Archive for the 'Police' Category

AL.com:

The battle over SB24 just keeps getting stranger. The legislation introduced by Senator Gerald Allen (R-Tuscaloosa) removes the requirement for Alabamians to obtain a license before carrying a concealed pistol. The Alabama Sheriffs Association doesn’t want to change a thing.

Plenty of Alabama’s legislators agree that law-abiding Alabamians shouldn’t be forced to secure a license and pay a fee to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Twelve states already allow individuals to carry concealed firearms without a permit, and a few of them might surprise you. Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine all have less restrictive concealed carry laws than Alabama.

SB24 pits the NRA, which supports the measure, against the Alabama Sheriff’s Association opposing it. Testimony before the Alabama Senate Judiciary Committee led to a heated exchange between Alabama Sheriffs Association Executive Director Bobby Timmons and Jim Porter, former National President of the NRA.

A number of sheriffs have argued that the current law improves safety for law enforcement–a consideration that many legislators and Alabamians take seriously. Streamlining and reducing or eliminating the permit fees across the state makes sense as a potential compromise.

A recent internal email suggests that the Sheriffs Association isn’t necessarily negotiating in good faith. An email from Timmons called on sheriffs to contact their legislators “if you value your permit fund.” He specifically warned against a compromise that would clearly benefit Alabama’s gun owners. “The National Rifle Association WILL return next time the Legislature meets to bring back Jabo [Waggoner’s] ‘any county bill’ and will push for uniform — one cost — statewide permit fee…if any fee at all!”

If the Sheriffs Association’s opposition was primarily an officer safety issue, the big “push” email didn’t make it a direct focal point at all.

The email strongly suggests that money is the primary driver for the sheriff’s objection to SB24. Counties must adequately fund law enforcement, but pistol permits shouldn’t be the mechanism.

I told you so.  I denied that any of this has anything to do with “officer safety,” and said this.

It’s the revenue.  Don’t worry about slimming down and perhaps NOT buying those brand new Dodge Chargers and fancy comms gear.  Or perhaps laying off those unnecessary workers.  No, the pistol permit fee is a good way to raise money.

Other CLEOs have said the same thing as I’ve noted.

But opponents said it would have serious financial consequences for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, which administers firearms licenses issued under the Oklahoma Self Defense Act.

A fiscal analysis performed for the House indicates the measure would reduce OSBI’s revenue by at least $6 million and would lead to the loss of jobs and reduced operating expenses at the agency.

The reduction in revenue would be because firearms owners would no longer seek concealed carry licenses – which cost $100 for initial 5-year license and $200 for 10 years – if they could carry a gun openly without a license. There are now more than 238,300 Oklahomans with active licenses to carry handguns, according to state figures.

[ … ]

Perhaps it would be a good thing if the tax monies people allocated to your office were tied to the degree to which they see your services as good and needful, delivered in the right way.

Then Sheriff Blake Dorning, who must have been reading something, somewhere about this being all about the revenue, lied and said this.

“We hear it’s just a money thing,” Dorning said Wednesday.

“No, it’s not. It’s a life and death safety issue for our men and women because the equipment we’re able to provide them with drastically makes them more efficient and more able to address the situations that they come into every day.”

Dorning and other top department officials held a press conference Wednesday to follow up on the open letter the sheriff posted online over the weekend.

[ … ]

Jernigan said pistol permit fees are not an infringement on the Second Amendment, which provides for the right to bear arms. Jernigan it’s no different than paying a fee for a drivers license, marriage license, hunting license or car registration.

To which I responded this.

Thanks for self-identifying as a liar.  Driving a car is not mentioned in the constitution.  And if you really feel that the community wants the things you say you think you need, then why not make that case straight to the community and let them decide whether they want to fund them or not?

Oh, it’s because you have people who want to defend their lives over a barrel.  This is a forced tax of a targeted set of people for exercising what God and the founders consider an inalienable right.  You know it’s true.

