Law Enforcement

[Crafty_Dog]

We kick this thread off with a very ugly one:


Prison Talk Leads to Lawman's Arrest
By MIKE ROBINSON
Associated Press Writer

CHICAGO (AP) -- Reputed mob boss Michael Marcello apparently didn't watch crime shows on television - otherwise he might have known the FBI could listen in on his conversations in the visitors room at the federal penitentiary in Milan, Mich.
The unsuspecting Marcello dropped broad hints about his source inside the U.S. Marshals Service during conversations with his incarcerated brother in 2003. FBI agents heard every word about the man Marcello called "the babysitter."
Deputy marshal John Thomas Ambrose surrendered Thursday to FBI agents who say he was the source who spilled to Marcello secrets about a federally protected witness to organized crime.
"This defendant's conduct in revealing closely guarded and highly sensitive information ... constitutes an egregious breach of his law enforcement duties," First Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary S. Shapiro said.
Ambrose is accused in court papers of leaking information regarding the whereabouts of reputed mobster Nicholas Calabrese, a key witness in the government's Operation Family Secrets murder conspiracy case. Fourteen reputed mobsters and their associates are charged in the indictment alleging a conspiracy to commit at least 18 murders.
Ambrose appeared briefly before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael T. Mason, who released him on a $50,000 unsecured bond and scheduled a preliminary hearing for Jan. 30. He declined to comment as he left the courtroom, but defense attorney Francis C. Lipuma told reporters that his client denies the accusations.
"John Ambrose is not connected to the mob at all," Lipuma said.
Prosecutors said that between January and June 2003 they intercepted 11 conversations that took place when Michael Marcello visited his brother, James, at the Michigan prison. Both Marcello brothers are charged in the Operation Family Secrets indictment.
Prosecutors said the conversations showed that Michael Marcello had an inside source of information concerning Nicholas Calabrese. They said the conversations also indicated that the source was a federal lawman with access to the files of the Marshals Service witness program.
Michael Marcello might have given federal officials their best clue when he said that the source was the son of a defendant in the so-called "Marquette 10" police corruption case. Ambrose's father, Thomas Ambrose, died in prison while serving his bribery sentence stemming from the Marquette 10 case, prosecutors said.
Additionally, John Thomas Ambrose was a member of the Marshals Service's so-called Calabrese detail and would have had access to the information, prosecutors said. They said Ambrose's fingerprints were found on Calabrese documents.
Ambrose has been on leave since September. He is charged with theft of government property, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

[Stray Dog]

>
>
> Subject: Govt. admits to lying about border agents
>
>      *** BREAKING NEWS:
>      ***         Department of Homeland Security admits to lying
>      ***         about key aspects of Ramos and Compean case!
>
>

>
> While Ron De Jong and I were presenting 304,000 citizen petitions to
> Rep. Rohrabacher on Capitol Hill, we were shocked when the Congressman
> informed us that the Department of Homeland Security
> (DHS) had admitted to members of Congress...
>
>       ...that they had lied to Congress about the case
>       against imprisoned agents Ramos and Compean.
>
> Under questioning by Rep. Culberson, a DHS investigator admitted that
> his department did NOT have evidence to back up a number of outrageous
> claims including: Mexican/American agents Ramos and Compean "wanted to
> shoot a Mexican"; confessed to shooting an unarmed suspect; were
> belligerent to investigators; lied and submitted false reports; and
> stated during the investigation that the illegal alien did not pose a
> threat.
>
> In addition, the DHS admitted that it began its prosecution BEFORE
> completing their investigation!
>
> Dave, this is explosive news and we must now
> act swiftly to intensify grassroots pressure--pressure that is making
> the difference in this case!
>
> I am asking all members of our team to schedule EMERGENCY FAXES to the
> President, the Justice Department, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, as
> well as your two Senators, your Representative and other key leaders.
>
>       Go here to schedule your faxes demanding an immediate
>       pardon and a full investigation of DHS, Johnny Sutton
>       and this entire sordid affair:
>
> http://www.grassfire.org/3142/offer.asp?rid=12298062
>
> If you'd prefer not to use our Faxfire service and
> would rather send the faxes on your own, please feel free
> to use our letters. The fax list and letters can easily be downloaded
> simply by visiting the Faxfire page:
>
> http://www.grassfire.org/3142/offer.asp?rid=12298062
>
>
> + + Your petitions featured on CNN and on the House Floor!
>
> As this news was breaking, Ron De Jong and I were presenting more than
> 304,000 petitions to Congressman Dana Rohrabacher
> (R-CA) in front of CNN cameras. Hours later, your petitions were
> featured on CNN's Lou Dobbs as well as during a stirring speech on the
> floor of the House by Rep. Rohrabacher when he lofted your petitions
> and angrily demanded the President pay attention to the American
> people!
>
>       Go to FireSociety.com to see the Lou Dobbs report, your
>       petitions on the House floor and to access more
>       resources on the government's lying:
>
> http://www.firesociety.com/article/10263/
>
>
> + + Your feedback needed!
>
> Finally, Dave, I want to add your feedback to this
> shocking update on our new FireSociety forum. But you must sign up.
> There is no charge, and it literally takes just moments. You only have
> to do this once, to open an interactive opportunity for you to "sound
> off" and contribute to the grassroots debate!
>
> Go here:
>
> http://www.firesociety.com/registration
>
> Thanks so much for the stand you are taking, and please schedule your
> faxes to the President, U.S. Attorney Sutton and others by clicking
> here:
>
> http://www.grassfire.org/3142/offer.asp?rid=12298062
>
>
> Steve Elliott, President
> Grassfire.org Alliance
>
> PS: The border agent issue truly affects every American.
> That is why after scheduling your FaxFire faxes I urge you
> to forward this message to your friends urging them to
> take action as well!
>
> + + Schedule your faxes:
>
> http://www.grassfire.org/3142/offer.asp?rid=12298062
>
> + + Feedback or comments on this update?
>
> Please go to FireSociety.com and post your comments so that the
> Grassfire staff along with thousands of citizens can benefit from your
> thoughts and opinions:
>
> http://www.firesociety.com/comments/10264/?page=1
>
> (You must sign up first to comment. Go here:)
>
> http://www.firesociety.com/registration
>
> + + Technical questions only:
>
> For technical questions regarding this email, go here:
> (Not for comments/feedback on this update)
>
> http://www.grassfire.org/techemail.asp?ind=15
>
>
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> (Note: Please do not "reply" directly to this e-mail message. This
> e-mail address is not designed to receive your personal messages. To
> contact Grassfire.org with comments, questions or to change your
> status, see link at the end.)
> +   +  +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +  +  +   +   +   +   +   +   +   +
>
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> organization dedicated to equipping our 1.5 million-strong network of
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>
> + + Comments? Questions?
>
> http://www.grassfire.org/email.asp?ind=10

[Crafty_Dog]

Associated Press
ATLANTA — Federal agents are seeking to hire Ebonics translators to help interpret wiretapped conversations involving targets of undercover drug investigations. The Drug Enforcement Administration recently sent memos asking companies that provide translation services to help it find nine translators in the Southeast who are fluent in Ebonics, Special Agent Michael Sanders said Monday.

