New questions about who really brought down Hasan at Ft. Hood. I’d still submit that any of the officers who confronted an armed gunman systematically slaughtering people deserve praise, regardless of who actually shot him.
Saving the po’ boy.
Robbery suspect cleared by Facebook status.
Color photos from World War I.
City brings in outside investigator to determine how internal police investigation couldn’t find wrongdoing against officer later charged with three felonies. I think I might have a good idea how it could have happened.
Harming intentionally, helping incidentally.
Scenes from Havana.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 10:11 am by Radley Balko
and is filed under General Criminal Justice, Photo Blogging, Police Professionalism.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
TheAgitator.com
I’d still submit that any of the officers who confronted an armed gunman systematically slaughtering people deserve praise, regardless of who actually shot him.
Yes.
Robbery suspect cleared by Facebook status.
This is good news. Kind of like having an electronic alibi witness.
Alibi witnesses are usually just people who say you were somewhere else, and, as every prosecutor knows, eye witness testimony is really only credible if it supports the state.
I wonder if a member of the Blue Wall will find the obvious wrongdoing that most of us knows happened without reading any reports. And I also wonder how those services are worth $90/hour. Sounds like a lucrative racket. It must supplement the (likely) pension that Leary is drawing.
You mean to tell me a city government assumed that an internal police investigation would be objective. Gee. I’m stunned.
I hope the outside investigator got paid in advance because it’s doubtful that the city is going to see any conflict of interest in having the outside investigator beholden to them for payment of their bill.
re: outside investigator story.
If you read the comments below that article, the cop was having a sexual relationship with someone else, and it appears his wife turned up dead a few months ago. Apparently that wasn’t enought to raise suspicions.
This woman ran toward the gunfire. Hell, even if all she did was take the last bullet giving her coworker time to shoot Hasan, isn’t that just as good?
From the outside investigator link:
The story goes on to say that Mr. Leary was formerly with Denver Police, but the idea of a police force being investigated by someone named Timothy Leary seems a little psychedelic, shall we say?
Well, it is Denver after all.
So that’s what they mean by “The Mile High City”!
More background on the Colorado story: its got all sorts of police corruption.
1. Cop having sex with drug addict
2. Dead wife, no resolution on the autopsy months later
3. Charges against drug addict lessened
4. Evidence tampering (crime lab does not record who logs in)
5. Failure to discipline/investigate/find any wrong doing
All we need is Steven Hayne and some dog killing.
Hero Cops?
My question is…. Do the officers deserve praise for going above, and beyond the call of duty, or for simply doing the job for which they are employed?
Cops say they put their lives on the line everyday, when that is blatantly not true. When they do, we (even some who know better) heap so much godliness upon them that it spills over to all wearing a clown suit.
My point being that I do not feel cops are hired as a simple ticket writing revenue source, but to actually do what these officers may have done. If these officers had did like many would have, and simply tried to stay behind their cruisers threatening any of the soldiers with obstruction of justice if the the soldiers would have attempted to help, we would deservedly be tearing them new assholes. Now that they finally did their jobs, are we to heap praise upon them?
Hiring someone who was in the Denver PD for that long to look into wrongdoing? Really?
It’s kind of a “shoot first, don’t ask any questions later” kind of town.
Going off topic…story from Canada where the search for a missing girl now involves police searching 6000 nearby homes for evidence, without warrants. They are using the “If you have nothing to hide, you will let police search your home” technique. They include the threat that refusing the search will likely be used as enough evidence to get a warrant for the search, so you might as well just cooperate.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/mariam/article/723531–6-000-homes-canvassed-for-mariam-clues
Re: Facebook story
All I have to do to have charges dropped is ensure that a friend posts a status update on Facebook from my computer close to the time I commit a crime?
I mean, seriously! I can have my wife post an update saying “I’m tired, going to bed now” at 12:30am while I ensure that I rob a 7-11 at that very time (or within 5 minutes). Then, if caught, I can claim that it must just be someone who looks like me because, as you can see from Facebook, I was tired and was going to bed, at home, at that time.