In telling me it’s not all about the money, and then spending so much effort try to tell us what you need the money for, you’ve told us it’s all about the money.  So we’re back where we started, and you have no case.

And they still have no case.  They are saying one thing in public and entirely another thing to each other in private, and the proof is in the email.  I think that meets the definition of liar.

No, not this rolling gun battle that wasn’t (it’s a wonder that the cops didn’t shoot an innocent man in this instance), but this one (via David Codrea) that really was a rolling gun battle, or at least, on the part of the cops.

A 2-mile police chase from Westchester County to the Bronx ended Tuesday with Mount Vernon cops squeezing off more than 30 shots, blowing out a car’s rear windshield and wounding an unarmed woman inside.

The woman was blasted once in the shoulder and listed in stable condition at Jacobi Medical Center after the 9 a.m. shooting. The man who was driving the black Chevrolet Malibu was not hurt.

Authorities say cops opened fire when the driver intentionally rammed a police car after speeding from a blockade and slamming into a railing at a Gulf gas station on E. 234th St. in Wakefield in the Bronx.

No gun was found in the vehicle.

[ … ]

Five Mount Vernon cops suffered injuries during the confrontation, which began in the suburb about 12 blocks from the Bronx.

During the shooting, flying glass struck one Mount Vernon officer in the eye. Two other officers suffered from ringing in the ears, officials said. A fourth suffered chest pains.

Hey, at least it wasn’t as bad as when the NYPD discharged 84 rounds with innocent people all around them, missing with 70.  That’s the upshot.  At least the Mount Vernon PD isn’t as bad as the NYPD.  “We’re not the worst!”  We’re not the worst!”  “We’re not the worst!”

And they say it’s us who can’t be trusted with guns.

AP:

CHICAGO (AP) — A 15-year-old Chicago girl was apparently sexually assaulted by five or six men or boys on Facebook Live, and none of the roughly 40 people who watched the live video reported the attack to police, authorities said Tuesday.

The video marks the second time in recent months that the Chicago Police Department has investigated an apparent attack that was streamed live on Facebook. In January, four people were arrested after a cellphone footage showed them allegedly taunting and beating a mentally disabled man.

Police only learned of the latest attack when the girl’s mother approached the head of the police department, Superintendent Eddie Johnson, late Monday afternoon as he was leaving a department station in the Lawndale neighborhood on the city’s West Side, department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

[ … ]

… Johnson was “visibly upset” after he watched the video, both by its content and the fact that there were “40 or so live viewers and no one thought to call authorities.

I guess Johnson wasn’t upset enough to advocate gun ownership to stop these kinds of attacks as they happen.  Upset alright, just not enough.  Perhaps if it was his own daughter and he wasn’t a cop.

David Codrea:

“As the leader of the Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers – the largest statewide affiliation of law enforcement associations in Nevada, representing more than 1,500 law enforcement professionals – I am calling on Attorney General Laxalt to do his job,” NAPSO executive director Rick McCann tells Reno Gazette-Journal readers.  “As the state’s top cop, he can and should work with both Nevada’s Department of Public Safety and federal officials at the National Instant Criminal Background Checks System (NICS) to find a path forward, ensuring that law enforcement in our state are protected when they risk their lives to protect ours.”

He’s referring to the Michael Bloomberg-led Question One “background check” initiative that passed in Nevada in November …

Recommending new laws or fabricating imaginary ones has nothing whatsoever to do with an AG’s job.  He just made that up.

Here’s something else he just made up: “Our job is basically to protect officers around the state.”  Who told him that is his job?  Where did he get this information?  What does protecting police officers have to do with being a police officer?  What does protecting police officers have to do with the oath he took upon his swearing into office?

I think you know the answers.

David Codrea:

“Federal agents arrested seven Baltimore City Police Department (BPD) officers today for a racketeering conspiracy and racketeering offenses, including robbery, extortion, and overtime fraud,” the Department of Justice U.S. Attorney’s Office District of Maryland announced Wednesday.