Ebonics, which is also known as African American Vernacular English, has been described by the psychologist who coined the term as the combination of English vocabulary with African language structure. Some DEA agents already help translate Ebonics, Sanders said. But he said wasn't sure if the agency has ever hired outside Ebonics experts as contractors.

"They saw a need for this in a couple of their investigations," he said. "And when you see a need — it may not be needed now — but we want the contractors to provide us with nine people just in case."

The DEA's decision, first reported by The Smoking Gun, evokes memories of the debate sparked in 1996 when the Oakland, Calif., school board suggested that black English was a separate language. Although the board later dropped the suggestion amid criticism, it set off a national discussion over whether Ebonics is a language, a dialect or neither.

The search for translators covers a wide swath of the Southeast, including offices in Atlanta, Washington, New Orleans, Miami and the Caribbean, said Sanders. He said he's uncertain why other regions aren't hiring Ebonics translators, but said there are ongoing investigations in the Southeast that need dedicated Ebonics translators. Linguists said Ebonics can be trickier than it seems, partly because the vocabulary evolves so quickly.

"A lot of times people think you're just dealing with a few slang words, and that you can finesse your way around it," said John Rickford, a Stanford University linguistics professor. "And it's not — it's a big vocabulary. You'll have some significant differences" from English.

Critics worry that the DEA's actions could set a precedent.

"Hiring translators for languages that are of questionable merit to begin with is just going in the wrong direction," said Aloysius Hogan, the government relations director of English First, a national lobbying group that promotes the use of English. "I'm not aware of Ebonics training schools or tests. I don't know how they'd establish that someone speaks Ebonics," he said. "I support the concept of pursuing drug dealers if they're using code words, but this is definitely going in the wrong direction."

H. Samy Alim, a Stanford linguistics professor who specializes in black language and hip-hop culture, said he thought the hiring effort was a joke when he first heard about it, but that it highlights a serious issue.

"It seems ironic that schools that are serving and educating black children have not recognized the legitimacy of this language. Yet the authorities and the police are recognizing that this is a language that they don't understand," he said. "It really tells us a lot about where we are socially in terms of recognizing African-American speech."

Rickford said that hiring Ebonics experts could come in handy for the DEA, but he said it's hard to determine whether a prospective employee can speak it well enough to translate since there are no standardized tests. He said the ideal candidate would be a native speaker who also has had some linguistics training.

Finding the right translators could be the difference between a successful investigation or a failed one, said Sanders. While he said many listeners can get the gist of what Ebonics speakers are saying, it could take an expert to define it in court.

"You can maybe get a general idea of what they're saying, but you have to understand that this has to hold up in court," he said. "You need someone to say, 'I know what they mean when they say 'ballin' or 'pinching pennies.'"

[G M]

Ramos and Compean set themselves up when they failed to report dischaging their weapons. Local/state/federal, if you fire your weapon, it's a big deal. What might have been a good shoot is then tainted by the attempt at a cover up.

[Body-by-Guinness]

Perhaps the wrong topic to file this under as law enforcement clearly wasn't what was occurring here.

The Scandal of 'Gun-Walking'
from National Review Online


Why did the Justice Department allow Mexican cartels to purchase 2,500 U.S.-made guns?
Why did the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives stand by and watch as guns were transported across our southern border to Mexico, to be used by violent drug cartels?

The phenomenon of “gunwalking” appears to be a standard sting-operation tactic that in this case has gone wildly awry. The idea was that federal authorities would approve firearms purchases that seemed suspicious, and then monitor the buyers to see where the guns ended up. But the scale of the purchases was massive, and the agents on the ground kept anxiously waiting for the order to stop monitoring and intervene, according to stunning accounts from ATF agents and documentation uncovered by CBS News and other sources. As early as March 2010, ATF agents were finding the “monitored” firearms in the hands of suspected criminals in Mexico. One ATF e-mail reported,“Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during March alone,” including “numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles.”

#ad#According to the dozen ATF agents who have come forward as whistleblowers, the concept was not the half-baked idea of a rogue manager. Reported CBS:

ATF Agent John Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico.

ATF named the case “Fast and Furious.”

Last Wednesday, President Obama said that neither he nor Attorney General Eric Holder approved the operation. But who within the Justice Department did authorize the dangerous operation? And who decided to ignore the judgment of the agents in the field? An e-mail from a group supervisor told ATF agents who were upset about the operation’s risks, “Whether you care or not, people of rank and authority at HQ are paying attention to this case and they also believe we are doing what they envisioned the Southwest Border Groups doing.”

Even the gun shops themselves were wary of selling the firearms; the purchasers were paying with cash out of paper bags. But the sellers were assured by the ATF that they should go forward with the transactions. One of the purchases was for 575 semiautomatic rifles for “personal use.” One agent estimates the total number of guns purchased by suspicious buyers under ATF monitoring at 2,500; other officials put the number closer to 2,000. Nearly 800 were recovered “as a result of criminal activity on both sides of the border.”

Worst of all, the guns that the ATF agents were ordered to let slip into Mexico were not merely used in cartel violence in Mexico, but were used against American citizens and law enforcement. CBS News noted:

On Dec. 14, 2010, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terrywas gunned down. Dodson got the bad news from a colleague. According to Dodson, “They said, ‘Did you hear about the border patrol agent?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And they said ‘Well it was one of the Fast and Furious guns.’ There’s not really much you can say after that.” Two assault rifles ATF had let go nearly a year before were found at Terry’s murder.

Only after Terry’s death did the ATF round up and charge 34 individuals believed to be involved with moving the guns across the border.

The Department of Justice initially denied the whistleblowers’ claims. Last week, however, DOJ sent a confidential memo to U.S. Attorneys in southwestern border states, declaring, “We should not design or conduct undercover operations which include guns crossing the border. If we have knowledge that guns are about to cross the border, we must take immediate action to stop the firearms from crossing the border, even if that prematurely terminates or otherwise jeopardizes an investigation.”

#page#So, the DOJ appears to have initially lied about the circumstances, and it is now insisting the men at the top didn’t know what was going on. The Department of Justice at first referred the allegations to its own inspector general, an unusual choice in that the whistleblowers claim they already contacted the IG and never had their phone calls returned. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) is pushing for an outside investigation. Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, wrote ATF acting director Kenneth Melson, charging that “you are not cooperating with congressional inquiries about Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious.” Issa has asked for documents about the genesis of the operation as well.

An ATF assistant director told the Center for Public Integrity that new tactics aimed to collect evidence that would help dismantle major drug-trafficking organizations in Mexico, instead of focusing on the prosecution of small-time straw buyers.

#ad#The revelations are a new wrinkle in the strange record of the Obama administration when it comes to guns. President Obama’s record in the Illinois state senate and the U.S. Senate demonstrates a hostility to the Second Amendment. He is accurately characterized as an anti-gun president, who selected an anti-gun vice president, an anti-gun secretary of state, and an anti-gun attorney general.

