The National Taxpayers Union and Downsize D.C. have both joined the move to repeal the Internet gambling ban.

This is great news. More, please.

It if it passes, it would be a small victory, but a notable one. When was the last time Congress gave a little freedom back?

“I think a lot of members of Congress voted for that (ban) without having given it a lot of attention,” Frank said Wednesday. “And I think that there is growing opposition to it,” he said. “I think that this may be a case where, after the fact of having voted for it, people don't like it and they reconsider.”

Frank, the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he plans to introduce a bill “probably next week, maybe the week after” against the Internet gambling ban.

To be effective, the bill would probably not only need to repeal the UIGA, but also be explicit about what it's allowing. It would need to make clear, for example, that Internet gambling does not fall under the auspices of the old 1961 Federal Wire Act. Ready for the punch line?

“In a number of areas, I am a libertarian,” Frank said. “I think that John Stuart Mill's ‘On Liberty' is a great statement, and I was just rereading it.

“I believe that people should be allowed to read and gamble and ride motorcycles and do a lot of things that other people might not want to let them do."

Sad thing is, Frank's basically a big government socialist on most economic issues. And yet he's still one of the more libertarian members of Congress.

After the initial series of Dallas SWAT raids on the city’s poker rooms, I got an email from a guy who said he was arrested at one of them. We’ve kept in touch over the last few months, and now that his case is resolved, he has offered to share it. It’s long, but it’s a great (and maddening) read:

While my situation wasn’t nearly as dire as so many on which you report, I do feel like there are several issues my case brings up, i.e., cops lying to justify their actions, videotapes of SWAT raids not being preserved, and the necessity of some SWAT raids in the first place, which I know to be one of your major interests. This is going to be a bit lengthy, but it must be to give every aspect of this twisted story the attention it merits, in my opinion. Feel free to use any of this on your blog.

On June 24, 2006, I was present at an underground poker room that was raided by the Dallas SWAT team, Dallas Sherriff’s Dept., Dallas Police Dept., & Dallas Code Enforcement.

The raid occurred around 7:40 p.m. I was in the kitchen area which was just inside the front door when suddenly there was loud banging from the door. Within seconds, the room was full of Dallas SWAT officers yelling for everyone to put their hands in the air. Behind the Dallas SWAT team came many more law enforcement officers and several camera crews for the A&E reality show, Dallas SWAT. The camera crew’s chests were clearly marked as “A&E Film Crew.”

Bear in mind that, prior to police entering, the place was virtually quiet. There was the sound of poker chips in the air, but not much else. The players were essentially professionals and working stiffs having fun…there were doctors, lawyers, accountants, and other professionals. There was hardly anything “dangerous” about the place at all. In fact, the cops found no weapons in the facility or on anyone there. The show of force and weaponry brought by the cops was simply outrageous and unjustified, given the circumstances, but, then again, are they enforcing the law or making a TV show?

After entering, all players at the ten or so poker tables were made to put their hands on the tables while they were individually processed and released with a Class C misdemeanor gambling ticket. After getting their tickets, the players were accosted by A&E folks trying to get everyone to sign releases allowing the footage to be shown on TV. Some signed, others didn’t. The only folks arrested were game operators, dealers, one player with an outstanding traffic warrant, and me.

I was on the premises assisting a friend of mine, a private chef, who was hired to make sandwiches for the poker players. Her wrist was injured and she asked if I could come help cut vegetables for sandwiches. Upon entering the facility around 7:25 p.m., I immediately went to the kitchen area (which one had to pass through to enter the gaming area) to help my friend. At no time did I ever pay any money to gamble, place any bets, or even enter the gaming area. I was only there about 15 minutes when the raid happened. At the time of the raid, I was chopping a head of cabbage for cole slaw.

After the raid, the cops made the three of us in the kitchen sit down while they processed the players, At no time was there any less than three SWAT officers, in full paramilitary gear, standing watch over us. I recognized one of the officers as Cpl. Steve Claggett, one of the main protagonists of the Dallas SWAT show. We talked for a few minutes and he showed me the camera on his helmet, but assured me it was off at that time.

My friend was concerned with the behavior of one of the SWAT officers. He kept his finger on the trigger of his machine gun the entire time. It was kind of twitchy, and my friend commented several times about fearing one twitch too many. The look on his face made clear the level of adrenaline pumping through him and the seriousness of the situation to him. You’d have thought the guy was clearing a bomb-making depot in Baghdad.

