Archive for the 'Police' Category

Report via David Codrea, and straight from Mr. Hildreth’s Facebook post.

Steven Hildreth, Jr.
So, I’m driving to my office to turn in my weekly paperwork. A headlight is out. I see a Tucson Police Department squad vehicle turn around and follow me. I’m already preparing for the stop.

The lights go on and I pull over. The officer asks me how I’m doing, and then asks if I have any weapons.

“Yes, sir. I’m a concealed carry permit holder and my weapon is located on my right hip. My wallet is in my back-right pocket.”

The officer explains for his safety and mine, he needs to disarm me for the stop. I understand, and I unlock the vehicle. I explain that I’m running a 7TS ALS holster but from the angle, the second officer can’t unholster it. Lead officer asks me to step out, and I do so slowly. Officer relieves me of my Glock and compliments the X300U I’m running on it. He also sees my military ID and I tell him I’m with the National Guard.

Lead officer points out my registration card is out of date but he knows my registration is up to date. He goes back to run my license. I know he’s got me on at least two infractions. I’m thinking of how to pay them.

Officers return with my Glock in an evidence back, locked and cleared. “Because you were cool with us and didn’t give us grief, I’m just going to leave it at a verbal warning. Get that headlight fixed as soon as possible.”

I smile. “Thank you, sir.”

I’m a black man wearing a hoodie and strapped. According to certain social movements, I shouldn’t be alive right now because the police are allegedly out to kill minorities.

Maybe…just maybe…that notion is bunk.

Maybe if you treat police officers with respect, they will do the same to you.

Police officers are people, too. By far and large, most are good people and they’re not out to get you.

I’d like to thank those two officers and TPD in general for another professional contact.

We talk so much about the bad apples who shouldn’t be wearing a badge. I’d like to spread the word about an example of men who earned their badges and exemplify what that badge stands for.

‪#‎BlueLivesMatter‬ ‪#‎AllLivesMatter‬

[EDIT: In my rush to post, I accidentally omitted that my wallet was in the back-right pocket, near my firearm. This was the primary motivation for temporary disarmament. The post has been modified to reflect that.

Again, I’d like to thank the TPD and their officers for their consistent professionalism, courtesy, and the good work that they do, both in this particular contact and every day.]

So let me get this straight.  The most unsafe times in any handgun evolution is unholstering and holstering your weapon (depending somewhat on the maturity of the one engaged in the action, and always subject to trigger and muzzle discipline).  The police decided to put Mr. Hildreth in danger by touching his weapon, in order to contribute to their own perceived safety?  Okay.  Got it.

Now for an assessment.  Mr. Hildreth is being to kind to the police.  No one should have been touching the weapon – not Mr. Hildreth, and not the police.  The weapon should have stayed holstered.  Period.  There is no tactical reason whatsoever to have unholstered and confiscated the weapon, not for a minute, not for a second.  Furthermore, let’s not pretend that negligent discharged don’t happen with the police.  We know they do.

So can anyone give me a single, solitary reason that the police, if they had wanted to see his identification, couldn’t have said, please reach into your pocket and produce your identification for us?  Is there any reason whatsoever to conclude that anyone was safer for the police having touched this weapon?  My bet is that no one can produce such a reason because there isn’t one.

First, a little background.

Arkansas’ attorney general said Friday that legal gun owners are free to openly carry or ride with their weapons but should be ready to field inquiries from law enforcement personnel wondering why they’re carrying.

Republican Attorney General Leslie Rutledge released an opinion Friday stating that law-abiding Arkansans are free to carry or possess their weapons on themselves or in their vehicles without fear of prosecution so long as they are not in a place where it is prohibited by law and they do not have an intent to “unlawfully” use the weapon.

Rutledge’s opinion has been expected by many, including Gov. Asa Hutchinson. It was requested in early June by three legislators who wanted to settle whether modifications to the state’s weapon-carry statute in 2013 made Arkansas an “open-carry” state — one that allows citizens to openly carry firearms without a license.

Because Rutledge’s opinion is nonbinding, it does not bar police from arresting citizens who open-carry, which has happened sporadically across the state over the past two years.

Ever diligent to make law themselves, the Bald Knob police have taken the AG’s opinion as a cue to harass peaceable citizens.