Shortly after he was confirmed, Attorney General Eric Holder stated that the Obama administration would seek to reinstate the assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004. But that proposal spurred quick and vehement opposition from 65 pro-gun House Democrats, making passage of a new ban all but impossible. Since then, when President Obama has mentioned the word “guns,” it has usually been in appearances with the Mexican president, talking about the need for “an enforcement strategy that slows the flow of guns into Mexico.”

With the president himself talking about the need to stop guns from crossing the border,why would the ATF allow just that to happen? Why would they take such an enormous risk of harming innocent life in both Mexico and the United States, to say nothing of risking exactly the sort of embarrassment and outrage that the current revelations are generating? What made this operation worth overruling the objections of the agents on the ground monitoring the transactions?

What we know about the “gun-walking” operation is already deeply troubling; nothing less than a full investigation to the satisfaction of the whistleblowers, Grassley, and Issa will suffice. The facts at present point to a dangerous and extraordinarily risky operation executed without the knowledge or consent of the top officials in our government, accurate claims initially falsely denied, and whisteblowers dismissed and ignored by the official watchdogs.

--- Jim Geraghty writes the Campaign Spot on NRO. Cam Edwards hosts NRANews’s Cam & Company on Sirius XM from 9 p.m. to midnight weeknights.

Jim Geraghty
Cam Edwards

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/263117/scandal-gun-walking-jim-geraghty

[G M]

Do we have enough law enforcement threads? I was thinking another 3-4 would be nice..... 



 

[Body-by-Guinness]

2nd post. Connect the Gunwalker dots:

"Gun Walker" keeps growing
POSTED BY DAVID HARDY · 25 MARCH 2011 06:10 PM
Now the former ATF attache to Mexico, in charge of agency operations there, is talking to CBS News. He was told that the operation had been approved by the acting ATF director and by higher officials at Justice Department, and that Assistant Attorney General and head of the Criminal Division Larry Breuer knew about it. And apparent it did result in a lot of traces that would illustrate how US guns were ending up in Mexico:

"Gil first found out something was amiss in early 2010 when serial numbers from a flood of guns used in cartel crimes were all tracing back to the same case in Phoenix: "Fast and Furious." But when Gil's analyst checked ATF's computer files to find out more, he hit a brick wall.

"Not only did he not have access, I as the attache, the head agent in Mexico for ATF operations, did not have access," says Gil. He was locked out.

That was a red flag because Gil says as the senior ATF official in Mexico, it was his job to approve any ATF operation involving Mexico; and he didn't approve this one."

UPDATE: in the comments, Dedicated_Dad hits it on the head:

"Please consider:

(1) Have dealers - working as "confidential informants" - sell guns to straw buyers and report details to ATF.

(2) Allow guns to be smuggled into Mexico, without the knowledge of anyone IN Mexico - not the Mexi.gov, not US ATF agents or their boss the "attache", not ANYONE.

(3) ?

(4) Make some big case!

Please tell me what must -- or even theoretically COULD -- happen at step "3" for this to work!"

Exactly. How could anyone imagine (3). If the Mexican authorities don't know, they can't investigate (might not anyway, but if they don't know they surely cannot. ATF can hardly mount an on the ground investigation there, esp. without notifying local law enforcement. All that could ever be ascertained was that guns shipped to cartels wind up at crime scenes, and everyone already knew that. That'd get you nowhere toward making a big case.

Another thought: I'd initially figured knowledge of this operation wouldn't have gone to high levels. The managers who were running it probably would have figured that if they sent the info up the chain of command, somebody might stop it, or have lots of awkward questions, or delay until he got a lot of consensus (as in CYA -- spread the blame around if things go bad). But now it appears knowledge did go high. The guy who is telling the attache that it's gone to the agency head and higher is implicitly telling him: "if you keep arguing about this, you'll eventually have to explain to someone a LOT more powerful than you, and someone's gonna phrase it as "the operation you allowed -- there's some attache guy who thinks only a moron could have allowed it." And now it appears knowledge got as high as an Assistant Attorney General, an appointee. If it got that high, odds are good it would have gotten to the AG. And if it got to him, odds are decent that it got to the White House. I note the official denials are that anyone high up "approved" it. You can of course know of something, decide to let it run its course, and still deny having "approved" it. CYA and all that. "They told me about it, I just assumed they knew what they were doing."

http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2011/03/gun_walker_keep.php

[Body-by-Guinness]

Do we have enough law enforcement threads? I was thinking another 3-4 would be nice..... 

 

I will defer to the moderator. . . .

[G M]

"Please consider:

(1) Have dealers - working as "confidential informants" - sell guns to straw buyers and report details to ATF.

(2) Allow guns to be smuggled into Mexico, without the knowledge of anyone IN Mexico - not the Mexi.gov, not US ATF agents or their boss the "attache", not ANYONE.

(3) ?

(4) Make some big case!

**It doesn't make sense. You could work a investigation like this, but you work it like any other similar case. You arrest the small fish making the buys and pop them while still in the US, you flip them and grab the next level, use that testimony to indict the major players. You don't just let thousands of guns float over the border for years. Not unless it isn't really intended to be an investigation.

[Crafty_Dog]

IIRC we were using the "We the well-armed people" thread for discussing this , , ,

[Body-by-Guinness]

Who Will Police the Criminologists?
The dangers of politicized social science

If you’ve ever wondered why police officers tend to be skeptical about social science, pick up volume 9, issue 4 of Criminology & Public Policy, a journal published by the American Society of Criminology. The issue is titled “Reducing Homeless-Related Crime,” and its focal point is a research paper by University of Pennsylvania professors Richard Berk and John MacDonald that evaluates the Safer City Initiative (SCI). SCI was implemented by the Los Angeles Police Department in 2006 to reduce crime, lawlessness, and disorder in the Skid Row neighborhood. Despite its limitations, Berk and MacDonald’s useful evaluation concludes that SCI had a significant impact on serious crime, and it adds to the literature illustrating the impact of Broken Windows policing. The remainder of the issue comprises essays that reflect on either the study’s methodology or its public policy implications. An essay that examines the former—University of Cincinnati professor John Eck’s “Policy Is in the Details”—is especially valuable, emphasizing the need for criminologists like Berk and MacDonald to “describe the policies they study.”

But Eck’s observation happens to underscore a fundamental weakness in the public policy essays that follow: for the most part, their authors ignore or seriously misrepresent the nature of Skid Row’s difficulties before SCI was implemented. Instead of seeking out data that accurately document conditions on the ground, they accept a piece of conventional wisdom, one that the title of the issue makes plain and that, over time, has evolved into an ideological position: that homelessness, rather than a culture of lawbreaking, was at the root of Skid Row’s woes.

That view is more pernicious than it may sound, since it has long contributed to criminology’s party line about Skid Row–like situations and Broken Windows policing. It dates back to the late 1980s, when seemingly everyone in New York City—the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the New York Times, politicians, advocacy groups—thought that the main problem in the city’s subways was homelessness. Conventional wisdom held that the solutions were homes, jobs, and welfare. Yet if one went into the subways and observed conditions there, as two of us (Kelling and Bratton) did, such assumptions became shaky: youths were blocking entrances and forcibly collecting fares from passengers, predators were stalking fare booths and breaking open fare boxes to steal money, and 250,000 people were riding without paying fares—all because of homelessness? Yes, a troubled population—homeless, mentally ill, or drug-addicted—was trying to use the subway as a surrogate shelter, often encouraged by irresponsible advocates, who ignored the risks that these vulnerable people would face there. Yet homelessness was a relatively small part of the subway’s real problem: lawlessness. Homeless individuals can still be seen in New York’s subways today, but gone is the culture of lawlessness that plagued the subway until 1990, when the transit police created a safer environment.