After they processed the players, they got to us in the kitchen area. I asked the officer who came over to search us if we shouldn’t be released, as we were certainly not named in any search warrant and hadn’t done anything to indicate we were involved in “gambling.” We were told that we would be searched before release.

The searches themselves were odd. I expected a Terry frisk, even though I felt the time for a Terry frisk had passed, as we had been sitting for over an hour showing no signs of resisting before we were searched. These searches were much more invasive than that. We were made to put our hands in the air, were quickly frisked, and then the officer plunger her hands into our pockets, pulling out all contents.

First, they searched a woman I didn’t know, and released her. Then, they searched my friend who, despite having actual poker chips in her pocket which the players gave her as “tips”, was released. Then they got to me. Out of my first pocket came my car keys and a can of Kodiak (bad habit, of course). She opened the can to confirm it was tobacco. She then emptied my other pocket, pulling out a glass pipe and a small container with about 1.5 grams of marijuana. She opened the container and asked me what it was. “It’s weed,” I said, given the ridiculousness of arguing otherwise.

The officer didn’t really know what to do. I said, “Look, you guys are here are on a gambling investigation. I wasn’t gambling. Shouldn’t you just release me under the circumstances?” She wasn’t sure what to do and went to ask someone called “Sarge.” She came back over and told me that I was definitely being arrested.

Having once been an attorney, I have lots of attorney friends, including my boss. He was mobilized to come bail me out. I got to jail about 10 p.m. that night and wasn’t arraigned until the following morning. At the arraignment at 6:00 am, I pled not guilty to possession of marijuana. I knew my friend was down there to bail me out, so I expected to get out of jail soon. By 8 am, I figured something was wrong. I called my friend and was told that I was being arraigned on a gambling charge (a city charge—the marijuana was a county charge) at a later time. I was flummoxed…I hadn’t gambled at all. I had to stay until 6pm that night for that arraignment. After that, I was released.

I retained a friend of mine for representation and we met. The arrest report for me was not available yet, so we went forward assuming the police would argue that I was gambling which laid the foundation for arresting me and, thus, searching me incident to that arrest.

I figured that beating this wouldn’t be too tough, since there were tons of cameras there filming the action. I assumed that there were undercover cops there filming, and I knew that there were A&E crews there, so there should have been plenty of videotape to prove that I wasn’t gambling. My attorney and I actually tracked down in-house counsel for Granada Entertainment, the company which produces “Dallas SWAT.” We called their counsel (I was on the call on “three-way”) and my attorney informed them that we would be subpoenaing their footage and that it should all be preserved as it was exculpatory in a criminal matter. The call ended with Granada saying they would await the subpoena.

In the meantime, we finally obtained the arrest report, here’s what it said:

“ON 062406 AT APPROX 1900 A/O 8499 WORKING IN AN UNDERCOVER CAPACITY WITH DALLAS VICE DET. TREMAIN 5052 AT IBERIA AVE IN AN ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE VIDEO SURVEILLANCE OF AN ILLEGAL GAMBLING ESTABLISHMENT. A/O 8499 OBSERVED A/P [REDACTED FOR NAME] ENTER THE LOCATION, PAY MONEY TO THE MGR OF THE ESTABLISHMENT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PLAYING CARDS. A/O 8499 OBSERVED THE A/P PLACE A BET WITH CHIPS AT A GAMBLING TABLE.”

Despite the abject mistruths in the police report, I was still confident the tapes would help me. We finally got our subpoena response. Guess what? According to Granada Entertainment, there wasn’t any videotape of the event. All of the tapes had been recorded over, and there simply wasn’t any tape available. Two camera crews and helmet cams on the SWAT guys and not one single inch of tape existed.

I was irate. Now I was stuck in the position of having false allegations against me which I could not absolutely disprove absent those tapes.

Part of the report I could actually disprove. I have a radio show in Dallas on 4-7 pm on Saturdays and Sundays. I was on the air that Saturday until 7pm. We had a post-show meeting at the station and, by my calculations, the earliest I even could have been there was at 7:25 p.m, not 7 pm as the report stated. Furthermore, where was the gambling evidence? I had no cash or chips on me when arrested. Furthermore, my friend the cook actually had poker chips on her, and was not arrested for gambling.