Fucking Christ, how I wish some of the idiot commentators on the cuba link could trade places with the victims of communism. Take a look at these douchebags.
“I’ve been to Cuba and fear for when their country opens up to the U.S. again. The influx of corporations and tourists will do more harm to Cuba than the embargo ever did.”
“Yes, there is political repression in Cuba- dissidents are imprisioned, sometimes tortured, and the press is harassed. This is indefensible. But-
Cuba does not have secret prisons scattered across the globe. It does not kidnap foreign citizens, many of whom are innocent of any wrongdoing, and ferry them to countries like Egypt and Uzbekistan, to be tortured for months or even years.
Cuba has not invaded another country. It has not bombed and shot hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians
Cuba does monitor its civilians and press, but nothing on the scale of the Patriot Act (read it !)
Cuba does not prop up murderous and repressive regimes, such as the aforementioned Egypt and Uzbekistan (plus Saudi Arabia, Liberia etc) for commercial gain.
Cuba does not allow its most vulnerable citizens to be bankrupted or even denied treatment because they cannot afford healthcare. A ’socialist’ healthcare system like Cuba’s (hint: a system like Cuba’s where the elite are much wealthier than the working class is not really socialist) is far better than the system in the US, by any measure. Cubans are healthier, and pay far less.
In Cuba, the richest 1% does not own more than the poorest 90%.
Should I go on?”
Has this dumbass ever heard of cuba’s involvement in angola or their booming medical tourism industry.
Enyap
Apologies for authoritarian regimes are nothing new, the tradition goes back thousands of years. “Henry VIII may have been a sadistic murdering monster, but he freed England from the tyranny of the Pope.”
One of the turning points towards libertarianism for me was finding a book written by Wyndham Lewis in the early 1930s about how terrible it was that the Wiemar Republic was beating up these idealistic young Germans who were fighting for the people’s welfare, etc. He meant, of course, the National Socialist German Worker’s Party. That was when I realized that all forms of statism are essentially the same and that their apologists are (at best) guilty of wishful thinking.
The job for which they are employed is collecting revenue and putting people in prisons. The end.
They deserve praise not as cops, but as human beings for the act of good they risked themselves to accomplish.
Radley, I agree, I don’t care who shot him last. I’m glad she did her job. I just don’t like the narrative that was forwarded immediately after the incident without the full facts.
Now knowing more facts doesn’t diminish her heroism.
But keep in mind the ARMY is what killed those soldiers by not allowing them to protect themselves.
Enyap: In Cuba, the richest 1% does not own more than the poorest 90%.
It’s ironically true. In Cuba, the richest .0001% owns more than the poorest 99.9999%. See, context is everything! *headdesk*
It has not bombed and shot hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians.
Again, ironically true. They didn’t use bombs. And the hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians they shot were their own.
“Basically explains the reputation of capitalism!” – From the “Harming intentionally, helping incidentally” link.
What the hell are they talking about?
Oh man, nevermind. I read that over and over again, and only just now did I see that it says “reputation,” not “refutation.” The mind plays tricks.
#14 Nando
I don’t even need an accomplice. I can remotely control my home computer from any internet connection in the world. Anything I do while in control of it will come via my home IP address.
@ #22
The thought of what you posted had come to mind.
The problem with it is that if the cops subpoena your ISP records it will show that you were VPNing or otherwise connected to your PC from another location at that very moment in time when your status was updated, thus casting doubt on where it came from. The “cleanest” way to do it is to have an accomplice perform the action so that there is no question that someone phisically did it from that machine.
I like to educate people that police officer isn’t in the top 20 of most dangerous jobs. Labor Dept. has statistics on most dangerous jobs. Being data from a government agency, I prefer a second opinion from a non-government agency, but my research has shown that the rankings are accurate. So next time you eat a tuna fish sandwich, a crab wonton, or throw a log in the fire, or fill up your garbage can, please heap hero praises on the tuna/crab fishermen, loggers, and garbage collectors, who have jobs that are in the top 10 most dangerous.