Skid Row’s crisis in the early 2000s was even more complex than the New York subway’s had been. Fires raged in the middle of streets at night; people urinated, defecated, and engaged in sex acts in open view; youths partied with drugs and alcohol; sexual predators roamed free; the neighborhood became a dumping ground for released prisoners and for sick people, probably homeless, whom ambulances left on the street, still in hospital garb and on gurneys. The area was such a lucrative place to deal drugs that gangs didn’t bother fighting over turf. Certainly, there were large numbers of homeless, in part because the city’s missions and service centers lay in the heart of Skid Row. But the neighborhood’s core problem wasn’t homelessness. Just as in New York, it was a culture of lawlessness that had been tolerated for decades (see “The Reclamation of Skid Row,” Autumn 2007). If any of these researchers had bothered to go into the streets, they would have seen that.

The authors of the public policy essays also misrepresent the nature of SCI, presenting a preconceived image of the LAPD’s approach rather than a description of what it actually did. Yale professors Michael Rowe and Maria O’Connell—observing that one of us, Chief William Bratton, brought to Skid Row the Broken Windows tactics that he developed in New York—say that those tactics “demonize persons” and are “applied to putatively ‘broken people’ who apparently . . . are not to be fixed but instead are cited for the crime of brokenness and removed from sight.” Likewise, Arizona State University professor Michael D. White characterizes SCI as “zero tolerance policing, which is perhaps the antithesis of peacekeeping.” He goes on to argue that “the adoption of zero tolerance strategies represents a step away from professional policing,” characterizes the LAPD’s approach as “ ‘homelessness-is-a-crime’ philosophy,” and deems it “poor craft.” Where are the descriptions of actual tactics used by the LAPD? Where are the primary data on SCI implementation upon which to base such conclusions?

White argues that SCI should have been built on problem solving and community policing. In fact, it was. Sponsored by the mayor’s office, with strong support from the city attorney, the initiative sought to include every relevant public and private agency, even groups often hostile to police approaches, such as the American Civil Liberties Union. (These groups continue to meet with one another.) The strongest support for SCI came from the area’s missions, not-for-profit organizations established to help the genuinely homeless. The goals of SCI included not just crime reduction but also developing support among social agencies, reducing citizen fear, getting agencies like the city’s health department to meet their responsibilities, involving the private sector (through Business Improvement Districts and the like), protecting the personal property of people living on the street, fostering street civility, and increasing shopping in neighborhood stores.

The journal’s examination of SCI exemplifies a politicized social science. It’s particularly discouraging that such a flawed approach would appear in a publication of the American Society of Criminology. Unfortunately, it represents at least the second generation of such misrepresentation. In response to earlier crime reductions in New York City, many scholars eagerly attempted to prove that the declines had little to do with police efforts. Then, as now, they interpreted data—reported crime, arrests, police stops—without bothering to do firsthand research. The consequences of confusing research and scholarship with hubris, polemics, and uncritical secondary-data analysis—in short, of politicized social science—are enormous: distrust between academia and policing, gross misrepresentations of policing, and, above all, widespread failure to understand what works and what doesn’t work in policing.

Charlie Beck is chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. William Bratton is former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. George L. Kelling is an emeritus professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University in Newark and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_2_snd-criminology.html

[G M]

The academic left, like other elements of the left are more than willing to twist reality until it matches what they think it should be. "Fake but true" should be the official slogan of the left.

[G M]

Law enforcement and the rest of the criminal justice system are not a panacea for every social ill, but having well constructed laws enforced by well trained and led LEOs makes a big difference in the quality of life and economic strength of a society.

[Boyo]

Has anybody else heard about this ?

Supreme Courts Affirm The Police State

May 23, 2011 by Bob Livingston

Our descent into a police state is complete, as evidenced by rulings by the Indiana and U.S. Supreme Courts which, last week, effectively and finally abolished the 4th Amendment.
No longer are American citizens “secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” thanks to the two rulings affirming police authority to bash down your door and enter your home without a warrant. Resisting such an incursion is now a crime. If it weren’t obvious before that we live in a fascist system under guise of Democracy, surely, it must be now.
In Indiana, the Supreme Court ruled 3-2 “that there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers.” The U.S. Supreme Court’s 8-1 ruling affirmed that officers can kick down a door if they smell marijuana or hear noises indicative of the destruction of evidence. (Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, writing, “Police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, never mind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant.”) The fact that the door they kicked in was not the door their suspect had entered was irrelevant to the court.
Of course, we told you a couple of weeks ago about the case of Maryanne Godboldo, who had a Detroit Police SWAT team crash into her home and remove her daughter because Godboldo made the perfectly reasonable and rational choice to determine what medication her daughter should take.
And we’ve previously told you about the assault on the 4th Amendment by the Department of Homeland Security through the porn show/gropefest at the airports and, just as egregious, the home peepshow enabling the Z Backscatter Van™ that is now rolling on American streets.
But the court rulings are among the first to affirm the police state. And they open us up to a system where the police have carte blanche to do as they please.
Think this is an overreaction? Tell it to the citizens of Newton County, Ind., whose sheriff, Don Hartman Sr., told the Mike Church radio show on Thursday that random house-to-house searches are now possible because of the Indiana Supreme Court’s ruling.
“(H)e emphatically indicated that he would use random house to house (sic) checks, adding he felt people will welcome random searches if it means capturing a criminal,” according to a posting on Church’s website. By Thursday afternoon there was a Facebook page calling for Hartman’s removal from office.
The Founders are surely weeping for an America they no longer recognize.
Our country became great and prosperous because its citizens were allowed to own property. The Founders subscribed to the theory of John Locke that “if (a person) be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom? Why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power?”
The elites understand this as well. That is why there is an assault on property rights, like in the ruling in Kelo v. The City of New London. It’s why a system based on property taxes is so egregious, because the State forces you to pay for the right to own your own property and can take it away at the force of a gun if, through some financial hardship or error, you don’t pay the tax in a timely manner.
The fascist elites in government are winning. We have become the despotism of an oligarchy, which Thomas Jefferson warned about when he wrote: “It is a very dangerous doctrine to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all Constitutional questions. It is one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.”
We have told you before of the folly of expecting any of the ruling class to do anything or make any laws or rulings that would deny them more power. The President, members of Congress, the bureaucrats who occupy the offices of government, the justices, judges, lawyers, accountants and officers of the court system are employees of and for government. Their desire is to accumulate more power for government and more power and prestige for themselves. It is a desire that knows no party affiliation.
John Adams wrote: “… because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
That is where we are. We as a nation have rejected God and spat upon his principles. We have put in power people who see themselves as gods — elitists who think they know more than we and who think they know better than we how we should live our lives. We’ve allowed them to dictate what kind of cars we drive, what kind of light bulbs we can use, how much water our toilets flush, what foods we can eat, what doctors we see, what drugs we can — or must — take and what harmful chemicals can be placed in our water. And then we sat back as the oligarchy banned any and every mention of God in schools and public places.
We have rejected the teachings of our fathers. We have turned our backs on liberty and accepted the perceived safety net of tyranny. We slept while the Constitution burned.
The 1 percent in government controls the 99 percent. Of those 99 percent, 49.5 percent are perfectly content to be controlled as long as the “free” money comes their way. The remaining 49.5 percent is divided among those who are so unaware that they are unaware they are unaware, those who are aware but don’t know what to do, and those who know what’s coming and have been preparing.
Those who are aware but don’t know what to do scream at the top of their lungs that things are wrong. They don’t know exactly what things are wrong, or why, just that they are.
They have been blinded by the 1 percent, which controls through gross deception. They are being stolen from and lied to. They are being herded like sheep to the slaughter, and the last vestige of hope in the court system has betrayed them.
Failing regimes respond in their death throes by engaging in perpetual wars, debasing their currency and clamping down on the freedoms of their people. As the power elites try to hold on to their last vestiges of control, they enslave their subjects through the tyranny of a police state.
We live in a country that once threw off the shackles of tyranny. Our Founders chose not to tolerate a police state that allowed armed soldiers of the crown to enter homes at will, ransack, pillage and abuse. They understood such practices violated hundreds of years of law that established that a man’s home was his castle and not subject to invasion by the regime.
Such abuses were so egregious to the Founders that they were among the ones specifically mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.
The system is collapsing. All around the world — from China to Europe to the Middle East — the proletariat is rising up. People are protesting rising food prices and lack of freedom and clamoring for a form of democracy. The regimes respond to the protests with violence, sometimes aided and abetted by the United States and its form of humanitarianism.
In America, the proles still sleep, but they are stirring. Those who are aware are finding their legs and their voices, as evidenced by last November’s elections. Every day, more of the unaware are waking from the fog of conventional wisdom.
If you have not yet begun to prepare for the coming storm, you have waited almost too long. The winds are against you now. Gold tells the story of the rapid descent of the system. It takes almost twice as many fiat dollars to purchase an ounce today as it did just two years ago.
But gold remains a bargain. Silver, too. Store food and water for the hard times, which are nearer than you think. The ride is getting bumpy. It will get worse before it gets better. For most, life will soon be very difficult.

