Thursday, July 14th, 2011
- Marie Clare takes a skeptical look at sex offender laws.
- The highest-paid state employee in California is “a prison surgeon who took home $777,423, has a history of mental illness, was fired once for alleged incompetence and has not been allowed to treat an inmate for six years because medical supervisors don’t trust his clinical skills.”
- Horrifying, heartbreaking story in Brooklyn.
- Headline of the day.
- Headline of the day, runner-up.
- Good article in American Cop magazine, written by a cop, about recording cops in public.
- Libyan “freedom fighters” we’ve been supporting are now looting, razing, and burning villages.
- Center for American Progress: These free marketeers are such corporate shills, they even oppose regulations when corporations support them!
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on Thursday, July 14th, 2011 at 9:55 am by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
“Libyan “freedom fighters” we’ve been supporting are now looting, razing, and burning villages.”
Ever notice how they’re freedom fighters when they want us to help them take over their country but they’re insurgents if they want us out?
“The highest-paid state employee in California is “a prison surgeon who took home $777,423, has a history of mental illness, was fired once for alleged incompetence and has not been allowed to treat an inmate for six years because medical supervisors don’t trust his clinical skills.”
The Peter Principle on steroids. And shrooms.
A sad story for sure, and sad for the future as well, as it puts the ‘free range kids’ idea more squarely in the sights of those who wish to control everyone at all times.
Edit for proper jargon.
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TBS, I would like to point out that this was foreseen by everyone who opposed the Libyan “Kinetic Military Action”.
Just when we think the hysteria over kids’ safety can die down a little bit, someone with no prior history goes and inexplicably commits a random act of utter horror. WTF.
“Today, Nikki, 30, and Frank, 34, both say they unequivocally support laws that put sexual predators behind bars and protect children from attacks.”
After reading this sentence I lost all sympathy for their story. Fucking cognitive dissonance, how does it work??
I posted a comment on the “American Cop” article on police recording:
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“If the laws were fair for all”, the testimony of a police officer would not be allowed to outweigh the testimony of anyone else in court. But it does – the entire justice system would collapse otherwise. As one obvious example, if a law enforcement officer says I was doing 80 in a 65 zone and I say otherwise, I’m going to lose unless I have hard proof otherwise.
And THAT in particular is why the citizenry is turning to cellphone cams and the like. To deny the use of such cameras is to support the idea that as a practical matter, officers can lie with no repercussions. And given that an entire word in the English language has been created for that particular practice (“testilying”) we can hardly deny that it happens.
Things are heating up on both sides. Technology is becoming available that will not only instant-stream video/audio output to a remote server from a 4G cellphone, but will do so from a hidden camera linked to the phone via Bluetooth to a separate, concealed camera. This doesn’t exist yet, but will be available from at least one consumer-electronics source within a month – with at least one more planned for roughly October. Over the next 10+ years as this sort of tech gets cheaper, smaller and more common, it will simply put an end to many forms of police abuse. (Hell, once it gets to around the size of a grain of rice, it’ll end jailhouse rape.)
Even with early-gen versions of this tech, what happens when somebody points an obvious-cam at law enforcement and then streams the output of a hiddencam to a remote server recording the destruction of first the obviouscam and then the cameraman’s nose? Yeah, RIP one police career, plus yet another big-bucks civil suit and another agency’s badge dishonored.
On the other side, there are now multiple well-documented cases of law enforcement officers attacking people who point cameras at them…in some cases, with deadly force. An officer with the Las Vegas PD is on suspension after attacking somebody, falsely arresting them for felony assault on the officer, sneering about it on audio, destroying their camera but oops, failing to destroy the camera’s memory card. Expect a civil judgement there well into six figures. Even more extreme cases involve deadly force (only threatened so far, no documented police shootings of this sort yet thank God).
It’s going to heat up some more, but the technology trends say that law enforcement will lose this fight in spectacular fashion. In the meantime, once remote-streaming hiddencams hit, there will be a period in which some people turn basically “bounty hunter”, looking to record major dollars and major police crimes.
