Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
- Gene Healy: “By 2012, our national debt will be larger than the entire U.S. economy, according to the International Monetary Fund. So what’s on the front burner in Washington these days? Zoning issues in lower Manhattan!” Also, a closer look at the “hallowed” ground argument.
- Indianapolis cop plows into two motorcycles, killing one and critically injuring two. New professionalism angle: He had a history of car accidents, wasn’t tested for alcohol until two hours after the accident, tested at .19, and still wasn’t booked at the jail.
- The proper way to listen to Justin Bieber.
- Fretting that your Chinese or Japanese-language tattoo doesn’t say waht you think it does? This guy will translate it for you.
- Emily Bazelon finds a new twist in the Phoebe Prince bullying story. By the way, probably won’t surprise you to learn that our old friend Wendy Murphy is pretty gung ho about this prosecuting Prince’s bulliers with felonies nonsense.
- Signs that an asteroid the size of Chicago must be hurtling toward Earth.
- Jack Shafer throws cold water on the “all our roads are turning to gravel!” hysteria. Bonus appearance by my home county, Hancock County, Indiana.
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on Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 at 2:23 pm by Radley Balko
and is filed under General Criminal Justice, Police Professionalism.
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TheAgitator.com
I’m actually embarrassed for people who think that driving on a graded, gravel or dirt road is a sign of cultural collapse. Don’t get out much, do they, these urban squawkers?
Your home state sure is a piece of work, Balko!
Many roads near me are purely graded gravel and/or dirt roads. They are very nice.
#1 and #3 — YES. EXACTLY. THANK YOU.
I remember visiting South Dakota 20 years ago, where outside of the town, every 5th road was an ‘oil road’. I don’t know if you’d ever catch me saying that unpaved roads are ‘nice’, but I’ll certainly agree they can be completely unnecessary.
Wait, they got worked up about 250 miles of road being unpaved? *blinks*
In low traffic areas, gravel roads are better than paved roads in winter. They are far less prone to icing – especially black ice, which is the most treacherous of all road conditions.
To add to what #7 said, also ice heaving.
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road was a great album.
Figure some folk here might care about this
RIAA and Broadcasters Association want Congress to require FM receivers in electronic devices
We’ve had quite a few updates to the Drunken Cop story in Indy. He’s been charged with 7 felonies, and is on unpaid suspension and will likely be fired.
http://www.indystar.com/article/20100817/LOCAL18/8170354/1282/NEWS02/Attorney-challenges-officer-s-blood-test
This story has been a pretty big deal in Indy, and I have to admit IMPD is doing a decent job of handling things. I think the average person would have been tested and tossed in jail immediately, so there’s some still some ingrained preferential treatment going on. On the other hand, they do seem serious about real prosecution.
Your Asteroid link is wrong, unless you meant to link to Clinton visiting Newsmax (he puts the ass in asteroid!).
I feel like I should be watching Sagan’s Cosmos when listening to the ultra-slow Bieber…A mix of Enigma, Avatar soundtrack, and a Syd Barrett wet dream.
mcmillan, you should have prefaced that with ‘In a desperate attempt to keep themselves relevant,’
The stunning part wasn’t that the guy had a blood alcohol level of .19 at 11:40 in the morning (Dude! It’s not even noon! Pace yourself!) But that he was in a police Cruiser on his way to a Warrant Service call. That would have gone over great! Serving a Warrant while sloshed off your ass. At noon. Did he bring more booze with him? What was his plan, to sneak back to his cruiser every few minutes to top off? How the hell does this guy check in to end his shift? Do they have a drive up window for the drinkers? So many questions!
How the hell do you even HAVE a blood alcohol level of .19 at noon? In your squad car. While on duty. What, do you just start chugging cheap scotch right when you get up?
I’m pretty sure you don’t just wake up one day and say “Wow! I’m gunna start hitting it really hard today! I bet I can get to .19 before noon!” No, this takes long term commitment to the sauce.
FOX should make a “hard core drinkers” reality show, just to show us lightweights how it’s really done.
Apparently, he had a history of suspicious looking accidents, like this one in 1996 “Bisard said in his report he was pulling over someone for a traffic stop and had to swerve to avoid hitting “an elderly gentleman and lady standing on the west corner.””
And by ‘swerve’ he means “Crash into a Firestone Tire store”.
Better get him off the street before he kills someone. Fuck. Too late.
re #15- He was at his daughter’s soccer game. Duh.
@ Bob | August 17th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
+10
Too bad he didn’t have to “swerve” while on a one lane bridge over deep water.