Fast food America demands real-time data so that conclusions can be jumped to without all of the facts. MUST … MAKE … JUDGMENT … WITHOUT … ALL … INFORMATION!!!
Off-duty cop has to show off new pistol to friend, shoots other passenger in throat and kills him, given paid vacation while investigation ensues. And some say that cops are the only ones who should have firearms (erroneous thinking for many reasons and on many levels).
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/42766.html
BamBam
I know what you mean.
Unfortunately, the gun control crowd would say “But he was off duty! He shouldn’t have had a gun at that time.”
To which I would like to reply “He’s a fumble-fingered idiot and shouldn’t have a gun in his hand at any time. Yet you think he’ll be safe with a gun just because he’s punched the time clock?”
I miss real po-boys.
You just can’t get that bread anywhere else. You can find loaves of bread that are close, but it’s just not the same. Crispy, yet not very crunchy on the outside, but gooey and creamy on the inside. And then where are you going to find a fried catfish po-boy? Not around here.
At least sometimes you might be able to find something resembling a decent muffaletta.
I know what you are saying about the lady cop and all, but my question is why the military wanted to advance the story of the 5′2″ little lady hero over her more massive male partner. The base was on lockdown for hours after the shootings. The army had time to talk to both those officers and others at the scene. Why did they say let’s go with mulneny as the hero and we’ll just not mention your part in it big guy? Why did they release the story of Jessica lynch being a lady rambo in 2003? Why ‘d they feel the need to tell a story about pat tillman. It’s like they don’t want anyone to believe them ever. Like they are carefully crafting a facade of always spewing bullshit around.
#29, do you think it’s accidental every time that a bullshit story is crafted or exaggerated? I submit that it’s intentional, just like most things government, and people want to keep believing that people aren’t so evil as to perpetrate the various acts that they do and that it’s all just a series of slapstick comedy errors that are leading us to doom.
BamBam,
I think their bullshit is intentional, I just can’t figure out why they want to lie every time. At some point, only the dumbest and most gullible will believe them. Why wouldn’t you at least sometimes tell the truth about the small things so that the big lies have more of a chance to be believed? I guess they really don’t have to worry about it since most everybody does believe the big lie that it is sweet and fitting to die for the State.
#18
You’re right of course about the US Army being responsible. I can’t tell you how many times I pulled guard duty with no ammunition. The dont’ let soldiers carry ammunition even when they are armed guards!
Armed guards with no ammunition, only the army could find logic in that.
i love it when NOLA makes the news in a GOOD way. =)
@ oatwhore
i’ll eat a catfish poboy at markeys for ya tonite. =)
“I like to educate people that police officer isn’t in the top 20 of most dangerous jobs.”
Before you try to “educate” people, you might want to educate yourself and use some current info in the right context.
http://www.boston.com/bostonworks/galleries/dangerous_jobs_2007?pg=2
http://www.classesandcareers.com/education/2009/09/25/2009s-10-most-dangerous-jobs/
#10. Police Officer.
Everytime someone trys to pull the “oh, it’s not that dangerous” stuff I educate them to the truth (with numbers to back it up, unlike Bam). The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks 9000 jobs. The top 10 are 10 out of 9000. It’s a bit idiotic to say that a job is not dangerous because it’s statisticalyl less dangerous than NINE other jobs when it’s STATISTICALLY MORE DANGEROUS THAN THE OTHER 8,989 JOBS…..
As an aside…
“I spend a lot of time pointing out bad cops on this site, not because they’re indicative of the profession, but to point out the improper incentives we’ve set for police, and how poorly the criminal justice system deals with its own bad actors”-Radley Balko
I really appreciated reading that, this is why what you’re doing here is a good thing Mr. Balko. Real reform of anything (like Law Enforcement and things like ending prohibition) comes for real good faith effort, varifiable facts and discourse based on good information, not ideologically driven prejudice and ignorance as displayed by some who like to reply here.
Why nitpick the facebook status story? I figure anything that will get charges dropped is a positive, and it’s very unlikely this kid did anything deceptive. Of course someone could fake the status change, but why so deferential to the state?