BALD KNOB, Ark. (KTHV) – A vague open-carry law in the state has one police department attempting to clarify it.

Bald Knob is cracking down on open-carry, trying to make a grey law more black and white. The Bald Knob Police Chief Erek Balentine is concerned that guns openly carried in stores and restaurants is too alarming to customers.

This concern over open-carry started in Bald Knob with the controversial arrest of Richard Chambless in May of this year.

Recently, the district court became the first in the state to find a guilty verdict for open-carry. Now the police department hopes one sign can help everyone feel safer.

“In this setting it needs to be relaxed. They are in a relaxed environment and shouldn’t have to fear if there’s ill intent or harm coming to them,” said Sharon Beauregerd, beautician at Cosmetology Career College. By federal law, no guns are allowed in this salon because it is a school. However, as a business owner who sells the skills she’s teaching, she wants to make this clear to customers. “If you come in open carrying, and I’ve got these students here, I’m going to protect them. I’m going to ask you to leave our facility.”

Bald Knob police have been helping area businesses prohibit guns.

“My job is to take action and protect the community. You can’t expect someone to obey something that not posted,” said Balentine who is offering signs to put on business fronts. Balentine said there are confusing regulations on where, when, and why you can carry a gun. “There’s no way to tell. He could be on the run for murder, be a felon.”

Note the article, which apparently accidentally tells the truth.  Rather than let the legislature clarify the law, which is their job, the police are attempting to do the same and expect the courts to back them up, an expectation upon which they can probably rely.

And notice what the police chief says.  This is all about how people feel, not real safety.  No felon on the run for murder open carries anywhere, but if they have a weapon they will conceal it.  But as long as it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind.

Such is the simplistic psychology of the ignorant public, and such is the temptations of a badge, gun and court system to back it all up.  Cops can not only enforce the law, according to chief Balentine, they can make it too.

Why, turn against peaceable citizens, of course.

With non-fatal shootings on the rise in Boston this year, public safety officials are reaching out to the city’s legal firearm owners in the hopes of cutting down on the number of guns that end up with criminals.

“Police serve an important role in reducing gun crime, but more can be done with your help,” a letter from the Boston Police Department and addressed to firearm owners states.

Police are offering free gun locks and are reminding firearm owners of information on how to report a gun sale, loss or theft; information on how to turn in a firearm, if so desired; and advice on proper weapon storage.

“Without better enforcement and education, we’re letting things slip through the cracks and legally purchased firearms are falling into the hands of criminals,” Commissioner William Evans said in a statement.

The statement cited a recent study that found that 32 percent of traceable handguns that Boston police recovered from 2007 to 2013 were originally purchased from a licensed Massachusetts dealer. And of the Massachusetts-sourced firearms, “almost 85 percent of them were recovered from someone other than the original, legal purchaser.” Sixty-three percent “had not been reported as transferred or sold to the Massachusetts Firearms Records Bureau, even though such [transfer reports] are required by law,” the city statement said. And just 11 percent of the Massachusetts-sourced guns were reported lost or stolen.

I wouldn’t report a sale either.  It’s none of your damn business.  This is pathetic.  This is literally all the collectivists have left in their tool bag against violence: going after peaceable citizens.

Actually, it may indeed be about the last refuge for the totalitarians.  When you create an entitled, criminal class who thinks you owe them a living, color TV, place to live, iPhone, food and medical care, there is nothing police can do to ameliorate the damage wrought by those social programs.

Entitlement creates monsters.  Monsters cannot be domesticated.

AlterNet:

A Florida family seeks justice after their son Jason Westcott, was killed by members of a SWAT team, during a “drug raid” on his house which yielded only $2.00 worth of marijuana.

An ‘internal investigation’ absolved officers of any wrongdoing though police only found .02 grams of marijuana in Westcott’s home.

“They have IA, they have internal investigations but when you police yourself, you have that veil of concern by the outsider,” said attorney T.J. Grimaldi.

On Tuesday, attorney T.J. Grimaldi, representing the family of Westcott, informed the city that family would be filing a lawsuit, after finding numerous “glaring inconsistencies” in police statements in the aftermath of the killing.