“He [an on duty police officer] had a history of car accidents, wasn’t tested for alcohol until two hours after the accident, tested at .19, and still wasn’t booked at the jail.”
Professional courtesy?
Police Department Statement:
Maybe he just started drinking right after the accident. Because he was sad about those people hitting his patrol car. What are you, a criminal or something? Do you have a flip camera on you?
#15- i’m betting he was drunk from being out the night before. indy has some decent strip clubs… he just hit it all night.
It’s not Beiber as one of the posters in the Gawker Article points out. Read farther down.
Police Department Statement (on going):
Maybe he just started drinking right after the accident. Because he was sad about those people hitting his patrol car. What are you, a criminal or something? Do you have a flip camera on you?
Do you have a dog? It would be sad if something were to happen to your dog…
Not only are gravel roads better for winter travel, my understanding is they are a LOT cheaper to maintain (which makes sense).
No, the Beiber song is authentic. Another band claims to have made the song, but he was the first to post it online. A few Youtube vids and audio sites have sped up the recording to prove it.
Re. the kanji tatt translator guy, Jim Breen’s site is a great place to look up kanji on your own:
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1B
Radley, that first link about the GZM is frankly b*llsh*t. Most of the businesses shown were there before 9/11; I know this because I used to live in NYC and worked in the area.
Additionally, none of the guys who crashed into the WTC did so because of a distorted devotion to Burger King, Dunkin’ Donuts or kosher pizza.
Can any group build what they wish so long as they can afford Manhattan property prices? Of course they can, but this is not about that, which I’m sure you know. Pouring salt into a still-raw wound is the issue here, another point that I’m sure you’re aware of.
Bad job.
Peter:
Will you feel the same way about a plan by the US Army to locate a recruiting station close to the site of the Oklahoma City bombing?
Pouring salt into a still-raw wound is the issue here, another point that I’m sure you’re aware of.
Frankly, there’s an entire political industry dedicated to keeping that wound fresh and raw and bleeding as long as possible, by any means necessary.
The bloody shirt is waved for trivialities now. This is invariably accompanied by the destruction of bedrock constitutional liberties that were once taken for granted. Which I’m sure you’re aware of.
To build on Rick’s comments, I think 9/11 will be for conservatives what civil rights protest of the 60′s are for liberals. Will we ever be able really move on? If we do, someone loses their political clout.
And Peter, stop trying pass you opinion off as fact. Just because you perceive something one way, doesn’t mean it’s true.
Drunk Cop – A few things stand out in this story. While I realize that NOW they are suspended him and actually charging him…this jumped out at me from the original story:
“Bisard, who was slightly injured, was put on desk duty pending the results of the crash investigation.”
Really? And if this wasn’t being so publicized,my guess is that this would STILL be the case. I know I’m cynical. It’s been ingrained.
I have a very very serious question to all the cops that read this site. Do you policeman not understand that the preferential treatment that you show your fellow officers who break the law (instead of with the disdain and anger that you should) is a LARGE part of what causes a large segment of this society to despise you and view you as royal, flaming hypocrites? You all are smart enough to realize that right? While I do realize that the mental requirements for being a cop aren’t THAT stringent, I would guess that most of you have enough common sense to understand that…right?
This cop should get life for this. That’s what a prosecutor would be trying for if it was one of us “no account civilians.” I hope the city has plenty of cash to throw away because something tells me thse 2 families are going to own the PD…as they should.
Oh, yeah. Nursing grudges and remembering past wrongs and attributing those wrongs to an entire group of people instead of a whacko minority is so helpful in building a society.
Just ask the Bosnians, Serbs, Croats and Kosovars.
Or the Greeks and the Turks.
Or the Hutus and Tutsis.
Blood for blood forever!
OOPS, almost forgot:
The French and just about everyone else in Europe.
I live in a rural county and I’d be perfectly fine with more unpaved roads. Many of the county roads which are currently paved were historically gravel roads until city folks built dwellings out in the county and decided after the fact that they didn’t like getting their cars dirty or rock chipped. They hiked up the taxes for everyone so they could get their paved road.