Boyo

[G M]

Has anybody else heard about this ?

Supreme Courts Affirm The Police State

May 23, 2011 by Bob Livingston

Our descent into a police state is complete, as evidenced by rulings by the Indiana and U.S. Supreme Courts which, last week, effectively and finally abolished the 4th Amendment.

Here:
http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=1133.300
Why bother though, given that we're a police state now. 

[Boyo]

I see it has been well covered nice read tanks.

Boyo

[ccp]

End only of one chapter.   There is no legal punishment that fits the crimes of this monster:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/world/americas/capture-of-mexican-crime-boss-appears-to-end-a-brutal-chapter.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[ccp]

He was selling cigarettes so he has to be taken down by 5 officers including one in an MMA choke hold?

Ask the guy where he lives and send him a ticket.   That would have been more reasonable.
We have organized and white collar crime running amuck and this is what law enforcement wastes their time on?

But I don't see why the dirtball Sharpton has to do with this and why this is suddenly racial oppression:


http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/staten-island-man-dies-puts-choke-hold-article-1.1871486?utm_content=buffer96a7a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=NYDailyNewsTw

[DDF]

He was selling cigarettes so he has to be taken down by 5 officers including one in an MMA choke hold?

Ask the guy where he lives and send him a ticket.   That would have been more reasonable.
We have organized and white collar crime running amuck and this is what law enforcement wastes their time on?

But I don't see why the dirtball Sharpton has to do with this and why this is suddenly racial oppression:


http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/staten-island-man-dies-puts-choke-hold-article-1.1871486?utm_content=buffer96a7a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=NYDailyNewsTw

More "heroics" in action...  another example of "freedom." You know what they say about making beds....

[ccp]

Marc Levin questions some of the militarization of police.  He points out of course they need to protect themselves and 38 revolvers are certainly not enough fire power these days.  I agree with him questioning the militarization for Federal agencies. 

Two observations:

We have militarized our own Federal Agencies from law enforcement to paramilitary agencies and have turned our real military into police forces - ass backwards.

Two the left must be besides themselves that this use of force is against LEFTIST radical and minority union and communist groups.  Surely they were preparing to put down RIGHTIST "revolts".   They must be pissed.  They were obviously looking forward to call out the rightist racist pigs (tea party types).  Instead they are the nut jobs:   



http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/08/19/it-has-to-stop-more-than-30-arrested-after-another-violent-night-in-ferguson/

[G M]

Law enforcement in the US has been based on a paramilitary structure since Sir Robert Peel's ideas shaped the first police departments here.

[ccp]

Not sure if this is the right thread or not  John Fund :

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376053/united-states-swat-john-fund

[Crafty_Dog]

This is a suitable thread and that was a good article.  I agree with its point about many agencies of bureaucratic missions (e.g. the evils of unpasteurized milk) going Rambo.

[G M]

If your loved one is bleeding out at the scene of a violent crime, wouldn't it be nice for your local law enforcement agency to have the equipment and training to rescue that loved one while the bullets are still flying and they still have a chance at survival?

Listening to Radley Balko on law enforcement is like listening to Rev. Sharpton on anything. Their agendas have nothing to do with the truth.

[G M]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q44yGYlUoQQ

Kind of nice to have an MRAP and ARs and tactical training for these scenarios, yes?

[prentice crawford]

Cop shoots knife wielding man after stabbing at a NYC Synagogue. GRAPHIC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4ntAF9c_uI

                                                P.C.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=748664565195581&set=vb.327109217351120&type=2&theater 

[G M]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=748664565195581&set=vb.327109217351120&type=2&theater 

 

[ccp]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/01/19/police-radar-see-through-walls/22007615/

[prentice crawford]

Warning graphic: police shooting caught on officer's body camera. To witnesses it appeared that the officer shot an unarmed man running away from him. Turns out they were wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDgmjPAsnFA#t=23

                    P.C.

[G M]

Warning graphic: police shooting caught on officer's body camera. To witnesses it appeared that the officer shot an unarmed man running away from him. Turns out they were wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDgmjPAsnFA#t=23

                    P.C.

Good shoot and good shooting from my perspective.

[ccp]

I didn't realize it is just a nasal spray.  I wouldn't think it fair for a police officer to be expected to start IV access and push a drug IV but this seems easy enough:

http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2015/03/police_using_narcan_save_another_woodbridge_overdo.html

[DougMacG]

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/baltimore-saw-steep-fall-police-numbers-murder-rate-050511229.html

The number of uniformed officers in Baltimore fell 6.1 percent last year.  The fall in 2015 was the biggest decline in police numbers among nine comparably-sized U.S. cities reviewed by Reuters.