“We have developed and seen what we view to be significant inconsistencies with the way that the police department portrayed this case from the get-go all the way to its conclusion,” he said. “We have put the city and the police department on notice that we are going to be filing a lawsuit,” Grimaldi said.

Westcott became the target of an intense drug trafficking investigation after a confidential informant led investigators to believe that Westcott was a dealer, as opposed to the casual cannabis smoker he was in reality. The informant has since gone public and admitted that he was lying to police in the case.

[ … ]

The fact that a young man with his whole life to live was killed by police, over a $2 dollars worth of a plant, is a direct statement on the absurdity of the “War on Drugs.” The practice of trusting the word of individuals who have a vested interest in alleviating their own criminal charges is a practice that is contrary to the highest ideals of justice.

Read the rest.  A young man is dead because he thought his home was being invaded by criminals (it was) – all over two dollars worth of pot.  A police cover-up ensues – all over two dollars worth of pot.  A huge award is forthcoming all on the taxpayer’s purse – all over two dollars worth of pot.  A CI is now the target of criminals – all over two dollars worth of pot.

There is your war on drugs.  Do you feel safer now?

CBS:

Two North Dakota State University students got a scare when armed police officers mistook their telescope for a rifle.

WDAY-TV reports that Levi Joraanstad and Colin Waldera were setting up the telescope behind their Fargo apartment Monday night when they were blinded by a bright light and told to stop moving.

They couldn’t see who was shining the light and presumed it was a prank by other students.

An officer on patrol had spotted the two and thought the telescope was a rifle. He also thought Joraanstad’s dark sweater with white lettering on the back looked like a tactical vest. He called for backup and the officers confronted the students.

According to WDAY, Joraanstad said at first the pair didn’t take the situation seriously, certain it was just some friends fooling around.

“… we were kind of wondering, what the heck’s going on? This is pretty dumb that these guys are doing this. And then they (police) started shouting to quit moving or we could be shot. And so at that moment we kind of look at each other and we’re thinking we better take this seriously.”

Police say the two were never in any danger and that it was a situation of “better safe than sorry.”

Gosh, I hate it when that happens to me.  I remember the last time I pointed a weapon at someone holding a stick – after all, I mistook it for a rifle so better safe than sorry.  In my case, I’m glad the cops understood and let me go about my business, even though I had brandished a weapon.  Better safe than sorry, you know.

I had missed it when it happened, but the LA Times reminds us on one incident with the Stockton Police Department that ought to calibrate your expectations concerning police.

The more than 600 rounds that Stockton police fired during a rolling gun battle with bank robbers last year that left a hostage dead by officers’ bullets was “excessive” and “unnecessary,” an independent review found.

The Police Foundation, a research group based in Washington, D.C., released a detailed report Monday on how Stockton police responded to the July 16, 2014, armed robbery of a Bank of the West branch, where three gunmen took three women hostage and fired at officers from a speeding SUV.

The group found that 32 officers unloaded more than 600 rounds during the hour-long rolling gun battle, which spanned three counties, 63 miles of highway and reached speeds of 120 mph. One of the hostages, Misty Holt-Singh, was killed when she was struck by 10 police bullets, authorities said. The two other hostages jumped or were thrown from the vehicle during the chase and survived.

Police officials said they fired on the vehicle to potentially save lives because the men in the car were shooting indiscriminately. The gunmen disabled 14 police cars with gunshots, the report stated.

[ … ]

The report said that a few officers engaged in “sympathetic fire,” in which officers fired their weapons because others were shooting.

In some cases, officers opened fire while colleagues were in front of them. The report highlighted an example during the final standoff, in which one officer lay prone on the ground and did not shoot while an officer next to him, standing, fired “round after round.”

“‘What’s your target?’ the prone officer yelled, thinking he was missing something,” the report stated.

“‘The car!’ responded the officer,” according to the report.

Good Lord.  This is even worse than the New York Police in the empire state building three years ago.  600 rounds, indiscriminate shooting, lack of muzzle awareness and discipline, rolling gun battle in a urban and suburban settings, lack of awareness of their backstop, lack of precision fire, and the list could go on.

Ridiculous.

From reader Mack, in other news, the anti-gun movement’s intellectual elevator runs a few floors short of the top.