Per The Washington Post, the indicted cops “were members of an elite gun task force.”

Elite.  That means just like you and me, only better.  That’s why they get to steal things, break the law, and take guns away from people.

Actually, they’re not just like you and me.  None of my readers do these things.

News From Florida:

A man, woman and cable repair worker were tied up as two young children witnessed two armed men raid a home in Miami-Dade on Sunday afternoon, police said.

Jennifer Capote, with the Miami-Dade Police Department, said a Comcast cable worker was inside the home at 2203 NW 104th Terrace doing repairs when the robbers, claiming to be Miami police and dressed in body armor, stormed into the home about 3:30 p.m.

Police said the intruders tied up the cable man, mother and father as their children, ages 3 and 12, looked on.

Police said the men got away with jewelry and about $500 in cash.

A neighbor’s surveillance captured the moments leading up to the violent robbery.

“There were two gentlemen that came out of the car and came through over here dressed up as cops,” neighbor Glenda Mendez said. “This neighborhood has never had any problems or any issues going on. It is very scary.”

For those of you who are LEOs, do you understand?  Does this ring any bells with you as home owners and family members?  Does it make any sense to you that this is number 18,399 on the list of reasons not to conduct home raids, even if they are intended to find evidence of wrong-doing?

Well, does it?  I hope a LEO weighs in, because it’s crystal clear to me and most readers.  In addition to your felt need to “go home safely at the end of your shift,” we have an equivalent need to be safe in our own homes, to prevent flash-bang grenades from being thrown into our toddler’s cribs, to prevent your reflexively shooting our family dogs, and to prevent street thugs like this from raiding our homes under the guise of being police officers.

You see, we can’t just lay down and let people screaming “police, police, get the fuck on the floor, police, police” … come into our homes without countering those efforts with close quarters battle.  Because they may not be police.  And even if they are, does it matter whether a criminal from the streets shoots up my home or a criminal with a badge and gun throws a flash-bang at my wife or child?  The end result is the same, yes?

News from Florida:

PUNTA GORDA, Florida — The police chief of a Florida Gulf Coast town and one of his officers have been charged in connection with the accidental fatal shooting of a woman last year at a citizen’s police academy.

In August, Punta Gorda police Officer Lee Coel fired the fatal shot during a drill involving civilians at the police academy facility. Mary Knowlton, a 73-year-old retired Minnesota mother of two, died at a hospital.

Coel was charged Wednesday with one count of felony manslaughter.

“I don’t see how the facts as we know it would amount to criminal negligence as opposed to simple negligence,” attorney Jerry Berry told CNN affiliate WINK. CNN reached out to Berry but didn’t get an immediate response.

Chief Tom Lewis will face one count of misdemeanor culpable negligence.

“Looking at the totality of the facts and evidence brought our office to this decision,” State Attorney Stephen Russell said.

Athens Banner-Herald:

A sheriff’s deputy late Wednesday reportedly accidentally shot his gun into a neighboring home occupied at the time by two residents at an eastside apartment complex, Athens-Clarke County police said.

No one was injured by the gunshot, which resulted in a bullet passing through a bedroom wall and a TV before lodging in a wall separating the bedroom and living room, according to police.

The 24-year-old deputy was an employee of the Hall County Sheriff’s Office and lived at the Cedar Shoals Drive complex with his girlfriend, who was identified as a rookie Athens-Clarke County police officer who was attending the police training academy.

The rookie cop told police she was outside walking her dog when she heard the gunshot, and upon returning home found her boyfriend “crouched on the floor, obviously upset,” according to a police incident report. When she asked what happened, the deputy said he had a “negligent discharge” of his duty weapon.

