, unfolds in about six seconds.

The officers are never heard identifying themselves as police before fatally shooting Clark.The gun officers thought Clark had in his hand was actually a white iPhone.

“He was at the wrong place at the wrong time in his own back yard?” his grandmother, Sequita Thompson, told the Sacramento Bee. “C’mon, now, they didn’t have to do that.”

Quick!  He has something in his hand – furtive movement – everyone is trying to kill us – shoot – kill, kill kill!

Hmm … let’s see, trespassing, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, brandishing a firearm, entry without a warrant, and second degree murder.

That should about cover it.  Except for qualified immunity and all that.

David Codrea quotes:

“The Sheriff says he and Governor Ducey feel it’s not practical to arm teachers because they’d have to become as well trained as deputies.”

Yawn.  Good grief.  It’s just putting rounds on a silhouette.  I’m more interested in the myth-telling the Sheriff wants to do.  They just won’t stop with this notion that the cops are there to protect people.  As we’ve seen, nothing could be further from the truth.

It’s entirely legal for them to watch a shooting go down while eating donuts, only to effect the arrest after it’s all said and done.  Hell, they could probably even neglect to effect the arrest and only get fired for failure to follow procedures.

If you trust the cops with your safety, you’re an idiot.

The Baltimore Sun:

A third of Baltimore Police recruits set to leave the academy and hit the streets lack a basic understanding of the laws governing constitutional policing and are being pushed through by the department nonetheless, according to the academy’s head of legal instruction.

“We’re giving them a badge and a gun tomorrow, the right to take someone’s liberty, ultimately the right to take someone’s life if it calls for it, and they have not demonstrated they can meet [basic] constitutional and legal standards,” said Sgt. Josh Rosenblatt Friday.

After a gun and badge ceremony at the academy Saturday, the recruits will receive eight weeks of training on the street before formally becoming Baltimore police officers, department officials noted.

But Rosenblatt, an attorney by training, said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun that 17 of those 50 recruits failed to pass scenario-based practical tests on legal standards related to basic police work, such as the need for probable cause before making arrests.

He said all did pass eventually, but only after he and other legal instructors were removed from administering the tests.

Some of the recruits, he said, have not been able to master basic material. Four have been in the academy for 18 months, having been recycled back from previous classes to continue their training, and still haven’t grasped the legal concepts, he said.

“With 18 months of training, they’re still failing to meet very basic legal standards,” he said. “Don’t illegally arrest people. Don’t illegally search people. These are not high standards.”

So we learn a number of things from this interesting report.  First of all, the legal instructor is an idiot.  He says, “We’re giving them a badge and a gun tomorrow, the right to take someone’s liberty, ultimately the right to take someone’s life if it calls for it.”

But if we’ve covered anything over these past years, it’s that rights and liberty come from God, not the state.  A constitution is a covenant, or solemn and sacred agreement between parties.  That covenant stipulates how the state will treat citizens.  No one can take rights.

For example, the right of due process must not be violated, period.  There is no excuse for violating the right of due process, and the Patriot Act is just such a violation.  In fact, with regards to taking a life, the Supreme Court decided in Tennessee versus Garner that a cop cannot shoot an escapee who is running from the police.  Cops can only discharge their weapons under the same circumstances I can, i.e., if a life is in danger.  In this case, a right isn’t being taken, it’s being protected.

And the very reason that the Supreme Court decided that a cop cannot shoot an escapee?  Because it bypasses the right of due process and places the cop in the position of removing a right, the very thing the legal instructor is saying cops can do under certain circumstances.  Do I need to drop what I’m doing and come up there to teach the course?

Second, the recruits cannot even come up the level of this idiot’s understanding of the law.  They’re going to make them all cops regardless of the fact that they cannot pass basic competency tests.  And why do we know this?  Why are they going to make them cops anyway?

Well, because of the third thing we learn.  This department is full of liars.  They did all pass the tests in spite of the fact that they hadn’t learned the material, they just had to do it without being proctored by the legal instructor.  Wink, wink.

But remember boys and girls.  The police are there to serve and protect, and they are the only ones qualified to handle firearms.

Blue Lives Matter:

The Miramar Police Department has suspended two officers from their SWAT team for responding to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting without having orders to do so.

When the first reports of an active shooter came out, the Miramar officers were in training in Coral Springs, nearby the Parkland high school, and they rushed to assist in stopping the carnage that left 17 students and faculty fatally shot, and another 16 wounded, on Valentine’s Day, the Miami Herald reported.