The unpaved road from the nearest blacktop road to my private lane use to be a narrow 2 track which was lightly graveled and didn’t need much in the way of maintenance. In fact, the county rarely did any maintenance as the farmers and folks who lived on the road generally took care of any issues that arose. Unfortunately city neighbors moved in down the road several years ago and whined and bitched to the county until they came in with a bulldozers and pushed the trees and vegetation 20 or 30 yards back from the edge of the road. They then proceeded to haul in gravel and widened the road. This did a couple of things one being increased non-local traffic and the speed of the traffic on the road. It also made it dustier and much more expensive to maintain. Now the county is forced to spend thousands every year on rock (which they just doubled taxes for) when the old road required a fraction of the amount. They also have numerous ditches and maintenance issues which were never a problem before they “improved” it. Since they pushed back all the trees and brush the road now drifts shut with as little as 4 inches of snow since there are no windbreaks. All because some citiots moved in down the road and wanted to get their explorer up and down the road faster and didn’t like their friends teasing them about living on a cowpath out in the sticks.
Drunk Cop.
I saw a copy of a video someone shot right after the accident and the cop showed no sign of being drunk—so it wasn’t so much that he wasn’t caught there, but the fact that other officers must have known he had a problem and ignored it. And the fact that originally the police said the motorcyclists had failed to yield–course they were stopped at a light with a car in front of them and cars in the right lane so they just stayed where they were, and the left turn lane was open. At least two of his accidents where the result of placing his vehicle in front of a fleeing supect, so those don’t really count.
He’s lawyer is now contested the blood draw–the police didn’t have probable cause!! Go figure.
Do you policeman not understand that the preferential treatment that you show your fellow officers who break the law (instead of with the disdain and anger that you should) is a LARGE part of what causes a large segment of this society to despise you and view you as royal, flaming hypocrites?
Of course they do, but as long as they can maintain authority through fear of being tased or having your dog shot they can relax. Furthermore, I believe it will get worse before it gets better, as law enforcement shores up a lack of available respect by becoming more aggressive and forcing people to loan them the respect that their profession has squandered. They have made it abundantly clear that they have no use for the opinions of citizens on the matter.
albatross @26: ? What are you talking about? You should consider putting the bong down before commenting.
Rick @27: I agree that 9/11 gets invoked too often and for trivial reasons. That having been said, a mosque, particualrly named “Cordoba” is much more an incitment than an innocent coincidence. Again, can they do this? Sure, they have the money to buy the property. It’s just poor taste, and no, I have no idea how far away from ground zero it would have to be to remove any objections.
Mattocracy @29: Put the bong down, d00d. My comment was all opinion, and any other reading is your problem, not mine. And learn to spell.
Aresen @ 31/32: All of your examples are grudges and hatreds that have been carried for centuries. We are, right now, less than a decade since 9/11. Sorry, no cigar for you. If this goes on for at least a generation, then you might have a point, but certainly not right now.
So, Americans should start nursing grudges now, so that they can catch up.
You don’t want that tattoo translated. You’ll find out it reads, “Fucks water buffalo” or some similar.
“David Bisard, the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer charged with drunken driving and killing a motorcyclist, was once one of the area’s most productive cops at nailing drunk drivers.
As a member of the Noblesville Police Department in the late 1990s, Bisard received awards two years in a row from Mothers Against Drunk Driving and won commendations four years in a row.”
Aresen @ 37: If that’s what floats your boat, then go for it. I won’t be a party to that.
@Peter
And yet you already are.
Michaelk42: another idiot comment. Do any of you actually think, or are you all so devoted to your ideologies that any deviation from your cherished beliefs make your brains leak out of your ears?
The Phoebe Prince story is an excellent illustration of the voluntary balkanization of the populace. Reading the comments on the Boston Herald article; it is clear that there are two completely independent truths circulating. The group that wants to believe that the “bullies” are monsters who should be put down like rabid dogs are completely resistant to any evidence to the contrary. In fact, they have decided that this reporter is part of a dirty tricks plot by the defense lawyers to “smear the victim”. To this group the allegations made by the prosecution are gospel. They make a pretty good approximation of a lynch mob.
Wendy Murphy is the perfect preacher to this choir – just as in the Duke Lacrosse case there is no counter-evidence that will move her opinion. Any evidence that contradicts her narrative is simply further proof of guilt – exactly the psychosis shown by the commenters at the Herald.
I’m glad I’m not in high school these days – with all of the mass hysteria running about you really are taking your life in your hands just going to high school. Not only do you have to worry that some emotionally scarred young girl will attempt to seduce you only to later claim rape (and be believed), anyone could send you a dirty text message or explicit photo and get you a child porn charge. And God help you if you should get into a nasty argument with a girlfriend at school – that’s worse than murder these days!
