8 Responses to “More Thoughts on Ryan Frederick”

1. #1 |  Lenny Zimmermann |  June 4th, 2008 at 8:46 am

   Not directly related, but I thought you might want to take note and see how this one turns out:

   http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/06/lakeview_standoff_continues_af.html

   It’s sounding like, at the moment, the man felt threatened by FEMA workers wanting to evict him. He made a threatening gesture by placing his hand near a weapon he had on him, so they called the cops who sent in a SWAT team. The 10 hour standoff resulted in this man’s death. The article doesn’t really provide enough details, but it might be worth watching.

2. #2 |  Dave Krueger |  June 4th, 2008 at 9:38 am

   Holy sh… moly! Reason.com is no longer blocked where I work. Theagitator apparently slipped in under the radar, but generally they try to shield us from any grownup material here. I asked them to unblock my own website, but they refused. Pricks.

   Anyway, regarding the informant who fingered Ryan Frederick, I have decided to cook up a story about my neighbors being a central drug warehousing operation just so I’ll have something to trade if I ever get in trouble. I recommend everyone do the same. My advice is to conjure up something based on enough reality that it’s convincing, but also exciting enough to have Hollywood movie potential. Think up a few mobster-like nick names for the guys you see out washing their cars and mowing their lawn. Practice describing them so there’s no doubt you’re not just guessing. Get a few old cell phones and scatter them around in places places where only you know where they are. Anyway, if you’re ever fingered by some CI trying to beat a rap with a fake story, you’ll be prepared to pay it forward.

   Interesting how the drug war can now be focused entirely on stories about drugs rather than the drugs themselves.

   Instead of the raids being a means to find the drugs, the raids are now an end in themselves with the drug war being merely an excuse to conduct them. For that, fictional stories work every bit as well as fact.

3. #3 |  Tokin42 |  June 4th, 2008 at 9:43 am

   Great article radley. Wish I lived in VA so I could do the write-in vote for Ham Sandwich (which BTW is a hilarious idea).

4. #4 |  Zeb |  June 4th, 2008 at 10:05 am

   Do you know if this is the sort of case where the jury can convict on a lesser charge, like manslaughter or something, or do they have to either convict or not on the murder charge?

5. #5 |  SusanK |  June 4th, 2008 at 12:33 pm

   After looking at the capital murder statute it’s clear why the prosecutor wants the marijuana manufacturing charges in there – it is also a capital crime in Virginia to kill someone if it furthers your manufacturing operation. This is a much easier case to prove, because it removes Frederick’s argument that he didn’t know it was police officers. Then the state can argue “he was growing pot, he knew someone was trying to get to his pot, so he killed them.” That, my friends, would be enough to convict and is the scarier charge.

6. #6 |  Highway |  June 4th, 2008 at 2:20 pm

   Wait a sec. Are the cops REALLY saying that Frederick knew it was a police raid, and fired (only) two shots to murder one of them (when there’s plenty more cops where that one came from), but then just gave himself up? All this to protect the grow operation he DIDN’T ever have?

   If you’re going to kill people you KNOW are cops, why stop at 2 shots? Why stop at one person shot? There is absolutely no motive to this in anything the prosecutor’s trying to peddle. It’s just out and out stupidity. And the really, truly sad part is that there are so many morons out there in the world that will actually *believe* what the prosecution is saying, when absolutely NONE of it makes any sense at all.

7. #7 |  Lenny Zimmermann |  June 5th, 2008 at 8:47 am

   Just a followup on my first post, it looks like the Time-Picayune is reporting this morning that the man was mentally unstable and had fired the first shots in a showdown with police. http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/06/man_in_standoff_is_shot_dead_b.html

8. #8 |  Wa1rus91 |  June 5th, 2008 at 9:09 pm

   Frederick’s neighbors said they saw two people in front of Frederick’s house immediately after the shooting, contrary to Mr Ebert’s assertions of a small platoon milling around in the yard. If the neighbors are right, there were only 3 witnesses to the actual shooting and one is dead…which means all the “facts” of the CPD and prosecutor’s varying stories to date as seen in the news and in the hearings originate with Det Roberts as the sole source. How does a suspect compromise a drug raid, justifying a police-breach when the police loudly knock and announce themselves for nearly a minute when the “extensive marijuana growing operation” is in a separate building from the house? Heck, even if Frederick ran around the house naked like a constipated Weiner-dog as the police knocked on the door (in full view of the police looking eagle-eyed for signs of disposing of evidence by telekinesis), it wouldn’t warrant breaching the door…ESPECIALLY if the detached garage was secured by “at least 7 officers” covering the back of the house and the garage as the prosecutor asserted.

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