We showed up for my suppression hearing to disprove the cops’ timeline, and to present witnesses that I had not, in fact, gambled at the facility. I made clear to my attorney that I would push this as far as possible, as a Dallas jury would probably be pissed that the city of Dallas had outsourced filming of its crime scenes to Granada Entertainment, and that they weren’t even in the habit of maintaining those videos were they necessary for exculpatory purposes or to review Dallas SWAT members’ activity at such raids. In my opinion, it shocked the conscience, and probably would a jury as well.

Before the hearing, my attorney told me they were offering me to plea down to pipe possession. I told him that was bullshit, as the cop, then, would get away with her lies about my activities. I said this very loudly, as I knew the ADA for my case was in the hall with us. I said, “I understand that I had marijuana on me, which was illegal, but it was just as illegal for that officer to search me, and I don’t know why I should yield on the battle of illegalities.”

My attorney went back to talk with the ADAs, and comes back and says, “You won’t believe this. A tape has surfaced. The cop is here to testify against you. She watched their tapes last night and said they clearly show you gambling.” I told him there was absolutely no way those tapes showed that. We made a deal with the ADA that we would each get copies of the tapes, review them, and if I was not shown gambling then the charges would get dropped.

About a month later, my attorney calls me and tells me the charges are being dropped. I ask him about the videotape. He tells me he still hasn’t received it…the ADAs just called him and told him they had watched it and the charges were being dropped. I was never given any copy of the tape at all.

The curious thing is that my attorney represents some of the dealers/operators of the poker game. He has several more cases pending and told the ADAs, “Guys, sooner or later, you’ve got to give me that tape on one of these other cases.” They still have not produced any videotape.

I am still contemplating what to do. I am probably going to file a report on the officer for making a false arrest report. I doubt it will do much good, as I know all too well from reading your site and others how these cover-ups happen. It’s sad that so many law enforcement officers are unwilling to follow the law themselves, and I see how these railroad jobs happen. Like Reed Seligmann, the Duke lacrosse player, expressed the other day: I had the means and wherewithal to take care of this. What happens to those defendants who are not so situated? Furthermore, how are defendants not, as a matter of course, entitled to copies of any videotape filmed at a crime scene by either the police or their agents? Perhaps there should be a presumption that missing videos would have proven what the defendant claims they prove…perhaps that would make some of these videotapes survive.

Having read your site for some time, it was ironic that this happened to me. I am happy to be able to share my experience with you and hope that it, in some small way, contributes to your work.

He added the following in a subsequent email:

By the way, that night the police issued something like 87 Class C Misdemeanor gambling tickets, 2 Class B of some sort, and a Class A.

What’s baffling is that with 15 SWAT guys, Dallas police, Dallas Code Enforcement, etc., there were probably 30-40 officers at the raid on a Saturday night, probably being paid overtime.

That’s a hell of a lot of overtime to pay to nab misdemeanors with very small maximum fines, most of which were never collected as, according to my attorney, each and every person who requested a jury trial had their charges dismissed.

I’ll bet it would’ve made great TV, though.

More paramilitary raids on poker games, in Georgia this month, and in North Carolina last month.

The latter included a small army of police officers from several police agencies, including the federal BATF and the National Guard. They even brought a damned helicopter. They issued 41 citations, all of them misdemeanors.

Police in Cary, North Carolina gave the same excuse for the show of force that the cops in Dallas gave when they sent out the SWAT teams to raid poker games in that city: While not prone to violence themselves, poker rooms are often robbed. Therefore, they have sometimes have armed guards. Therefore, police have to use overwhelming force.

I don’t know that it’s true that poker games are regularly knocked off by armed bandits. Nor are they particularly dangerous. I’ve been to a couple. And I’ve gotten email from people who were at games that were raided in Dallas. These games are frequented by poker enthusiasts, not mobsters. I suspect the local authorities may have been watching too much Sopranos

But even if the theory is true, the show of force doesn’t make a lick of sense. Let’s assume the game does have armed guards. Put yourself in the guards’ position. You’ve been hired to make sure a black market poker game doesn’t get knocked off by armed intruders. Under which scenario are you more likely to use your gun: (A) Several uniformed cops knock on the door, identify themselves, come into the room, and break up the game, or, (B) several men dressed in black or camouflage and packing heat storm the place without warning, screaming and shouting obscenities?

