Red Stripe

Reading between the lines: A deputy from Orange County, Florida didn't take his finger off the trigger of his Glock when putting it back in the holster, and earned himself a red stripe.

Guns and employee wellness

My employer, as most do, has an Employee wellness program. The wellness program is a voluntary program that gets you a discount on your involuntary (thanks to Obamacare) employee insurance coverage.
Some employers are now saying that, if you refuse to participate in the wellness program, you will lose your employee heath insurance. How is this legal, you ask? After all, multiple Federal laws, including the ADA and the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) state that this is not legal. Well, leave that to the Federal Courts:

Not so, said a federal judge in Madison, Wisc., who ruled on Dec. 31 that employers can deny coverage without violating the ADA as long as the data gleaned from the wellness program is used for purposes of overall health coverage.

This is where guns enter the picture. The anti gun forces in this country want to have firearms added as a public health issue. Now suppose this comes about and your employer wants to use data on gun ownership to enhance your overall health coverage.

Take this one step further: say your employer wants to say that gun ownership is a health hazard, and you must give up your guns or give up your employer sponsored health insurance. You would be forced (by Obamacare in concert with your employer) to have one of three options:

1 Give up your guns
2 Pay a $2100 "tax" each year for not having insurance, plus the full cost of your healthcare
3 Pay a minimum of about $3600 a year for a basic health plan that has a $6000 deductible

Wholesale ticket writing through automation

Police in Central Florida now have a device that tracks the speed of every vehicle within range, records plates of all moving and parked vehicles, and automatically issues citations. Not only that, the system tracks the location of every license plate it passes, and the information is stored in a police database. Are you a politician or citizen that votes for cop paycuts? Well, the cops know where you have been, and let's just say that you better change your tune, if you don't want the information made public, or you don't want some free lance "asset forfeiture."

The Ekin Patrol, automated violations.

Welcome to the police state.

War on drugs

A man gives 75 cents to a homeless beggar, and the cops detain him for an hour, and tear up his car looking for drugs, laughing about it all the while.

Do not EVER consent to a search. THIS is one of the reasons why I oppose the war on (some) drugs. We are in a police state, they just haven't yet begun to disappear people that they don't like.

Some pigs are more equal than others

If you are suspected of being under the influence of alcohol, the FHP will require that you take a sobriety test. If you refuse, to take the test, your license will be suspended for one year for your first refusal. Unless you are a cop, I guess.
According to a May 5 arrest report, Sgt. Meyer was driving an unmarked sheriff's department pickup truck with the emergency lights flashing, en route to an off-duty job at Walt Disney World, when he rear-ended a car on County Road 535 near Windermere. No one was injured injured in the crash, which occurred just after 9 p.m.
1 So he was driving to an off-duty job in his official vehicle with his emergency lights flashing?
2 He was intoxicated while operating a department vehicle?
3 He pled "no contest," which is the same legally as a guilty plea. He should be terminated immediately.

Except that he is a cop.

Good business, if you can get it

The median household income of my county is just about $44,000 a year. That is for a two income household in most cases. That is down from $47,000 just two years ago, which mirrors the nationwide decline of incomes that 35 of the 50 states saw this past year.

Washington, DC doesn't have that problem. The median income there rose to $88,000- the highest of any metro area in the nation. This is due to the massive growth in the Federal government under the Obama administration, and the lawyers and lobbyists that this growth is bringing to the nation's capitol.

What makes this trend REALLY disturbing is just how much the size of government is increasing: the poor in DC are getting even poorer, with the number of households making less than 50% below the poverty line increased. The poverty threshold for a family of four that includes two children under 18 was $23,283 in 2012, meaning that to be in deep poverty, that family of four would have to earn less than $11,641 a year.

So in order for median incomes to rise in DC, they have to overcome the increase in poverty, plus increase the median income. Think about that.

This is the Obama that the poor voted for: Blacks have a 27% poverty rate, and yet they vote for the man that put him there, simply because he is black.

In France

This article about a French Jeweler, who was being beaten at gunpoint during a robbery, is in jail for shooting the robber has a neat little factoid in it:

In a country where gun violence is rare but armed robbery is increasingly common, the shooting - and the formal charges of voluntary homicide - have placed the government in a difficult position.

 So armed robbery isn't gun violence? I thought that maybe the armed robbery was with a weapon other than a firearm, but no:

The robbery was carried out with a shotgun, he said. It wasn't clear whether Asli and the accomplice both had firearms.