Baltimore saw a 63 percent surge in homicides last year, with 344 people slain. 

320 (93%) of the victims were black.
http://data.baltimoresun.com/news/police/homicides/index.php?show_results=UPDATE+MAP&range=2015&district=all&zipcode=All&cause=all&age=all&gender=all&race=black&article=all

Of 45 Homicides in July 2015 in Baltimore, Not One Involved a White Suspect or White Victim

Black lives matter?

[DougMacG]

Tail light out, routine traffic stop.  The victim was a concealed carry holder as I understand it and was armed.  The police knew that as they approach the car.  He wanted to get his ID out for the cop.  Was told to stop.  Kept reaching in.  Police shot him 4 times, killed him.  

It would seem to me that a) we don't have all the facts right here, and b) both of these people were horribly wrong in their actions.

It seems silly, but on a traffic stop in this day and age, I don't reach for my wallet without informing the cop exactly what I intend to do and getting the go-ahead.

Why shot at all and why four times?  Sounds like he had an automatic weapon and couldn't stop it once he pulled the trigger.  Wouldn't one shot in the arm and re-assess make more sense?  We are missing something here.

As it would happen, the deceased is black.  Minnesota court records show Castile has been found guilty of 31 misdemeanors and petty misdemeanors.  

http://www.startribune.com/philando-castile-complete-star-tribune-coverage/385854171/

[DougMacG]

(Am I in the right thread?)
12 shot?
Video at this Dallas Morning News link:  (I'm not going to watch it.
http://beta.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2016/07/07/witnesses-caught-chaos-dallas-shooting

My first thought, is this what the inciters had in mind?  (I don't know anything yet about who did this shooting or what motivated them.)

Besides the obvious wrongfulness of this carnage, as stated in the previous post, weakening the police force isn't helping the communities that are having the problems.

Thinking also of radical mosques, we are going to have to make distinctions between protected free speech and the inciting of violence.  Again, I don't know anything yet about who did this shooting or what motivated them, but I know rhetoric that incites this kind of thing.  In Minneapolis, "peaceful marches" were chanting, cops are pigs, fry them like bacon.  Our President was backing the protesters, not the police.

[ccp]

"Our President was backing the protesters, not the police."

As had DOJ under Holder although I don't know about Lynch.

Of course Obama is immediately turning this into a gun control issue.

[G M]

"Our President was backing the protesters, not the police."

As had DOJ under Holder although I don't know about Lynch.

Of course Obama is immediately turning this into a gun control issue.

Of course. Obama built this.

[DougMacG]

Jeronimo Yanez
Presumed Hispanic ethnicity...?
(Photos: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/jeronimo-yanez-identified-shot-philando-castile-article-1.2703430)
Young, on the force 4 years, married with one child.
First police shooting in the department in 30 years.  An epidemic?

It is hard to take the police side of this when we are not told the police side of this.

Our governor says it was race.  It wouldn't have happened if Castile wasn't black.  What happened?  What wouldn't have happened?  The officer knew there was a woman and child also in the car.  Either the officer is completely nuts or there is more to this story.

[DDF]

http://heavy.com/news/2016/07/micah-xavier-x-johnson-dallas-police-shooting-sniper-gunman-shooter-suspect-name-identified-photos-facebook-video/amp/

[G M]

http://heavy.com/news/2016/07/micah-xavier-x-johnson-dallas-police-shooting-sniper-gunman-shooter-suspect-name-identified-photos-facebook-video/amp/

The video I saw of a suspect engaging a DPD officer and killing him looked to me someone trained in CQB. So the military background isn't a surprise.

[DDF]

http://heavy.com/news/2016/07/micah-xavier-x-johnson-dallas-police-shooting-sniper-gunman-shooter-suspect-name-identified-photos-facebook-video/amp/

The video I saw of a suspect engaging a DPD officer and killing him looked to me someone trained in CQB. So the military background isn't a surprise.

Most definitely.

I'm trying to come back and fix things so that I can work undercover there, and I'm not being a jerk saying this, because it's the truth and it will save lives. There are a LOT of people who think they're hard targets, and they're not... at all. I'm not  hard target. No one is.

People really need to rethink their training and change their mentality. Mexico has made that obvious as hell to me. Nothing worse than thinking you're invulnerable or "Operator as Fuck" when you're not, and even if you are, you're not the only one. None of us are.

Interesting to note a couple of things:

1. The perp was the first one where explosives were used to dispatch him. They couldn't safely get to him due to the structure being used (very good planning and tactics on the suspect's part).

2. People online are calling this a victory. How so?

This was a heavy loss and a GD shame.

I'll end with, this entire mess starts right from the top. Comey coming right out and slamming Clinton, Gowdy having it repeated to him, and not a single person in Congress does a GD thing about it.... The US is going to be no different than where I live and work shortly, because people put up with this from politicians.

Principles.... FFS


Edit: This just happened just now:

http://lawofficer.com/2016/07/missouri-officer-shot-condition-unknown/

Edit II : Another just now:

http://www.allenbwest.com/analytical-economist/just-in-two-officers-shot-in-georgia

[G M]

Obama built this.

http://heavy.com/news/2016/07/micah-xavier-x-johnson-dallas-police-shooting-sniper-gunman-shooter-suspect-name-identified-photos-facebook-video/amp/

The video I saw of a suspect engaging a DPD officer and killing him looked to me someone trained in CQB. So the military background isn't a surprise.

Most definitely.

I'm trying to come back and fix things so that I can work undercover there, and I'm not being a jerk saying this, because it's the truth and it will save lives. There are a LOT of people who think they're hard targets, and they're not... at all. I'm not  hard target. No one is.

People really need to rethink their training and change their mentality. Mexico has made that obvious as hell to me. Nothing worse than thinking you're invulnerable or "Operator as Fuck" when you're not, and even if you are, you're not the only one. None of us are.

Interesting to note a couple of things:

1. The perp was the first one where explosives were used to dispatch him. They couldn't safely get to him due to the structure being used (very good planning and tactics on the suspect's part).

2. People online are calling this a victory. How so?

This was a heavy loss and a GD shame.

I'll end with, this entire mess starts right from the top. Comey coming right out and slamming Clinton, Gowdy having it repeated to him, and not a single person in Congress does a GD thing about it.... The US is going to be no different than where I live and work shortly, because people put up with this from politicians.

Principles.... FFS


Edit: This just happened just now:

http://lawofficer.com/2016/07/missouri-officer-shot-condition-unknown/

Edit II : Another just now:

http://www.allenbwest.com/analytical-economist/just-in-two-officers-shot-in-georgia

[DDF]

Obama built this.

Yes he did. I would have so much preferred Alan West.

The thing that pops into my mind now that this has happened though is this (people won't like it):

If a thug (a trained one), wanted to arm themselves, getting a small weapon from an officer wouldn't present too much of a challenge, and then using that weapon, to get a more powerful weapon/s.......which brings me to this -

Suppose thugs got their hands on a robot.... and had mastery of explosives (which ironically, one of the shooters in Dallas last night did have)....

How would one defend against that?

That's what I'm pondering today...... defense against robots. It's a good question. One that I'll bet most of us haven't thought of.