Public officals conducting public business in public view whose actions are subject to review by a public court of law whose proceedings are a matter of public record have no expectation of privacy.
From the Marie Claire link:
Has she been reading your blog, Radley? :)
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Nippliemancer: In context, Rodriguezes say they support the registry for violent sex offenders and sexual predators. I think this is a reasonable position, although I am ambivalent about it myself.
I think everyone (other than Rev Phelps) would agree that, if there is such a registry, only those who represent a danger to others should be on it.
““Today, Nikki, 30, and Frank, 34, both say they unequivocally support laws that put sexual predators behind bars and protect children from attacks.”
After reading this sentence I lost all sympathy for their story. Fucking cognitive dissonance, how does it work??”
Of course they say that. If they say anything else, it’ll be used against them when they petition to have his name removed from the sex offender registry. You know some prosecutor is going to fight tooth and nail to prevent anyone from being removed from the list.
“You know some prosecutor is going to fight tooth and nail to prevent anyone from being removed from the list.”
One guy tried to get removed from the list by renouncing US citizenship.
Because we were at war… circumstances that would allow this.
The DOJ argued these stupid endless wars are not technically “wars.”
http://constitutionalfights.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/doj-challenges-sex-offenders-effort-to-renounce-citizenship/
#7 | Jim March |
I love that post. One interesting tidbit:
A few years back I had the opportunity to deal with traffic court in Atlanta. In the state of Georgia there is no opportunity to have “hard proof otherwise” on a moving violation like that. If the officer says he clocked you doing 85 your only allowed defenses are to: ask if he is certified on the equipment, ask if the equipment is properly calibrated, ask if he was set up too close to a curve or on a 30 degree grade. That’s it. “I have a video that proves my contention that I was only driving 65 mph” is not even admissible, by their rules. Nice.
I’m not sure about all of the rules covering moving violations, but I did hear this one from the judge repeatedly. There was a case while I was there involving a van speeding and making an illegal turn. The driver brought his entire 6 person carpool to testify that he did no such thing, but the judge wouldn’t even let them speak.
I was particularly interesting in all of this talk, because the reason I was there was because a motorcycle cop ticketed me for doing 42 in a 35. Actually, I had seen the officer and maintained a slow speed starting from a red light. The guy in the pickup behind me didn’t see him and made an illegal pass and blew down the road…. of course the cop wasn’t paying attention and when he turned around in response to his beeping radar he saw my car. I had my wife to testify that he was wrong… but I didn’t bother mentioning it after hearing that. She was convinced that he just pulled us over because he didn’t like seeing an interracial couple. I figured he was just marginally competent and made a mistake. Either way, there was no way to rectify his mistake. Fortunately they let you bribe your way out of a ticket in Atlanta. In most cases you can just pay the same money to a traffic school and go listen to a lecture about how to drive safely. What a racket.
Corporations couldn’t possibly have an ulterior motive when they agree with us liberals! That might mean we’re possibly advocating bad policy!?
#2 Yizmo Gizmo
The prison is actively trying to get rid of the guy, so that’s something positive. Every state has hundreds or thousands of paper-shuffling bureaucrats that don’t add any value to government activities, yet nobody is even trying to get rid of them.
Locally, one of the local news channels did a story about the Louisville school system. The school system has 332 employees who make over $100k a year. One comparable school system had only 21 employees making that much. And not a single person making $100k was a teacher. They were all principals and administrators who have little or no contact with students.
http://www.wlky.com/news/27857084/detail.html
“Libyan “freedom fighters” we’ve been supporting are now looting, razing, and burning villages.”
we have a strong track record of supporting the good guys…
Anyone who DOESN’T want “sexual predators” stopped from “attack[ing] children” is a psychopath or a sexual predator themselves.
There is no cognitive dissonance there – what he did was simply not an “attack”.
I think the easiest (and most passable, law-passing wise) solution to the specific problem would be to remove people from the registry when their “victim” is now their spouse (heck, “wife” – how many females are prosecuted for this?!?). That wouldn’t really solve the problem with the sex offender registry being watered down beyond usefulness, but it would help a small but noticeable number of people quickly and easily.