In fact, the article is filled with examples of firearm robberies. That can't be. You see, the anti-gun crowd here in the US tells us that there is no gun crime in Europe because guns are illegal. 

Yet the sister of the 19-year-old who was killed says Turk shot him in the back and deserves prison.

"He shot a kid in the back. He's a traitor, he's a coward," said Alexandra Asli, his older sister.

Asli, who was shot dead in the street outside the jewelry store, had been convicted 14 times in juvenile court, according to Eric Bedos, the Nice prosecutor.

It seems that outlawing guns does indeed ensure that only outlaws will have guns.

Quotas

Amazing. Just yesterday, I posted this about traffic tickets, and we find out this morning that Auburn police have quotas.

Show me more money

Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows that I think traffic tickets are a form of extortion. I talk about this enough that I have assigned the topic its own label.

The last time I got a ticket was in 2001. I paid the $184 fine. Eleven years later, I began getting letters saying that the court miscalculated the fine, and I actually owed another $32. I refused to pay it. I pointed out that the statute of limitations has passed, and they can't do a thing about it.

So they sent me to collections. Now I get letters from a collection agency, and have been since last August. So far, I have received 22 letters. Now they are claiming that I owe $45. The letters have been increasing in frequency: from one a month last August, to one a week now. I have repeatedly told them that they can't put it on my credit report because it is over 7 years old, they can't do a thing about it legally, so I have no intention of paying. Since I am not going to pay it, they might as well save their money and stop contacting me.
 
Nope. Still getting the letters. Even though collection agencies are legally supposed to stop when you tell them to, in this case they are not required to, because they are collecting for the government. Another case of the government exempting themselves from the laws that the rest of us must follow.

Still not going to pay them. Still, how desperate is the government for more funding when they are reviewing cases that are a dozen years old?

Killer Cop

There are some lessons to be learned from the case of Phoenix Police Officer Richard Chrisman. He was caught on video and later admitted to planting a crack pipe on a homeless woman in 2005.




 Then, in 2011 he was arrested for murder when he placed his service weapon against a suspect's head and pulled the trigger, after killing the man's dog. His own partner turned him in.



So after all of this went down, he accepted a plea deal (according to the questionable reporting at this link) where he will plead guilty to negligent homicide with an opportunity to have the charge expunged from his record after completing an unspecified term of probation. He was fired from Phoenix, but the plea deal will allow Chrisman to regain employment as a cop in another jurisdiction or even in Phoenix.

The family of the deceased boy sued the city for unlawful use of force resulting in death, and the court threw out the suit.

So what are the lessons?

1 There are actually a few honest cops left who are willing to stand up against their fellow officers who are lawbreakers. Thanks to Chrisman's partner for having the morals to do this.

2 The police union in this case, standing up for a murdering criminal cop that plants evidence makes all unions look bad.

3 There is no limit to what a cop can actually get away with. This guy literally got away with murder.

4 Whatever you do, seriously think about what could happen if you ever need to call the cops.

Arbitrary and stupid

Did you know that there are certain holsters that are considered to be in the same class with machine guns? These holsters are controlled by the National Firearms Act, and are called 'any other weapons.' They require a $5 federal tax stamp to own one with the gun.

Here is the funny part: you can own the holster, and that is legal. You can own the gun, and that is also legal. Own the holster AND the gun that fits in it without the form and the tax stamp? Federal Felony. 
Can you tell them apart? One of the following pictures is an AOW, and one is not:

There is no real difference in form or function, but if you should buy the wrong one at your next gun show, or make one yourself, you will get five years in club fed as a result.

Gun control laws are stupid and arbitrary. (and it is the top picture that is the AOW)

TSA does it again.

So a terminal at JFK had to be evacuated because a TSA screener forgot to plug in his metal detector. Funny thing is that he is (judging by his name- Alija Abdul Majed) an Arab/Muslim. It took hours to re-screen passengers. Of course, the entire exercise was a waste of time, as anyone who was intent on doing anything could have easily hidden a weapon in the sterile area, left to be re-screened, and then retrieved the item once he was back in the supposedly sterile area.

Idiots.