"Always think like your own worst enemy."

[Crafty_Dog]

Funny you should mention that , , ,

http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2432.0

[DDF]

Funny you should mention that , , ,

http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2432.0

The thought and thread had escaped me, especially the part where the guy mounted a pistol on a drone.

[objectivist1]

BLACK LIVES MATTER TERRORISTS MURDER DALLAS COPS

Is the race war Barack Obama wanted breaking out in Dallas and across America?

July 8, 2016  Matthew Vadum 

The ambush-style mass shooting of cops in Dallas, Texas, last night makes it clear that it is time for the dangerous, anti-American insurgency called Black Lives Matter to be designated a terrorist organization for fomenting a war against the nation’s law enforcement officers.

As FrontPage went to press early Friday morning, five Dallas area police officers were dead, systematically slaughtered by snipers.

That makes it the deadliest attack on U.S. law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001.

The officers were killed during a demonstration in downtown Dallas against police brutality that leftists say is directed at black Americans as a matter of government policy. Similar marches and rallies took place in other cities, including New York, Oakland, Calif., and Denver, Colo. One suspect has been killed and three others remain in custody. Police have not yet released their identities.

Of course, murdering police officers has long been encouraged by activists with the Black Lives Matter cult, with the support of the activist Left. A year ago Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who openly advocates the mass murder of whites, called for “10,000 fearless men” to “rise up and kill those who kill us.” Like many radicals, Farrakhan mischaracterizes Black Lives Matter as a rising civil rights movement.

President Barack Obama, who a decade ago promoted inter-racial warfare in Kenya, has long tried to provoke civil unrest here in the U.S. with his hateful anti-cop rhetoric and his relentless demonization of opponents. His goal is fundamental transformation of the United States. A Red diaper baby who identifies violence-espousing communist Frantz Fanon as an intellectual influence, he has also steadfastly refused to condemn the explicitly racist, violent Black Lives Matter movement. In fact Obama has lavished attention on the movement’s leaders and invited them to the White House over and over again.

Members of the Democratic National Committee expressly endorsed Black Lives Matter, throwing their lot in with black racists and radical Black Power militants. The DNC officially embraced a statement that slams the U.S. for allegedly systemic police violence against black people. A resolution passed by hundreds of delegates at the DNC meeting in Minneapolis last year accuses the nation’s police of "extrajudicial killings of unarmed African American men, women and children."

The Left persists in these lies because, well, that’s what these people do.

According to one analysis, of all the people shot and killed in the U.S. by police so far in 2016, only 24 percent, or 122, were black. Black people are only about 13 percent of the population but they commit around half of all violent crimes. So far this year 47 percent of people shot and killed by police, or 235 individuals, were white.

Only 3 percent, or 13 people shot and killed by police year to date were black and unarmed. The percentage for whites is exactly the same. In other words, police are shooting and killing unarmed blacks and whites at the same rate, Paul Joseph Watson observes.

“There’s no racial disparity,” he says. “Do we have a problem with police brutality in America? Yes, undoubtedly. Is it almost exclusively targeted towards black people as Black Lives Matter claims? No, but the polarizing way in which Black Lives Matter made it all about race has divided the nation and made half of the country completely disinterested.”

Watson addresses “black people,” telling them that “Black Lives Matter is hurting you. It’s doing incredible harm. Martin Luther King achieved justice and civil rights by championing equality and building bridges with white America.”

Black Lives Matter, on the other hand, demands racial segregation, keeps whites out of its meetings, and urges the killing of police, he adds.

Returning to the situation in Dallas, as of 11:45 p.m. Central time, 11 officers from the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) system had reportedly been shot. DPD chief David Brown told reporters that two snipers opened fire from elevated positions in downtown Dallas. Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings (D) said the shooting began at 8:58 p.m. local time. Brown added that suspects may have also planted a bomb downtown.

Four of the murdered police officers worked for the DPD. The other deceased officer worked for DART.

The killing spree followed days of media-hyped adverse publicity for police forces in Louisiana and Minnesota.

In its intensifying assaults on American law enforcement the Left seized upon a police-involved death earlier in the week of a notoriously violent criminal in Louisiana who had reportedly menaced an innocent by-stander with a gun.

Recidivist felon Alton Sterling, a black offender well known to local law enforcement, was shot to death by police early Tuesday morning in Baton Rouge following a physical struggle with police in which Sterling may have reached for a weapon. Both officers “believe they were completely justified in using deadly force,” according to the local district attorney.

Although even with graphic video footage of the shooting it’s not entirely clear what happened as the two cops and Sterling struggled, the Left is moving full speed ahead portraying the deceased career criminal as a martyr slaughtered by the evil system that rules a hopelessly racist America.

The Left reveres thugs. It jumped on the bandwagon promoting the lie that Michael Brown of Ferguson, Mo., and Trayvon Martin of Sanford, Fla., were innocent angels unjustly cut down by white executioners. The truth, as we now know, is that both young black men were killed in self-defense by the white men they intended to harm.

It is telling that the Left is paying far less attention to a much more sympathetic figure killed by police this week in Falcon Heights, a suburb of St. Paul, Minn., because the story of his death doesn’t fit its predetermined anti-American narrative quite as well. It’s not merely about racial conflict potentially: it is also about the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Philando Castile, 32, a black man with no felony convictions who worked in a school cafeteria, was shot by police during a traffic stop. According to Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond “Lavish” Reynolds, who live-streamed video on Facebook of the stricken man in his final moments, Castile was trying to retrieve his wallet after informing an apparently Caucasian attending officer that he was in possession of a concealed weapon and a permit allowing him to carry it. Perhaps Castile made a move the officer considered threatening. Or maybe the cop was nervous and trigger-happy.

“He let the officer know that he had a firearm, and he was reaching for his wallet and the officer just shot him in his arm,” Reynolds said. In the video as the bloodied driver lay dying the policeman could be heard using expletives and screaming, “I told him not to reach for it.”

Reynolds replied, “You told him to get his ID, sir – his driver’s license.”

Because the Castile case appears to involve gun rights and perhaps other issues possibly unrelated to race, it is harder for left-wing activist groups to fundraise off of. This would explain why the Left is giving the case far less play than the marquee Sterling shooting. And to the extent that progressives have taken up Castile’s cause they are treating it solely as a racial incident. Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) said he was “appalled” by the shooting and that it would not have happened if Castile had been white.

But with Alton Sterling, it is as if his supporters hired teams of publicists to get the desired message out to the masses.

Ignoring Sterling’s two decades of criminal activity, Black Lives Matter quickly went to work inflaming racial antagonism while the man’s body was still warm. The movement characterized the incident as an extrajudicial execution by racist cops. It was aided in this public relations offensive by biased saturation coverage of the Sterling saga by the media.

The movement’s most important cheerleader, President Obama, gleefully stuck a shiv in police, crowing that recent fatal shootings of black suspects by police “are not isolated incidents.”

“They are symptomatic of the broader challenges within our criminal justice system, the racial disparities that appear across the system year after year, and the resulting lack of trust that exists between law enforcement and too many of the communities they serve.”

