TheAgitator.com
46 Responses to “Morning Links”
Leave a Reply
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Site Features
- Home
- About Radley Balko
- Publications
- Speaking Info
- Multimedia
- Resume
- Picasa Photos
- Recommendations
- RSS Feed
- Buy Agitator Gear
-
-
$12/month Recurring Donation
$6/month Recurring Donation
- My Amazon wishlist
-
Site Credits
I didn’t know a judge could make an exception to a mandatory minimum sentence. I wonder why the judge didn’t show a little more exception.
the wrong door raid was troubling for too many reasons to list- the way the supervisors and dept heads kept playing dumb or passing the buck or refusing to talk showwed me these groups are acting with minimal to no oversight. I can see rogue groups of cops roaming the city and breaking down doors of houses that have rubber-stamped warrants. the girl lived there for two months- do these cops do any research at all (I already know the answer…)?
It’s amazing more people aren’t killed every day from this shit.
oh yeah, FREE CHARLIE LYNCH!
Holy crap! If a police dog bites my kid, I’m going to totally go nuts. When I land on that dog it’s back will probably break.
It’s almost mind boggling just how often the Norfolk Police screw up.
It’s getting to the point where if a terrorist sets off a nuke in DC, I think they’d be doing the rest of us a favor.
If it was SWAT, they’d just shoot the K9 at the start of the raid.
SWAT officer 1: [inaudible] “police, open up.”
SWAT officer 2: Dog! [bang! bang!]
SWAT officer 3: You idiot! That was our dog!
SWAT Officer 1: Oh! A wise guy! Nyuck Nyuck Nyuck!
SWAT officer 1 pokes SWAT officer 2 in the eyes.
SWAT officer 3: I’d knock your brains out if you had any!
Anyway… so the dog just off and chomped on a 4 year old? The article makes it sound like the child started screaming after it was bitten.
‘Numbskull!’ you forgot to say, ‘numbskull!’ and ‘porcupine!’
#1 Omar
I thought I read earlier this week that Obama/Holder changed the minimum from 5 years to 1 year and that’s why the Lynch sentencing was put on hold, to wait until the change was official. I think, but I have slept since then so I wouldn’t bet the house on it.
Interesting. So does the police dog get put down? Usually if a dog bites a kid the dog isn’t long for this world.
“The jury that convicted Lynch wasn’t even allowed to know that he was legally providing medical marijuana only to patients with prescriptions from their doctors.”
Geeze, I hope I never get that woman on my jury! It’s like they bent over backwards to convict.
Oh, that’s right. “Jury of your peers” means “Hand picked hangin’ squad.”
I noticed the US Marshals were involved with that botched raid. They also just helped our local sheriff clear some of his back logged warrants. I didn’t know it was a Federal responsibility to serve traffic court bench warrants.
So, Snowden didn’t spill his secret?
WTF? It looks like every agency involved in the botched raid is just pretending it never happened. Are they really that poorly organized that they don’t know what’s going on in their own departments? If you had them all in a room and asked them to explain what happened at the raid would they all look at each other stupidly and say, “What raid?”
Billy-Jay,
I actually posed that question recently to several members of my family who are of various political views and the results were about 5 said they’d be doing us a favor and 2 said they wouldn’t. These are educated folks with masters degrees and solid professional careers. I think opinion is going that way, slowly.
It’s good to hear that the judge in the Charlie Lynch case had a conscience. Makes you wonder how he slipped through the screening process.
Well, to answer the question “What about the dog?”
Here’s a case where a K-9 chomped a todler… not just any todler, the child of a fellow deputy.
http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090124/NEWS/701249922/0/FRONTPAGE
So, if K-9s can chomp on a deputy’s child… I assume it’s “Within policy” to let them gnaw on the offspring of suspects, as well.
But that can’t be right. Police ALWAYS identify themselves loudly and clearly before entering a house or business on a raid. I’ve read testimony to that fact too many times to count and cops would never perjure themselves.
Those two bitches must be lying for some nefarious reason.
If that’s how well they train their “Highly Trained Police Dogs” (TM), it’s no wonder they shoot at every dog in sight.
There would be a statement issued the next morning about how the police had to shoot the kid to “protect a valuable member of the force.”
So the K-9 attacked a helpless child. Normally, immediate termination would be in order, as the precedent has been set, the animal has tasted human blood, and it will have no compunctions against attacking another human, warranted or not. But killing such an out-of-control animal like that is verboten, because it is accorded the same status as a human police officer.