Everyone is a terrorist

Here is a list of things that the FBI says make you a possible terrorist:

if you pay cash for small purchases like a cup of coffee, or for large purchases
using encrypted files
shaving off your beard
SCUBA diving without certification card, or SCUBA training to get a certification card, being a SCUBA diver without a logbook, diving using "rebreathers", use dive equipment for extended dive times or deep dives
taking pictures with a cell phone, having more than one cell phone, buying more than one disposible cell phone, not activating a prepaid phone at the time of purchase
At work: likes to work alone or unsupervised, and if at work, is willing to do tasks that no one else wants to do
people who are overdressed, underdressed, or are dressing to blend in
playing paintball on your own property
buying waterproof matches, MREs, or flashlights
absence from work for charity work
study of fields that can be used for terrorism like chemistry, gunsmithing, SCUBA training, rappelling, marksmanship, etc.
When renting a vehicle, inquiring about its fuel capacity
receiving a large number package deliveries
having weapons on your property, or buying bulk ammunition
refusing to allow landlord to enter rental property on demand, or changing locks without landlord permission
having offensive tattoos, or asking to have offensive tattoos concealed, covered, or altered
owning remote controlled model aircraft
use of model rocket engines and igniters
buying firearms and ammo outside of hunting season
requesting hotel room in specific location or floor
arrive at hotel with too little or too much luggage
persons mumbling to themselves
excessive sweating

This list covers so many activities that it is useless. If you read the list, everyone is a possible terrorist, because if we just focus on Muslim males between the ages of 16 and 35, the terrorists will know this and exploit it. Except looking harder at Muslims is profiling, and we can't do that, that would be insensitive and discriminatory, thus ensuring that the terrorists don't need to disguise themselves as non-Musilms.

The seeds of a totalitarian state

This is why I have no respect for Republicans. They are for big government just as much as the Democrats. Do you REALLY think that the military arresting people and holding them without trial is the wise thing to do?

Politics in America are not about ideals. Instead, the Democrats and Republicans are merely fighting over who gets to be the dictator.

The Scam of traffic safety

A cop with a stopwatch is more believable than a GPS unit. At least, that is what the Ohio court system believes, if their March 2010 ruling is any guide. In this case, a man was clocked by a cop in an airplane at 84 miles an hour. The way this works, is that a cop in a plane times cars with a stopwatch as they pass over quarter mile segments of the highway. The time to traverse the quarter mile is then used to compute the speed of the vehicle.

The problem here is that the driver had a GPS tracker placed in his car by his employer in order to control speed limit violations. The tracker indicated that he was going 50 mph, not 84. The court ruled that they could not accept the reading of the tracker without expert testimony from the manufacturer that would testify to the accuracy and method of operation of the device. According to the court:

"Barnes presented no evidence from a person with personal knowledge regarding how the GPS calculates speed, whether there is any type of calibration of the equipment used to detect speed, whether the methods employed by his particular company to detect speed are scientifically reliable, or the accuracy of the GPS' speed detection," the panel said. 

 This would have required that the accused hire an attorney and expert witnesses to attend the trial. To beat a $35 traffic ticket (I wish. In Florida, a speeding violation of 84 in a 65 will cost you $180) you are expected to spend several hundred dollars.

Meanwhile, the government has a bottomless checkbook with which to defend their cash cows. In Sonoma county, CA in 2009, the government of Petaluma spent tens of thousands of dollars to beat the GPS readings. Protecting speeding ticket fines, a $10 billion per year scam, is of utmost importance.

The Soviets were free

There are an estimated 800,000 full-time law enforcement officers in the United States: 120,000 Federal and 620,000 State and local.

That breaks down to 1 Fed for every 2,500 citizens, and one cop for every 375 citizens. Contrast that with this article about the Stasi and Gestapo:

The Soviet Union's KGB employed about 480,000 full-time agents to oversee a nation of 280 million, which means there was one agent per 5,830 citizens. Using Wiesenthal's figures for the Nazi Gestapo, there was one officer for 2,000 people. The ratio for the Stasi was one secret policeman per 166 East Germans. 

(even though the math for the Soviets is incorrect)
We have ratios of police versus citizens that is more than that of the Soviet communists, and rivals that of  the Gestapo.

But we don't live in a police state. This is a free country, after all.

A peek into police culture

I was recently required to go to a class on the incident management system. The class was comprised of about 60% police supervisors and 40% fire supervisors. The class gave me an opportunity for some insight into the way that cops (especially the supervisors) view the world.

The class presented the supervisors with a few scenarios, and challenged those supervisors to set up a command structure that would adequately manage the situation. Since this was a class attended mostly by cops and was being taught by cops, the scenarios and the conversations were mostly cop-centric. It was a learning experience, but perhaps not in the way that was intended.