The SWAT fetishists will tell you that SWAT is still the safer option, because the overwhelming force disables the guards before they can react. I say that’s wishful thinking. Ask Edward Reed, who was working security at a Virginia Beach club raided by the local SWAT team serving a gambling warrant. Oops. You can’t ask him. He’s dead. His last words, directed at the SWAT team, were, “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book.” And of course, there’s Sal Culosi, also the dead victim of the local police department’s policy of serving a gambling warrant with the SWAT team.

This editorial writer at the Fayetteville Observer gets to the grist of the issue, while smothering it with a couple gravy ladles of folksy wisdom:

Should the U.S. Department of Defense throw its great bulk into local law enforcement operations meant to bring people to justice for civil misdemeanors that might net them a fine and, maybe, 60 days in jail?

[...]

Maybe you already know all about the National Guard Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection program. I didn’t. So, after breaking my nails on a few bureaucratic walls (Cary PD, governor’s office, Crime Control and Public Safety, Alcohol Law Enforcement), I Googled it and quickly discovered that it’s all over the place — spotting marijuana from the air, interacting with kids at school, routine law enforcement stuff. Problem is, it’s not a law enforcement agency. It’s the military.

[...]

They were there to play cards, not to foment rebellion. Now, what was it about this operation that demanded backup not only from the state Bureau of Alcohol Law Enforcement and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, but also from the U.S. military? Ahem: What did the warrants say?

It’s only a guess, but I’d say Cary called for National Guard RAID simply because it’s available and it’s willing. Which leaves me wondering what other minutiae, personal vices and petty crimes are occupying its time, and where they’re occupying it. Coulda sworn somebody told me there’s a war on.

Until we get this sorted out, better not jaywalk. There could be a military helicopter overhead.

Hey, it could be worse. In Britain, they’re considering sending cops into people’s homes for unpaid parking tickets.

Two bad policies merge, as the federal government’s newfound interest in Second Life manifests in the FBI patrolling the virtual world for online gambling.

The WTO has handed down another comprehensive defeat for U.S. efforts to ban online gambling.  A panel of three trade judges ruled that the nation of Antigua had only strengthened its case since it won a 2005 complaint against U.S. anti-gambling laws.

If, as expected, the U.S. ignores the ruling, Antigua will be permitted to retaliate.  And the tiny island nation has been floating the delicious prospect of retaliating by turning itself into a haven for copyright pirates.  Which would set the stage for a steel-cage showdown between the entertainment and software industries and the anti-gambling prudes in Congress and the Justice Department.

Thanks to Sallie James for the tip. 

So you're mayor of a medium-sized Midwestern city. Last year, you saw an unexpected surge in violent crime. The city's losing population. And you're taking a beating in the media after the recent rape of a 14-year-old school girl, whose attacker is still at large. What do you do? Well, if you're Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson, you send the SWAT team —in full battle gear, tossing flash bang grenades—to raid the city's 2-cents-a-bet pea-shake houses. Yes, penny pea-shakes are illegal. But they've been operating in the city without harm for generations.

One connected local blogger thinks the raids are the result of the city's white Democrats trying to purge the party of the black Democratic officials, some of whom have faced corruption investigations of late, and who allegedly derive campaign funding from the pea-shakes. But then, Peterson's city police have been raiding mostly-white poker games, too. My guess is that this is just a get-tough-on-crime facade.

Mayor Peterson, by the way, was previously seen handing the millionaire Irsay family a sweetheart of a corporate welfare deal to keep the Colts in town at taxpayer expense, and blaming video games for school shootings.

Thanks to Zach Wendling for the tip.

It’s pretty sad when would-be health care socializer Barney Frank is one of the five or ten most libertarian members of Congress.

But good for him.

If by “vicious” you mean a $5-per-entry, $50-total-pot football pool at the Lake Elsinore Elks Lodge.

A volunteer waitress and a widowed great-grandmother who tends bar at the Lake Elsinore Elks Lodge are due in court later this month after pleading not guilty to misdemeanor charges of operating an illegal gambling operation.

Margaret Hamblin, 73, and 39-year-old Cari Gardner, who donates her time as a waitress at the lodge, face up to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine for allegedly running a $50 football pool at the facility, the Press-Enterprise reported.

The charges stem from a Nov. 20 investigation by state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control agents into an anonymous tip that lodge members bet on NFL games.