Lori Haas, director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence’s Virginians for Responsible Gun Laws campaign, says that requirements for a concealed carry permit are too lax, especially compared to the hundreds of hours of training required for police officers.

“We feel that the current regulations regarding concealed handgun permits in Virginia are woefully inadequate in regard to training,” said Haas, referencing online concealed permit classes that count toward a permit. “The notion that someone can sit in front of a computer and learn about firearm safety and be considered able to physically, actively handle an active shooter situation is fantasy.”

Uh huh.  Well, no more so that believing the police will protect you.  Apparently it was safer for the hostages in the Stockton gun battle to jump out of moving cars than be around when the police got busy.

But okay, I’ll bite.  So if Ms. Haas wants you to have more tactical training, then get more tactical training.  No, not training she or the state approves, but training you think you need to do the job of self defense.  And collectivist Haas can kiss our collective asses.

Because they thought his crutch was a weapon. No, I’m not kidding.

No charges filed.  Meanwhile, gangs run free and citizens have to deal with more onerous laws every day on their right to own and carry real weapons – not the prosthetic leg kind.

WTRF.com:

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. – A disturbing video of a West Virginia state trooper pushing a woman to the ground after she engaged him while he aimed his pistol at a dog is going viral.

In the video, just moments after seeing the trooper draw his gun on the dog, the woman is heard shouting, “You can’t do that,” before confronting the officer. The officer then grabs her by the arm and pushes her to the ground.

It is unclear why the trooper drew his pistol at the dog. Troopers were reportedly there after receiving a call about two neighbors having a dispute.

Here is the video.

I speak doggy, so let me translate for the trooper and any other LEOs who might be reading this and regularly face animals.

Dog: “Hey asshole – yea, I’m talking to you!  Who are you and what are you doing in my area of operations?  Are you a threat or are you here to play?  I like to play, but I want to make sure you aren’t here to hurt someone before I trust you.  No one properly introduced us.”

That’s about it.  The dog’s tail was still feathering around, without biasing right or left (which can be an indicator of other things).  No teeth were shown, no lunging occurred, no aggression other than coming out to meet the new person in his area.

If I had been there and assuming I had five minutes with the dog, I would have had him the back yard playing around and running after sticks while the bullies did the boring work of sorting out human psychology.  We would have been buddies.  There are certain things you do, and certain things you don’t do.  It’s always better to have someone properly introduce you to the dog rather than take the only connection you have with the dog and throw her around.  Dumb move.  Really boneheaded.  This is grammar school level stuff, and school boys know how to do better.

Never put your hands towards the dog’s hindquarters unless he knows you well – that’s threatening (Sort of like you wouldn’t walk behind a horse unless you know the horse well, and the horse is a mare or gelding and you let the horse know you are going to do that.  Never walk behind a stud unless you want to die).  Patting the dog on the head is a privilege you don’t have unless the dog grants it to you.  Rubbing the dog on the back is good, usually, and sometimes if he finds it acceptable, I can rub the side of the dog’s head within seconds of meeting him.  This is a good first step, just behind a few minutes of verbal exchange.

Voice commands are critical, and voice inflection, tonality and timbre (or tone color) make or break your communications with the animal.  Learn it.  Practice it.  Do it.  Take time with it, and if you live in a dense urban area where you cannot work with farm animals, travel on the weekends to a place where you can, or move permanently.  It’s that important.

As for the trooper, you embarrassed yourself and your department.  You acted like a little bully boy.  Instead, you should have learned to adapt and improvise, since you had the most valuable asset at your disposal you possibly could, i.e., the dog’s owner.  You threw away your asset and then had nothing.

Prior:

Note To Cops And Survivalists: The World Is Full Of Animals, Embrace It!

More On Animals, Cops, Logistics And Survival

Ventura County Sheriff: Coward

Grieving Texas Dog Owners Want Cops Trained In How Not To Kill Animals

Buffalo Police Department: The Happy Dog Killers

NYT:

The shooting looked bad. But that is when the professor is at his best. A black motorist, pulled to the side of the road for a turn-signal violation, had stuffed his hand into his pocket. The white officer yelled for him to take it out. When the driver started to comply, the officer shot him dead.

The driver was unarmed.