Predictably MoveOn and Color of Change –which was founded by self-described “rowdy black nationalist” Van Jones and MoveOn alumnus James Rucker— didn’t bother waiting for the facts to be known before using the incident to raise money. On Wednesday MoveOn sent out a mass email to members demanding that U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch hold the police officers involved accountable.

In the email Color of Change executive director Rashad Robinson paints Sterling as an upstanding citizen, describing him as “a 37-year-old Black father of five,” capitalizing the B in black as racists do. The police officers involved “have no respect for Black lives and must be held accountable,” he added.


 
Celebrities weighed in with vapid and condescending observations.

Singer Beyoncé posted what a groveling USA Today called a “powerful letter” about police brutality. “We’re going to stand up as a community and fight against anyone who believes that murder or any violent action by those who are sworn to protect us should consistently go unpunished,” she wrote, presuming that Americans don’t care about murders committed by police.

Chris Long, who makes his living being hit in the head, chose to insert himself into the story. The defensive end for the New England Patriots was happy to convene a lynch mob on Twitter. He tweeted “If you think we need to ‘wait for the facts’ on the Alton Sterling execution after seeing the video, you are an accessory to evil.”

What is clear is that if the Left is serious about moving its race war forward, it is hanging its future on a pretty slim reed by hyping the Sterling killing.

This is not to suggest that Sterling, who had been living in a homeless shelter, deserved to die. Maybe in the end we’ll find out the cops who dealt with him were overzealous, reckless, malicious, or racist, or all of these things. Perhaps this was a suicide by cop. Time will tell.

Let’s go over what we know.

The Advocate in Baton Rouge reports that on July 5,

“Around 12:35 a.m., Baton Rouge police responded to the Triple S Food Mart at 2112 N. Foster Drive after an anonymous caller indicated that a man in a red shirt who was selling CDs outside the store pointed a gun at someone, telling them to leave the property, Baton Rouge Police Department spokesman Cpl. L’Jean McKneely said.”

Apparently authentic cellphone videos from the scene soon went viral. They showed two police officers scrapping with Sterling beside a car in a parking lot. “Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” an officer is heard yelling in the early seconds of one clip. The sound of what may be a stun gun can be heard.

“He’s got a gun! Gun,” one cop says. “If you fucking move, I swear to God,” says an officer. It is unclear what Sterling, who reportedly had a gun on his person at the time, is doing with his arms at this point because the officers are on top of him. In audio that is garbled, one of the officers can be heard saying what seems to be “he’s going for the Taser!” Shots ring out at various points in the confrontation and Sterling is mortally wounded.

Some local sources were quoted in the media saying Sterling was a kind, peace-loving, respected member of the community. If that’s true, that doesn’t speak well of his community.

Sterling was a bad actor with a temper who had gotten physical with police before. The incorrigible reprobate’s rap sheet is long. (Heavy obtained 46 pages of court documents from his criminal file.)

Sterling was convicted of aggravated battery, criminal damage to property, unauthorized entry, and domestic abuse battery, among other offenses.

An affidavit of probable cause states Sterling was involved in 2009 in a wrestling match with a police officer. A cop tried to pat down the man and he resisted arrest. The two men ended up on rolling around on the ground and a “black semi auto gun fell from his waistband.” Another affidavit states a cop pulled Sterling over for speeding. He didn’t have proof of insurance and police allowed him to retrieve his belongings from his vehicle. He crossed the street, laid himself on the pavement in a prone position, yelled at the cops and told them to “go ahead and beat him down regardless of the outcome.” Other such affidavits accuse Sterling of home invasion, burglary, threatening with a gun, stealing pet goldfish, and possession of ecstasy and marijuana.

Sterling was also a registered sex offender, Heavy reports. At the age of 20 he impregnated a 14-year-old girl. In September 2000 he was convicted of “carnal knowledge of a juvenile” in Louisiana and released from prison in October 2004. In August 2015 a warrant was issued for Sterling’s arrest after he failed to update his sex offender registration.

In 2011 he was convicted of “knowingly and intentionally possessing a firearm while in possession of a controlled dangerous substance” and sentenced to five years imprisonment. A drug trafficking-related charge was thrown out apparently as part of a plea bargain.

Meanwhile, the Democrat machine in the Pelican State is doing everything it can to turn Baton Rouge into the new Ferguson, complete with race riots and wanton lawlessness.

Kip Holden (D), mayor-president of East Baton Rouge Parish, said Wednesday he was touched to receive a supportive phone call from the buffoonish Baltimore mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D), who helped to exacerbate race riots in her city after the death of black career criminal Freddie Gray in police custody, because “they’ve been through the same thing.”

How reassuring.

The Left’s goal is to polarize and enrage and foment even more racial tension and violence to distract from presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s endless political problems, as well as to energize the party's base so they vote in droves in November. They may even blame unrest in Baton Rouge on congressional Republicans who refuse to fight back. Blaming Islamic terrorist Omar Mateen’s murderous rampage at a gay club in Orlando on Republicans and law-abiding gun owners worked, so why not.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) invited his friends in the Obama administration to turn this local investigation into a three-ring media circus. The U.S. Department of Justice announced it would open a civil rights investigation after Edwards demanded it. “I have very serious concerns,” he said. “The video is disturbing, to say the least.”

Getting the feds involved means the Obama administration is sure to deploy government-paid community organizers from DoJ’s Community Relations Service to rub raw the sores of discontent.

After Trayvon Martin’s death in early 2012, local police declined to press charges against the eventually acquitted George Zimmerman for a month and a half because they believed the criminal case against him was ridiculously weak. CRS burned through taxpayer cash organizing marches at which participants inflamed racial tensions and –voila!— Zimmerman was prosecuted in what would become a historic abuse of process.

Almost immediately after Michael Brown died in August 2014, CRS operatives arrived on the ground in Ferguson to interview and indoctrinate local members of the community. As Ryan Lovelace reported at NRO paraphrasing Mayor James Knowles III, “DOJ officials talked about underlying racism that people may not perceive, and the issue of white privilege.”

East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore (D) seems not to understand that having the Obama-controlled Justice Department take over the Sterling investigation is a monumentally bad idea. Explaining why the local government refuses to investigate its own police, Moore said feebly at a press conference, “absolutely, we did not want another Ferguson. Baton Rouge is not Ferguson; we have a completely different history,” Moore said.

Good luck with that, counselor.

And just wait until the authority-hating terrorists of Black Lives Matter turn on you.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/04/27/this-study-found-race-matters-in-police-shootings-but-the-results-may-surprise-you/

[DougMacG]

the percentage of blacks fatally shot by police officers (26%) is almost exactly equal to the percentage of blacks committing violent crimes (24%). Indeed, given that the black homicide rate is around eight times the white rate, it is surprising that the portion of blacks fatally shot by policemen is not higher.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/07/are-blacks-disproportionately-involved-in-police-shootings.php

[Crafty_Dog]

http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/02/colorado-to-fine-cops-15000-every-time-they-try-to-stop-you-from-recording-them/

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2016/07/10/riveting-post-by-black-police-officer-confronts-blm-with-raw-honesty-and-every-american-needs-to-see-it-363067