Behind the bar, the armed agents found an envelope with $5 from each of the 10 members taking part in the pool. The person who came closest to guessing the combined score of the Jacksonville Jaguars and the New York Giants was to pocket the contents, according to the Press-Enterprise.

[...]

Timothy Clark, who heads the department’s Riverside district, which issued the citations, said football pools “are a violation of the law, and we will take whatever we feel is appropriate action to ensure compliance by our licensees,” the newspaper reported.

Clark said he has recommended a one-year probationary period during which the lodge could host no gambling activities, or it would face a 10-day license suspension, according to the Press-Enterprise.

That means the end of events such as a “50-50″ raffle in which proceeds typically go to scholarship funds and local charities for disabled children and veterans, Hamblin told the newspaper.

Hamblin and Gardner ought to be thankful they aren’t facing RICO charges. Or worse.

After federal morals police arrested its two founders while they were switching planes last week, the online payment site Neteller announced it will no longer allow its U.S. customers to use the site for online poker.

Neteller was the last holdout among the major online payment sites. But lest Rep. Bob Goodlatte get too smug about all of this, note that there are already alternatives. And people will use them. They’re just a little less reputable than Neteller, which was publicly traded.

Which means people will continue to gamble. They’ll just be more susceptible to fraud, and have fewer avenues of recourse if something does go wrong.

Here’s hoping the poker community pools its considerable resources and makes unseating Goodlatte its top priority in 2008.

Nearly a year after a SWAT team in Fairfax, Virginia shot and killed local optometrist Sal Culosi, the Fairfax PD chief of police has issued its report on the incident — unfortunately, only hours after it was released to Culosi’s family.

As these sorts of reports go, this one is marginally better than many. A few reactions:

First, the report does at least concede that it was wrong to send the SWAT team after Culosi, though only after much hemming and hawing. It doesn’t reprimand the police for making the SWAT decision, which the report says was “understandable.” It only concedes that it was probably the wrong decisions.

The “understandable” part I guess stems from the fact that some underground poker games around Fairfax were beginning to stage armed guards at the door, due to a serious of armed robberies of other games.

That in itself is a dubious proposition. A guard paid to watch over an underground poker games isn’t going to engage in a deadly shootout with the police. If two uniformed officers come to the door, they may try to stall while the game gets cleaned up. But they aren’t going to come out firing over what will likely be a series of misdemeanor charges. They may come out shooting, however, if a black-clad SWAT team batters down the door and comes in with weapons drawn, and the guards mistake the police for another attempted armed robbery — which is exactly what happened a few years ago in Virginia Beach, when security guard Edward C. Reed was killed by a SWAT team while guarding a private club where suspected gambling was going on.

I’m not really sure how all of that relates to this case, anyway. Culosi wasn’t hosting a poker game the night he was killed. He was home alone, and coming out to meet a guy he thought was a friend, to settle a gambling debt wagered over a football game. The slightest bit of investigation by the undercover detective who was gambling with Culosi would have revealed that the man wasn’t at all dangerous.

Second, the report reiterates early reports that “suspected cocaine” and drug paraphernalia was found in Culosi’s home. “Drug paraphernalia” can mean just about anything. My question is why is it still “suspected” cocaine? It’s been more than a year, now. Why was it never tested? Either test it and confirm that’s what it was, or stop throwing that information out for public consumption. At this point, there’s seems little reason to keep going back to it other than to disgrace a dead man, and make him look more sinister than he was.

Third, I don’t think Officer Bullock intentionally shot Sal Culosi. But I have a hard time buying the theory put forth in the report. The report takes the position that Bullock’s finger was not on the trigger of the gun. Rather, the report argues that an “involuntary muscle contraction” caused by the car door Bullock threw open both moved his finger from the frame of the gun to the trigger and subsequently caused him to squeeze the trigger. All the while, the gun was also apparently inadvertently aimed square at Culosi’s torso.

That’s a lot of accidentals, inadvertents, and oopses for a three week suspension.

Perhaps this is indeed the way it happened. I’m prepared to give Officer Bullock the benefit of the doubt.

But the report then turns right around and makes the preposterous claim that sending SWAT teams to make these kinds of arrests is safer than sending two uniformed officers.

Bull. The report itself concedes that one reason Officer Bullock may have inadvertently contracted his muscles is that he was nervous about the raid. There had been some last minute adjustments in strategy that changed his role. He was uneasy about the new plan.