The police response to the mass shooting at the school – specifically that of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office – has been highly criticized for the incident commander’s failure to use updated active-shooter response methods.

Broward County Sheriff’s Captain Jan Jordan has been criticized for ordering officers to set up a perimeter rather than sending them in to stop the shooter, whose whereabouts were still unknown.

Several police officers and medics have reported that they believed more lives were lost because the incident commander wouldn’t let them respond earlier.

Some critics have called the officers who stayed outside and waited for permission to enter “cowards,” but now Miramar police are punishing two members of their own elite unit who did rush toward danger to try to save students’ lives.

Miramar Police Detectives Jeffrey Gilbert and Carl Schlosser were suspended from the Miramar SWAT team eight days after the shooting in Parkland, according to the Miami Herald.

Both remain on active duty with the department, but working in different capacities, the Sun-Sentinelreported.

“Effective immediately you have been suspended from the SWAT Team until further notice,” Miramar SWAT team commander Captain Kevin Nosowicz wrote in a Feb. 22 memo obtained by the Miami Herald through a public records request. “Please make arrangements with the training department to turn in your SWAT-issued rifle.”

The memo said Det. Gilbert and Det. Schlosser acted “without the knowledge or authorization from your chain of command” and created an “officer safety situation due to dispatch not knowing your location or activity” by heading to the massacre-in-progress independently.

An “officer safety situation.”  Next up, a little more detail.

The human urge to aid in a disaster is strong. But it can also run counter to police training. Too much response to a mass casualty situation can create confusion and hinder responders, as recent mass shootings have shown, according to Pat Franklin, a retired Miami Beach police detective.

“This is not their area, this is not their jurisdiction,” said Franklin, who consults with law enforcement agencies on internal affairs investigations. “You don’t want to let those guys loose into something that’s chaotic where they might take inappropriate action. It is prudent to have them stand down unless there is a plan.”

Of course, given the history of SWAT engagements we’ve documented over the years, I doubt that taking inappropriate actions are of a concern to the police.  They do it all day long every day all over America.  No, the issue here is as I’ve told you before.

You can call them cowards, and they are indeed just that.  But – and listen to me again – they followed procedure.  It runs contrary to procedure to save people.  It runs contrary to police procedure to put officer safety anything but first.  It runs contrary to procedure to go outside the chain of command and take actions deemed appropriate by the professional on the scene.  It even runs contrary to procedure to enter jurisdiction not your own in order to save lives.

Here that again.  “This is not their area, this is not their jurisdiction.”  It’s not even acceptable to render comfort and aid to children being shot when you’re not in your own jurisdiction.  If you are a citizen who helps or saves someone else, if you’re holding a weapon when the police arrive and follow their procedures, you’re going to get shot.  Even if you’re a cop and you render aid outside your own jurisdiction, you’re going to get disciplined.

Because.  Procedure.  Officer safety first.  Chain of command.  And remember boys and girls, these are the people who want you to be disarmed and unable to take care of your own people.

NY Daily News:

The latest city resident to cash in on police misconduct would raise a glass to toast his victory, except he doesn’t drink.

The NYPD found that out the hard way when cops tried to charge Oliver Wiggins with driving while intoxicated to cover up for a police officer who ran a marked SUV through a Brooklyn stop sign and plowed into Wiggins’ car.

Wiggins, 33, received close to $1 million from the city for his troubles, but not before he was arrested and charged with impaired driving, had his driver’s license suspended and was hit with a repair bill for his 2004 Nissan Maxima that his insurance company would not cover because of the DWI bust.

Never mind that a Breathalyzer test he took at the East Flatbush scene on April 19, 2015, showed no alcohol in his blood.

While at the hospital, after the crash at Glenwood Road and E. 43rd St., Wiggins volunteered to have his blood tested for alcohol or drugs at the hospital. That test came back negative. Reports from the EMT and DWI technician each said Wiggins had no signs of intoxication.

That didn’t stop the arresting officer, Justin Joseph, from officially reporting Wiggins had slurred speech, watery eyes, an odor of alcohol on his breath and was observed swaying. Three months later, prosecutors dismissed the charges.

But remember boys and girls, cops are the good guys and they’re there to protect and serve.  Just don’t be in their way or make “furtive” movements around them.