Orwell must be laughing his arse off in the Afterlife…
Med marijuana = fed law supersedes stare law
Gun control = state law supersedes fed law
It’s whatever the slave masters say at any given moment – that is the new rule of law
Still fuming, but I finished the article.
And you just KNOW that the police loudly and clearly identified themselves before entering in that case as well. If Leroy Brockington had survived he’d probably have lied and said he thought he was being robbed as well. Just like Ryan Frederick did.
So… on the botched raid…
This house was also raided, and a 66 year old man was killed when he fired at police.
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/metro/stories/2009/06/12/sheriff_deputy_shot.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=13
Of course, the officers will swear in court that they announced over and over.
It appears I’m too slow! Gunna search for more on that.
I feel bad for Judge Wu. To me, it is clear he really tried to find a way for Lynch to not serve prison time.
Having said that, I feel little but loathing for the idiots that put these laws in place and a very special pit of hate for the sheriff and prosecutors who really pushed to have Lynch imprisoned for providing a medicine that has very clearly improved that young man’s life.
#8,
despite what some people believe about the powers of the president and the AG, the power to write legislation is not one of the actual powers of the presidency. The court however does have some power to interpret laws and concluded back in 2005 that federal minimum sentences were only advisory (Fanfan was the case) and while judges cannot ignore them they also cannot be bound by them.
The Holder connection comes from Holder’s statement that the justice department would not prosecute people like Lynch and was to give the DOJ time to develop and present a new position about the Lynch case (like dismissing it). Holder clarified that he meant while the DOJ would still prosecute otherwise legal marijuana dealers that the DOJ would not “target” them.
And from toiday’s item in Daily Brickbats over at Reason.com (follow the link) -
We have yet another person lying about the police, maliciously claiming they didn’t identify themselves during a raid. Why are there so many people slandering our noble SWAT professionals nowadays?
That’d be one of those cases where IF the police had any common sense, they’d not press charges. Even the most law-and-order jury out there would have a hard time siding with the police over a father who beat a police dog senseless for mauling his small child.
@ Mike T #27
I think you are assuming that the father would have survived the six police bullets that hit him(out of 437 rounds fired.)
And of course… they send an army to the wrong house, but only 2 guys to the house where the man was killed. At least they had an actual warrant for someone that was there at THAT house.
http://ismokedank.blogspot.com/2009/06/columbus-ga-man-whose-father-was-killed.html
Apparently, a “Confidential Informant” had purchased a whopping 4.5 grams of marijuana from Darrick Brockington (one buy of 2 grams and one of 2.5 grams)
There goes Georgia’s entire dope supply! And one man remains dead.
@ Bob # 29.
I was going to make a snark about police & deputy “dopes”, then I read your last sentence.
Oh, shit.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Edward Fitzgerald translation.
From the story about the kid who was bitten by the cop dog:
“The dog entered a room where the child was sleeping, and when the child screamed, the K-9 officer got the dog to release his grip.”
Good thing the child screamed or the dog would probably still be walking around with that kid hanging out of his mouth. It’s not like the cops would think anything of it.
“The officers took the dog off the leash when no residents responded.”
Hey, the residents had their chance and didn’t respond, so they got what was coming to them. Bet they’ll respond next time. In fact, it’s probably only due to the kindness of the cops that they didn’t press charges against the parents for putting their kid in such danger. Hell, they got off easy. I always thought when a police dog bit a kid they had to lop off the head of the kid and bring it in to be tested for rabies.
I don’t. Admittedly, I haven’t been following this closely, but somebody decided that the defense wouldn’t be able to tell the jury, well, anything apparently. And somebody decided not to throw out the entire case on the grounds that… I dunno, everybody involved admits it was perfectly legal under state law.
Was the sentencing judge not the trial judge? And even if that judge only did the sentence and nothing else, anybody who gave a damn about real justice would have given a non-sentence, like a $1 fine. Sure, it might be appealed, but that would at least be one more chance for the guy to not get locked in a cage by a bunch of thugs.
Good point. I take back what I said about the judge having a conscience.
There’s so much to say about the Charlie Lynch case, and so little bandwidth. So I will keep it simple.
I just smoked a bowl in Charlie Lynch’s honor.
I will smoke a bowl in his honor for every day of his sentence.
Charlie Lynch, you are a martyr to the fear and superstitions of your fellow man, and for that I am sorry.