Had two uniformed officers knocked on Culosi’s door and arrested him on his porch, there would have been no guns drawn. There would have been no nervous cops with fingers inches away from the triggers of their guns. There would have been no adrenalin rushes, no storming out of undercover automobiles, and no potential of a gun accidentally going off.

Culosi wasn’t a violent man. There was no need to bring violence to him. And it didn’t make things safer. It killed the man.

Does the more traditional, less violent method of serving warrants put cops at greater risk? Maybe, though I have my doubts. But even if it does make warrant service safer for police, police are paid to take risks. That’s what they sign up for. We should do everything we can to minimize those risks, but not to the point where we begin to endanger everyone else, and we violate the rights of people the police are sworn to protect.

There is no question that if Fairfax PD had sent a couple of patrol cops instead of a SWAT team that night a year ago this month, Sal Culosi would still be alive.

Getting back to Bullock and his muscle contractions for just a moment — let’s go ahead and assume the report is correct, and Bullock didn’t have his finger on the trigger, and wasn’t consciously pointing his weapon at Culosi.

Does anyone think Chief Rohrer or DA Horan would have bought this same theory if it had been put forth by anyone other than a police officer? If a resident of Fairfax claimed that an involuntary muscle contraction caused him to shoot and kill another resident, does anyone buy for a second that Horan would also decline to press charges?

Once again, we get back to the unfortunate reality that regular citizens are held to a higher standard than agents of the government.

It ought to be just the opposite.

I’m quoted in this Bloomberg column on SWAT teams and police raids.

Also did an hour-long NPR interview with a reporter in Atlanta yesterday.

Not sure when it will air.

Also did an interview with a FOX television producer in Dallas who’s working on a piece critical of the Dallas SWAT team — or at least of how it’s portrayed on the A&E show. One amusing story: When the Dallas SWAT team raided those underground poker games a while back (the first time, not the second), the officers burst in, roughed the place up, arrested the proprietors, and issued citations to the players. They then apparently asked everyone in the place to sign a release form so they could put the raids on TV.

There was also apparently an incident in which the SWAT team was called to apprehend an escaped gorilla. It ended badly for the gorilla.

Finally, I also spoke with a reporter in New Jersey who’s working on what I think will be a fantastic and critical piece on how SWAT teams are used in her city.

All in all, it’s good to see the media picking up on these themes.

I hate to be all-SWAT, all the time here. It gets depressing. But there’s been a significant development in the Culosi case.

Apparently, the recommendation handed down by the internal police investigation is that the officer who shot and killed Culosi be given three weeks of unpaid suspension, and that he be removed from the SWAT team.

I’m not as outraged by that recommendation as Culosi’s family (though I fully understand their outrage). But as you expect, it’s far less than one I would consider a just outcome. I obviously don’t believe that Officer Bullock meant to kill Culosi. But the man violated two absolutes when handling any gun, much less handling a gun in the course of a tactical raid: He had his finger on the trigger, and he had the gun pointed at the suspect. Those two errors led to a man’s death. Surely that merits more than three weeks of unpaid leave. And, to restate an earlier proposition, does anyone think that if Sal Culosi had mistakenly shot and killed one of the SWAT officers as they entered his home, he’d have been granted such leniency?

Still, it is at least some punishment, which is more than what usually happens in these cases.

But there’s still plenty to be concerned about, here. First, from the article:

The punishment recommended for Officer Deval V. Bullock in the shooting, which occurred in January, has outraged fellow officers, who said it is too harsh, and Culosi’s family, who said Bullock should never again be employed in law enforcement.

[...]

Thielen, union attorney Edward J. Nuttall and numerous officers said an oral or written reprimand is typically given when a Fairfax officer accidentally shoots someone.

“It is way off the charts,” Nuttall said of the proposed suspension.

Perhaps the problem, then, is that “the charts” need to be recalibrated. Lest we forget, the Fairfax County state’s attorney hasn’t brought charges against a police officer a single time — in forty years. And if you nose around just a little in Fairfax, it won’t take long for you to discover that there should have been plenty of opportunities for him to do so.

How could Bullock’s officer possibly be “outraged” over a three week suspension? Bullock’s mistakes killed a man. And they want an “oral reprimand?”

The second concern here is that the report was shown to the Washington Post before it was shown to Culosi’s family. Fairfax County officials continue to hurl indignity after indignity at these poor people. They’ve kept them in the dark for ten months. They then have to read about the investigation in the newspaper. The timing is also interesting — Thanksgiving Weekend?