Taking the stand at a public inquest, William J. Lewinski, the psychology professor, explained that the officer had no choice but to act.

“In simple terms,” the district attorney in Portland, Ore., asked, “if I see the gun, I’m dead?”

“In simple terms, that’s it,” Dr. Lewinski replied.

When police officers shoot people under questionable circumstances, Dr. Lewinski is often there to defend their actions. Among the most influential voices on the subject, he has testified in or consulted in nearly 200 cases over the last decade or so and has helped justify countless shootings around the country.

He has appeared as an expert witness in criminal trials, civil cases and disciplinary hearings, and before grand juries, where such testimony is given in secret and goes unchallenged. In addition, his company, the Force Science Institute, has trained tens of thousands of police officers on how to think differently about police shootings that might appear excessive.

[ … ]

Many policing experts are for hire, but Dr. Lewinski is unique in that he conducts his own research, trains officers and internal investigators, and testifies at trial. In the protests that have followed police shootings, demonstrators have often asked why officers are so rarely punished for shootings that seem unwarranted. Dr. Lewinski is part of the answer.

Dr. Lewinski said he was not trying to explain away every shooting. But when he testifies, it is almost always in defense of police shootings. Officers are his target audience — he publishes a newsletter on police use of force that he says has nearly one million subscribers — and his research was devised for them. “The science is based on trying to keep officers safe,” he said.

[ … ]

A former Minnesota State professor, he says his testimony and training are based on hard science, but his research has been roundly criticized by experts. An editor for The American Journal of Psychology called his work “pseudoscience.” The Justice Department denounced his findings as “lacking in both foundation and reliability.” Civil rights lawyers say he is selling dangerous ideas.

Hmm … let me see.  He got his doctorate from a diploma mill (you do the research), engages in pseudoscience (which has as its stated outcome keeping cops “safe”), trains cops, always testifies in their defense, and by virtue of the fact that he is the one being called as an “expert” witness, becomes the one who is called to testify as an “expert” witness in future cases, a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy.

Yea.  You know what else might become a self-fulfilling prophesy?  People knowing that police are going to discharge weapons as a matter of first recourse, and then act accordingly.

News from the great Northeast:

MEDFORD (CBS) — A Medford police officer is on administrative leave after he was recorded threatening a driver during a traffic stop Sunday night.

“I’ll put a hole right through your head,” Detective Stephen Lebert is heard telling the driver, who recorded the heated encounter on his dashboard camera.

In the video uploaded to YouTube titled “Medford Detective threatens to kill civilian,” the driver explains that he made a wrong turn on an unfamiliar rotary at Winthrop and High streets.

The video shows Lebert, who was off-duty at the time, wearing shorts and an undershirt. He’s seen pulling in front of the driver in an unmarked vehicle, saying “now you’re done” and ordering him to roll down his window.

The driver, a software designer named Mike from Malden, then backs up before seeing Lebert pull out his police badge. He tells Lebert that he didn’t realize he was a cop.

“I’ll blow a hole right through your [expletive] head,” Lebert says as the driver pulls over. “You’re lucky I’m a cop because I’d be beating the [expletive] out of you right now.”

[ … ]

Medford Police Chief Leo Saco told WBZ-TV that Lebert was placed on leave when he arrived to work Monday morning. Saco said he couldn’t explain the Sunday night incident, but said Lebert is a 30-year veteran of the department and a good officer.

This is not the first time Officer Lebert got in trouble for a confrontation with a civilian that was captured on camera. He had to undergo counseling for an encounter during an arrest in 2012.

During that incident, he was being recorded by the brother of a man who was being arrested. Lebert poked the camera and said, “what you should do with your brother is take him up on the railroad tracks and tell him to lay down.”

The cop isn’t in a marked car, isn’t uniformed, and comes running up to a car in a threatening manner.  The driver would have been entirely within his moral rights – and perhaps within his legal rights since he could have been shot at any time as far as he knows – to have put the car in gear and run the cop over.

But remember.  He’s a “good officer.”

UPDATE: Just sent to the Medford PD chief: “My God I’m glad I don’t live in a collectivist “heaven” like you do, where it isn’t legal to own guns, and “the only ones” are the people who get to bully others around.  The driver should have put the car in gear and run the bully over.  I might have just shot him.”