The Lybian ‘rebels’ are also using child soldiers as well.
My heart certainly goes out to the couple profiled in the Marie Claire piece and as regular readers of The Agitator are well aware, this is far from an isolated incident. I hope this poor guy, and others like him, get off the registry and the usefulness of these things is reexamined.
That having been said, I always cringe when the writers of these stories make a big deal about the subjects of the piece being popular, attractive, athletes, or good students. I know they are trying to build sympathy for the defendants, but how is this substantially different from the Nancy Grace’s of the world focusing only on attractive victims and perps? (obviously a difference in tone and degree. no doubt)
So what if the police cheered him on Friday night? Why should that effect how they do or don’t treat him if he is accused of a crime? They SHOULD be treating him like everyone else, though everyone should be treated better than THIS. I feel a little dirty wanting him to be treated with equal INJUSTICE as a disaffected, pimply-faced, un-athletic loner might be treated, but here I am.
@ FridayNext | July 14th, 2011 at 11:30 am
I believe that is for the same reason that every kid who is killed in a car accident/ drowns/ otherwise dies is a “straight A student, good athelete, popular, Eagle scout, all-round nice kid”.
“If the officer says he clocked you doing 85 your only allowed defenses are to: ask if he is certified on the equipment, ask if the equipment is properly calibrated, ask if he was set up too close to a curve or on a 30 degree grade.”
OT, but the last time I was in traffic court, in a case before mine the cop stood up and right off the bat said his equipment wasn’t properly calibrated, and so didn’t know if the person had been speeding or not, so the case was dismissed. The defendant never even had to say a word. I was pretty surprised, but I’ve wondered if that happens more than I would figure, since the cop was so matter of fact about it and the judge didn’t seem surprised.
I seem to recall a poster here on this site questioning what we know about the Libyan rebels we’re supporting. That man is wise.
Boyd Durkin “I seem to recall a poster here on this site questioning what we know about the Libyan rebels we’re supporting. That man is wise.”
Why do you hate America Boyd? Anyone America supports is by definition a good guy. Why do you support the terrorists? You know you’re either with us or with them!
2nd of 3
The cop already had his overtime, why should he care?
Like most states, the head football coach of the state university is the highest paid public employee. Cal State’s coach – $4M/year if all incentives met.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/14/SPG0TOKTT71.DTL
Radley, that Matt Welch Reason article is based on faulty reporting by Jack Dolan. This is the worst kind of journalism, and yes, I do know what I’m talking about.
Severely disappointed in Welch and you for running with this crap. Done!
Radley, that Matt Welch Reason article is based on faulty reporting by Jack Dolan.
Show me proof that the reporting is faulty and I’ll post a correction.
Here is another interesting corruption story from Arizona. Apologies if you have covered it already.
http://www.officer.com/news/10296175/ariz-town-in-disarray-over-arrest-video
@ H. Reardon
But like most states, the majority of the football coach’s salary is not publicly *funded*. Some of it, yes, but not the large majority of it, which comes from TV deals, radio deals, equipment deals, and booster clubs.
@9 – Yes, but it doesn’t need to be public-viewable, either.
Technically, much of that salary comes from radio/TV shows and from boosters rather than from the school itself.
er, oops. Didn’t notice someone else had already said the same thing.
Sex offender registries: Yet another example of how laws named after dead kids are good for society.
All praise be to the FSM.
that was three years salary for the doctor, FYI
@Jim March: Are you the same Jim March who used to post at the old High Road board? I am Orthonym there. If so, howdy, and I hope you are doing well. Are you one of those stubborn people who persist in staying in Kalifornistan while everybody who can do so is bailing out of there?
“Libyan “freedom fighters” we’ve been supporting are now looting, razing, and burning villages.”
Well, during our revolution Col. Howe apparently oversaw the burning and looting of Norfolk against the protests of the residents. Rebel forces often do desperate things.