The final problem here is that the article makes no mention of reform. Officer Bullock’s mistakes aside, the real problem here isn’t that a cop accidentally fired his weapon, it’s that Fairfax County sent a SWAT team to apprehend a man accused of gambling on football games with friends.. Is that policy going to change? Or does Fairfax County still consider this to be a legitimate use of police resources?

…back to Sal Culosi.

Ten months after a Fairfax SWAT officer shot and killed the optometrist who was under investigation for the horrendous crime of gambling on football games with friends, we still have no resolution. As they observe their first Thanksgiving without Sal, Culosi’s family is still left in the lurch.

A week ago we learned only that the officer who pulled the trigger will be appealing the results of an internal investigation. We and Culosi’s family aren’t allowed to know any of the details of that investigation. This must all remain secret. Why? To protect the “rights” of the officer.

“It has taken longer than I think anybody would like,” says Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerry Connolly. “We have an obligation as a county to provide a full accounting to the family and the public, and I believe that will be forthcoming.”

Police will not specify what the findings were, or if any remedy has been suggested.

“When the appeals process is consumed, as is the right of the police officer, I believe the police chief will have some information for the public and the family,” Connolly says.

In other words, you just sit tight, Culosi family. Stop being so impatient. Ten months is nothing. They’ll get around to telling you why your son and brother was needlessly killed when they damned well feel like it.

As for “rights,” it’s striking how concerned police and prosecutors become with “rights” when the accused is one of their own. If Sal Culosi had “accidentally” shot one of the raiding officers, perhaps while understandably mistaking them for intruders, do you think it would take police and prosecutors ten months to figure out what happened? Do you think Culosi would be allowed to continue his job — to continue collecting paychecks while they investigated?

Poker power makes it into Bob Novak’s election roundup:

Moderate Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) had a gambling problem — not to say that he gambled, but he was the driving force behind a bill that all but banned gambling over the Internet. He was the victim of the so-called “Green Velvet Revolution,” a campaign by the Internet gambling industry and gamblers to defeat those who pushed the measure. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) survived this campaign. Leach had had serious races in the past — most recently in 2002 — but he was apparently not ready for college professor Dave Loebsack (D).

Poker players are organizing, and they’re targeting Sen. John Kyl:

Gambling911.com has been actively trying to unseat Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) in a race that, should Democratic challenger Jim Pederson win, could tip the balance of power to the left. Kyl has introduced restrictive Internet gambling legislation in nearly every Congressional session since 1998. The site is working with several others to urge Arizona Internet gambers to vote against Kyl and support Pederson.

Kyl, who has seen a healthy lead shrink to six points in the latest Arizona State University poll, doesn’t seem concerned that Internet gamblers will hurt his chances in the upcoming election.

Maybe he ought to take them more seriously:

In Arizona, Democrats believe they see a sleeper race in the process of awakening.

For many months, polls had found Kyl with a clear lead over his Democratic challenger, businessman Jim Pederson. But the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee found surprising strength in a recent survey of people who had voted by early or absentee ballots. That survey of 594 early voters, who included more Republicans than Democrats, found Pederson ahead, 44% to 40%. On Thursday, the committee started $1 million worth of television advertising attacking Kyl.

Barring a Democratic landslide, Kyl’s still probably going to win. The ban passed too close to the elections fo organizing to overcome a 10+ point deficit. But Leach and Goodlatte ought to be these folks’ prime objective in 2008.

Since the poker ban become law, Arizona Sen. John Kyl — who shepherded the ban throught the Senate — has seen his lead in the polls cut in half.

Response to my Fox column on the Internet gambling ban has been brisk and angry. I’ve received about 75 messages in strong opposition to the ban, just two supporting it. More interestingly, many of those in opposition describe themselves as either apolitical, conservative, or advocates of limited government. And because of this issue alone, they’re all voting for the Democrats.

I particularly like the phrase coined by one angry poker player, “The Green Felt Revolution.” A sampling after the break.

(Note: Due to volume, I didn’t bother editing the responses.)
(more…)

My new Fox column slaps the GOP around for the Internet gambling ban.

I’ll share email reaction a bit later. So far, confirmation of my suspicions. Lots of Republicans promising that this issue alone will push them to vote for Democrats next month.