The Phoebe Prince story is an excellent illustration of the voluntary balkanization of the populace. Reading the comments on the Boston Herald article; it is clear that there are two completely independent truths circulating. The group that wants to believe that the “bullies” are monsters who should be put down like rabid dogs are completely resistant to any evidence to the contrary. In fact, they have decided that this reporter is part of a dirty tricks plot by the defense lawyers to “smear the victim”. To this group the allegations made by the prosecution are gospel. They make a pretty good approximation of a lynch mob.
Wendy Murphy is the perfect preacher to this choir – just as in the Duke Lacrosse case there is no counter-evidence that will move her opinion. Any evidence that contradicts her narrative is simply further proof of guilt – exactly the psychosis shown by the commenters at the Herald.
I’m glad I’m not in high school these days – with all of the mass hysteria running about you really are taking your life in your hands just going to high school. Not only do you have to worry that some emotionally scarred young girl will attempt to seduce you only to later claim rape (and be believed), anyone could send you a dirty text message or explicit photo and get you a child porn charge. And God help you if you should get into a nasty argument with a girlfriend at school – that’s worse than murder these days!
Um, Radley?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/18/mall_talk/
Please investigate and find it’s a spoof. Or something.
No more churches in Wichita, Kansas! Their presence is only salt in the wounds of the Tiller family.
Peter,
How about if you learn to actually debate and not resort to ad hom attacks a like a child.
I appreciate the fact that you don’t want to actually prohibit the construction of the mosque, but I still believe you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. I think a lot of people are trying to convince the world that there is some sinister motive behind the construction of this mosque to justify their feelings. There isn’t any concrete evidence supporting the idea, it’s just conjecture.
Not only is Newsmax so absurdly biased as to be unworthy of reading, they are apparently also profoundly stupid. To proclaim the virtues of Bill Clinton’s post-presidential activities? A man who has reportedly traded on his status as former head of state / husband of Senator/Sec State to solicit cash donations and lucrative business associations from foreign entities whose interests don’t jibe with our own?
Bill Clinton is the epitome of the slimeball politician.
I’ve followed the case involving the Indianapolis police officer, and it is fairly strange. Even the other (uninjured) motorcycle riders who interacted with the officer at the scene didn’t suspect that he was drunk. It’s possible that adrenaline and his emotional condition (the officer was reportedly sobbing uncontrollably at the scene) may have masked his intoxication. And I think he wasn’t booked because the blood test results weren’t available for a few days, and weren’t expedited because no one thought he was drunk or drinking. I’m no fan of police departments in general or IMPD in particular. I wouldn’t be surprised if they botched certain aspects of this investigation. Still, if they knew he was plowed and were trying to cover things up, it seems to me that they would have waited much longer than two hours to draw his blood.
I agree that there are some good reasons to think he was intoxicated. The way he blasted through a pack of motorcycles on a clear day on a straight, flat road certainly suggests impaired reaction time. The handful of one-car incidents, any one of which would seem innocent, does paint a picture of a guy who has more than the usual number of problems driving his squad car. .19 is .19. On the other hand, it was 11:30 in the morning. He came from his daughter’s soccer game. No one has reported that the guy had a history of alcohol abuse either on the job or off. Even the people who had no incentive to cover for him didn’t suspect he was drunk.
At this point, I am withholding judgment, balancing my skepticism about the integrity of police departments against the fact that the officer is now a criminal defendant with rights of his own. I presume at some point facts will emerge that fill in the blanks one way or another. While these are common, highly overplayed defenses, at this point, in my mind, I can’t completely rule out the possibility of a blood sample mixup or post-accident drinking.
[...] just glad that a tattoo has never been one of mine. Via Radley comes this site that will translate various Asian character tattoos for people who don’t know [...]
Two comments for #49–The officer did come over a rise just before the intersection so he didn’t have a clear vision ahead of him (reason to slow down) and he was slightly injured. The official policy of the IMPD is to transport all injured parties to the hospital and draw the blood sample there. A field sobriety test would be worthless under that kind of stress. Also as it appears that he was tested at the hospital after being transported in an ambulance sort of rules out post-accident drinking.
While I can’t rule out a sample mixup, the fact that the defensive is essentially admitting he’d been drinking (aren’t claiming otherwise) and are pursuing and illegal sampling points to the fact that he was drinking.
Man, Wendy Murphy sure does get a lot of free publicity here. She must love it.
On the “Hallowed Ground” pictures. It actually made me change my mind. Really it was the picture of “Lilly O’Briens”. Fair is fair. If a branch of my church is so close to ground zero the Muslims deserve to have their Mosque there too.
Sláinte!