The first scenario was that a child services worker was doing a well being check on a home, after receiving a tip that one of the children in the home was being sexually molested by the father. When she arrived at the home, she found that the father was home alone with 3 children, ages 9 through 14, and he was intoxicated. The social worker told the father that she was removing the children from the home, because the only adult was intoxicated. The father refused, an argument ensued, and the social worker was asked to leave. Social worker attempts to take the youngest child with her, and is shot in the stomach by the father. Socail worker staggers outside and 911 is called.

The cops said that this is an active shooter situation, and their primary objective is to enter the home as soon as they have three officers present, and "take out the bad guy." I am betting that they were not talking about shooting the social worker.

After this first scenario, we took our first break. The topic of discussion during the break was how the "new NRA law" was stupid and creating problems for police. One of the cops said that they tried to work with the NRA, but that the "gun nuts" were being uncooperative and would not give an inch. Another used an example (paraphrasing, my memory isn't perfect)
"There is this guy who has been "Baker Acted" several times, and has even fired shots at police officers. We were at his house, and he has guns. Now normally, I would just take the guns, and he would never see them again. Thanks to this new law, this guy keeps the guns. Now I am forced to risk leaving the guns there and getting sued when he shoots someone, or taking the guns, and getting sued by the NRA."
Third cop says: "The odds of being sued by the NRA are low. I'm still going to take them."

There are a number of false assumptions there, but it seems to me that if a person has shot at cops, wouldn't he be convicted of at least one felony and thus be prohibited from firearm possession?
If he was found to be a danger to himself or others after being Baker Acted, wouldn't a court have found him incompetent, and wouldn't he then be prohibited from owning firearms?
Why does a cop think that he has the power to confiscate private property, simply because he thinks he is the "only one" that is trained and competent to handle firearms?

Tyrant

Officer Benjamin Stanaland of the Orlando police department is a tyrant. He has twice been reprimanded for violating people's constitutional rights, yet he still holds a job as a police officer.

In the first case, he arrested a man for refusing to give the officer his name in February of 2010.

In the latest case, used an unsterilized Q-Tip to test a motorist's mouth for drugs without the man's consent during a traffic stop. According to the law and department policy, officers must use sterilized gloves and agency-issued tongue depressors and swabs. Stanaland said he purchased the Q-Tips from a Walgreen's pharmacy.

Why is he still working as a cop?

Civil rights, 1983 lawsuits, liability

After the incident that I last blogged about, where a Canton, OH police officer threatened a pair of citizens with physical force, I listened to the recording of the City Council President, where he gives his opinion on the whole incident:



The Council President states that the police officer's actions were logical because the person involved was legally carrying a concealed weapon in a bad neighborhood at 1:30 in the morning, around prostitutes and drug dealers. Excusing the cop's actions in this manner is a bit of a problem. Let me explain why:

42 USC 1983 provides that, "Every person who under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, Suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress"

Meaning that the citizen involved gets to sue both of the officers who violated his rights by threatening harm to him, and will probably be successful. You can sue cities and counties under 1983 in what is called a Monell claim. Under Monell, to hold a municipality liable you need to show that your constitutional injury was caused by a policy or custom of the municipality. Monell liability can be established where a municipal official with final policy-making authority ratifies a subordinate’s unconstitutional conduct and the basis for it. The theory behind municipal liability in this context is that the acts of persons with final policy-making authority are considered to be the equivalent of government policy.

To establish municipal liability, a claimant must show a persistent and pervasive practice of the police department in failing to respond to police misconduct. While a single act of misconduct is insufficient to establish municipal liability, a person in a policy making position can show that the unconstitutional behavior of the municipality approved of the act, and thus made the act a de facto policy. In police brutality cases, the municipal entity’s liability can be established by showing that the city encourageed or authorized the conduct.

By stating that the incident that took place is to be expected when people carry concealed weapons in compliance with state law, he has authorized the officer's conduct and opened himself and the city to a 1983 lawsuit. Damage awards in civil rights cases can be high. In 2007, a man won over three million dollars for damages he suffered from false arrest and other indignities by Oakland, California police officers. That award included punitive damages.

Officer Harless: background

By now, everyone in the gun community has seen the video where Officer Harless of the Canton, OH police department threatened to put "lumps" on a woman that he suspected of being a prostitute, and threatened to kill a man who was legally carrying a concealed weapon. The law in Ohio states that a permit holder must immediately notify an officer that he is carrying a weapon, if he is approached by that officer. The holder attempted to tell the officer three times, but was told to shut up before he could get the words out. When the officer finally finds out about the weapon, he flips out. See the video below:



I show you this video as background for my next post, where I show you how Canton, OH has officially screwed themselves.