The deputy explained the incident occurred as he was putting out his equipment in preparation for going to work in the morning. When placing the gun on a counter. The weapon discharged “either because of the jarring of the gun being put down or because of where he had his hand” on the gun, according to police.

Gosh, I hate it when that happens to me.  I remember the last time I slammed one of my guns down on the table and caused it to fire.  People had to be taken to the hospital, but after it was all over we laughed and laughed and laughed about it.

Actually, I’ve never slammed a gun down on anything and caused it to discharge.  With modern grip safeties, triggers with brush guards, and other safety features, I’m betting it had something to do with “where he had his hand.”  Yep, I’m sure of it.  I’m sure he had his finger inside the trigger guard and he pulled the trigger.

David Codrea:

“The submachine gun was a Heckler & Koch MP5 10mm,” the report elaborates. “An ammunition magazine for the weapon was also taken. Officials did not say how the weapon was secured.”

I want to know that information.  I was shopping at Lowes several months ago and happened upon a smaller town chief LEO who was looking for a case for a patrol rifle.  I suggested several brands (which wouldn’t have been able to be located at Lowes), or shopping on Amazon.

Either way, it goes to show that putting your patrol rifle – or in this case an NFA weapon – inside a secure case, bolted to the floor of the vehicle, is the least a LEO can do to secure his weapons.

But we can’t be trusted with machineguns, because laws are for little people, not LEOs.

Remember that we extensively discussed the idiotic and immoral raid on baby Bou Bou’s house in search of someone who wasn’t there?  The horrible and inept “criminal justice system” didn’t even hold the people who perpetrated that evil act accountable for it.  A grand jury couldn’t even convince themselves that they should have continued legal action against the police, and the raid ended up crippling the poor child and causing multiple surgeries.

The police state in America is so screwed up that it can’t even learn from such a disaster as that.  “Officer safety” must return home at the end of his shift, and the war on drugs must go on.  True to form for the police state, I missed that yet another flash bang was thrown at a baby in Indiana after the raid on baby Bou Bou.  This time, at least the court had doubts and threw out the evidence collected in the raid.  Fortunately, no one was harmed.

The Evansville (IN) Police Department has seen a drug bust go up in a cloud of flashbang smoke. A search warrant for drugs and weapons, based on an informant’s tip, was executed perfectly… if you’re the sort of person who believes it takes a dozen heavily-armed officers, a Lenco Bearcat, and two flashbangs to grab a suspect no one felt like arresting when he was outside alone taking out his trash. (via FourthAmendment.com)

The state appeals court decision [PDF] hinges on the deployment of a flashbang grenade into a room containing a toddler. Fortunately, in this case, the toddler was only frightened, rather than severely burned. But it was this tossed flashbang that ultimately undoes the PD’s case. The evidence is suppressed and the conviction reversed.

Scattered throughout the opinion are some amazing depictions of the PD’s SWAT team at work — and how those officers seem to believe the violence of their entries during warrant service are somehow just the new normal.

Things like the following paragraph. First: some background. In some cases, it’s (theoretically) more difficult for law enforcement to obtain no-knock warrants. Facts need to be asserted that show that warning the occupants of a residence in any way would most likely result in the destruction of evidence and/or an armed response. Some judges are more willing than others to hand these out, but either way, the standard warrant boilerplate can’t be used.

So, here’s the difference between a “knock and announce” warrant and a no-knock warrant, as deployed by the Evansville PD.

The SWAT team rode in a Lenco Bearcat that followed a patrol vehicle to the residence. At least a dozen officers were involved. Upon arrival and prior to entry, three officers and a police vehicle approached the rear of the residence and at least nine officers, most armed with assault weapons, approached the front of the residence. At 10:30 a.m., the police knocked on the residence and one of the officers announced, “Police – Search Warrant – Police – Search Warrant,” and another officer announced over a loudspeaker “Search Warrant. 314 Illinois.” State’s Exhibit 1 at 3:55-4:00. One second later, the SWAT team knocked down the door with a battering ram.