Unrelated to the posted stories, but good news!!! Sheriff Joe Arpaio has dug deep into his heart and decided to treat all the inmates to live and onions.
http://www.abc15.com/content/news/phoenixmetro/central/story/Valley-chef-to-turn-liver-into-tasty-zero-cost/Wg5yBPTocUCBhARrc3IjjQ.cspx
Oh wait…it ain’t costing him anything.
Me personally, I would skip dinner that night.
I was born and raised in Columbus, GA. Besides the normal amount of corrupt, lazy, and/or incompetant police, there are a ton of inexperienced officers hired on after a tour as an MP at next-door Fort Benning. Not a knock against MPs in general, but the turnover rate for cops in the city used to be (and I suspect still is) horrible.
Goddess bless the Japanese. That was oddly entertaining, thanks for the link!
Re: Charlie Lynch.
If a citizen can be arrested for LEGAL activity, then why don’t we just ditch the law altogether? Formally, that is. Make arrests like a lottery system. Frak.
Finally cooled down enough from the “police dog bites kid” story that I went back and clicked on the Japan link.
Move mouse to center of screen. It took me a bit to realize what was happening because I didn’t do that.
Pretty cool. :)
Speaking of SWAT Raids:
I live in El Segundo, CA – directly across the street from the back of the only police station in this town. ESPD has a SWAT unit and vehicle (that I can clearly see out my front window – every freakin’ day!) I usually stay up late and last night I noticed a lot of cops coming to work about 2 a.m. – which is not the usual shift change so I knew a SWAT raid must be in the works.
And it was, a small army of marked and unmarked vehicles along with the SWAT mobile left the police yard at 3:11 a.m.
However, it was the last vehicle that took me by total surprise – out of nowhere, one of the city’s paramedic ambulances had joined the procession and was bringing up the rear!
This bothered me. Immensely.
To my thinking, it left a law enforcement stench (YES Stench!) on paramedic/fire personnel that I can’t quite get past. Am I way out of line here?
Does anyone know if paramedics attend/participate in SWAT raids with regularity?
P.S. Unfortunately, I was unable to stay awake for the return of a jubilant SWAT team rubbing their ball sacks together in solidarity.
#39: OneByTheCee.
Interesting. I wonder if these stories are related:
http://www.pocketfives.com/poker-forums/13/story-of-drug-raid-swat-team-encounter-today-3065232
and
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_12573082
The key factor I zoomed in on was that the principal arrestee arrived by taxi.
“Within moments, three black sport-utility vehicles drove up, a half-dozen men in suits jumped out and one said, ‘You just hit our line.’”
I really thought this was about cocaine.
#39, google “tactical ems”.
More of that “new professionalism” from Portland, Oregon:
Cop arrested, charged with 133 counts in harassment investigation
An officer with the Portland Police Bureau was arrested Friday on charges he had been harassing women over the telephone.
Joseph E. Wild, 28, has been with the bureau for four years and was most recently assigned to the North Precinct.
According to investigators, police began looking into Wild’s activities when a woman filed a report that she had been receiving unwanted harassing phone calls from him. During the investigation, detectives discovered additional victims who said they had also received unwanted phone calls.
Wild was taken into custody at the Justice Center in downtown Portland and charged with 71 counts of second-degree official misconduct and 62 counts of telephone harassment.
http://www.katu.com/news/local/47960212.html
#40 – From the story in your second link:
…seems perfectly consistent with:
Regarding the Washington DC story, why do secret agencies by black SUVs ? I mean come on, how secret is that? Isn’t that what you would expect secret government agents to be driving? Why not chartreuse Saturn Vues if you want to be truly secret. It must be the intimidation factor. To tell the truth I don’t even know what color chartreuse is but I thought it sounded good.
@44
Same reason all civilian cop cars are Crown Vics. It’s hilarious both in Japan and Canada… you’re like oh, no! A beige, white, black or blue crown vic… the undercover cops are here! Seriously, they are the only people who drive that model and it helps spot all those traffic stops they attempt on the local highway here (unless it’s a white one behind a 2m pile of snow, that one is quite sneaky).
@Dog Story
If my kid wakes up screaming like that, I’m out of bed, weapon in hand before I’m awake. Probably half way into the troll’s room before I’m awake too. Armed, intruder, half-awake, scared kid… you do the math on that one.
Small world… I passed on that Japan link to some friends here in Japan, turns out that the husband of one of the women I teach with, he works for the ad company that produced it. It’s an annual competition, apparently – the 1-Click Awards.
If you go here – http://2007.1-click.jp/e/index.html?oneclick=3 you can see some more stuff. Also, if you know what “kancho” is, and click on the proper place, you can see some more fine Japanese crazy.