ONE SECOND. Technically, still a knock-and-announce warrant, even though the residents had been given no chance to respond.

Within the next couple of seconds, a flashbang grenade was tossed into the front room, which contained a playpen and a baby’s car seat. The toddler was in the playpen.

After the flash bang grenade was deployed, Detective Gray entered the residence and picked up a nine-month old baby crying on top of blankets in a playpen just inside and “very close to the door.” Id. at 332. The room also contained a baby’s car seat and a toddler’s activity center in the line of sight of the front door. One of the officers moved the car seat with his foot to proceed further into the residence.

The officer who tossed the flashbang said he could see more than what was captured by his helmet cam, but still admitted he could not see everything in the room into which he tossed the grenade. This grenade was thrown within two seconds of the officers’ announcement that they had a warrant and roughly one second after the door was breached.

Officer Taylor testified that his perception of things involved a much wider view than what the camera could see. At a time stamp of 4:01 on the video, a member of the SWAT team rammed the door open several inches with a battering ram. From an angle to the right, Officer Taylor tossed the flash bang into the house at 4:02, and it detonated at 4:04. The video at 4:02 shows only a portion of the right rear of the couch and the wood floor on which it sat. The video reveals that about five minutes after the initial entry someone stated: “Make sure you get a picture . . . are you taking a picture of that?” State’s Exhibit 1 at 8:50-8:55. This appears to be a reference to a charred stain on the floor. The person then stated: “Because the baby was in this room, but I put it right there for a reason.” Id. at 8:55-9:00.

The lower court found these tactics unreasonable on the whole and granted suppression of the evidence obtained during the search. The state argued that suppression wasn’t the proper remedy and anything resulting from the “unreasonable” use of a flashbang grenade in a toddler’s room was something to be addressed in a civil lawsuit.

The appeals court disagrees, finding nothing justifiable about the SWAT team’s violent entry into the home.

The video shows almost no time lapse between when the door was battered in and the tossing of the flash bang. The door was barely opened when the flash bang was immediately tossed into the room, and the angle at which Officer Taylor was standing to the door did not allow him an opportunity to see what was inside the room. Indeed, Officer Taylor acknowledged that he could not see portions of the room in which the flash bang was placed. Specifically, he testified that he could see “from the couch over to the left, I can’t see the corner, the left corner inside the room and I can’t see the hallway in front of it, that’s why the flash bang goes in the threshold.”

That’s the flashbang, delivered two seconds after the police announced their presence. This is only part of it. The attempt to salvage the fruits of the search with a claim that the house potentially contained dangerous criminals also receives no judicial sympathy. The state makes assertions, but cannot back them up.

The State does not point us to any other evidence indicating the criminal history of Watkins or the other occupants of the house. The record contains no evidence that law enforcement could not have safely presented the person matching Watkins’s description with the search warrant during the time that he was outside the house and before he re-entered it.

The court basically gets it right in terms of the correct way to do this kind of police work.  Observe the residence, proceed with entry when no one is at home, and then present an arrest warrant to the perpetrator when he returns.

Or better yet, we could give up this ridiculous war on drugs.  Either way, it will never be necessary to throw grenades into homes towards babies for any reason under the sun, unless you’re immoral and a coward.  As for the objection that they didn’t know a baby was there (if that is indeed the objection), that is no excuse.  They should have done the rudimentary investigative work to find out.  That’s what detectives are for.

The smart people are supposed to work as detectives.  Call them first.  They can think about smarter ways of doing this sort of thing.  Finally, rather than just throw out evidence, the court should have imprisoned the officers who did this and the judge who approved it for violation of the Fourth and Fifth amendments to the constitution.  They deserve to be in the state penitentiary with the general prison population.

The constitution is a covenant under which stipulations we are all supposed to live.  Failure to do so means that the covenant has been broken, and breakage of the covenant means that punishments are supposed to ensue.