This article was a heartbreaker to read...

Let me preface this by stating from the start: I know fully well that bad cops exist.  There is a city in North Carolina that I am forever going to loathe going through because of one incident that involved both city police and county sheriff's personnel, and that was almost twenty years ago (oh the perils of being a puppy-eyed cub reporter getting knocked around by the world for the first time).  I believe that there are few things as bad as any member of law enforcement who consciously betrays what it means to take an oath and puts on the badge.  And this blog has chronicled law enforcement abuse so many times that it's gotten its own tag.

In short: I get it.

But I'm also grateful for being able to still appreciate that the good cops far outnumber the bad.

Three situations come to mind as I write these words.  One happened not too long ago, and it revitalized my trust and confidence in the members of law enforcement in general.  Two of its representatives assured me that an incident I brought to their attention would be pursued as much as possible, and I have taken their word on that.  The second involves the prank video I made four years ago of a rocket launcher destroying that "new statue" in Reidsville, North Carolina's downtown area.  Two police officers came to my front door (fifteen minutes away from town!) to ask about it.  There was no warning issued, they seemed pretty amused by it actually.  It was just that apparently someone reported it to Homeland Security and they had to follow up on it.  They were confident that I was harboring no real explosives and a good laugh was had by all.

The third situation regards my having severe enough mental illness that I have had to be taken into custody numerous times by members of law enforcement.

Yes, I have had to be handcuffed.  I have had to be put into the back of a police cruiser or sheriff's vehicle.  I have been frisked for potential weapons and escorted under guard into hospital emergency rooms.  All of these and more.  And not once have I felt like my dignity as a human being was violated.  Every officer involved in those sporadic situations has behaved with utmost respect toward me and I hope that I reciprocated that to them.

(There is also the matter of how many times during the course of my current profession, that I have witnessed law enforcement officers interact with some of the most neglected people in our community.  That alone has brought about renewed appreciation for their efforts.)

Right now there is a lot of commotion about cities disbanding their police forces.  Travis Yates, writing at the website Law Officer, has penned a heart-rending essay about why that will sooner than later not be necessary.  Because members of the law enforcement community are finally becoming so discouraged by what they must deal with that they are now actively asking young people to reconsider going into the profession.

I have to agree with Mr. Yates, on every point.  And if Minneapolis commits to its plan to abolish its police department, then it truly will become "Mogadishu on the Mississippi": a lawless realm of total anarchy.  Give it a year and it will not resemble the Minneapolis of today... and I don't mean that in a good way either.  It is not a situation that will be remedied by bolstered social programs and increased bureaucracy.

It's an eye-opening article, and it made me reassess my own perspective on those who put on the uniform.  It also led me to discover Blue Line Bears: an endeavor by a young lady in Florida to provide teddy bears to children of those who have fallen in the line of duty.  I was so impressed by the effort that I reached out to them to thank them.  There's an option to make contributions on their site and I'm going to ask that any readers of this post consider that.

As for the people of Minneapolis and other cities: you would do well to read Mr. Yates' words and ponder them deeply.  And then if you are still led to do so, go ahead with your plan to abolish the police force wholesale.

The rest of us will be watching.

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Look! Real Third Amendment case! A story that will boil your blood...

'Fess up: how many of us laughed about the Third Amendment when we learned about it (or were supposed to have learned about it) in ninth grade?

The Quartering Act, 1763.

(Chris raises his hand)

The Third Amendment - part of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution - reads thusly: "No soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

But an incident two years ago which is just now coming to light in court demonstrates how much we should appreciate our rights, whether or not we actively employ them  Anthony Mitchell and his parents, Michael and Linda Mitchell, were asked by the police department of Henderson, Nevada for the use of their homes in a "domestic violence" investigation.  All three members of the Mitchell family declined, saying they did not wish to become involved.

The Henderson Police Department took their homes anyway.

From Reason.com:

At 10:45 a.m. defendant Officer Christopher Worley (HPD) contacted plaintiff Anthony Mitchell via his telephone. Worley told plaintiff that police needed to occupy his home in order to gain a "tactical advantage" against the occupant of the neighboring house. Anthony Mitchell told the officer that he did not want to become involved and that he did not want police to enter his residence. Although Worley continued to insist that plaintiff should leave his residence, plaintiff clearly explained that he did not intend to leave his home or to allow police to occupy his home. Worley then ended the phone call

[Henderson police officers] banged forcefully on the door and loudly commanded Anthony Mitchell to open the door to his residence. Surprised and perturbed, plaintiff Anthony Mitchell immediately called his mother (plaintiff Linda Mitchell) on the phone, exclaiming to her that the police were beating on his front door.

Seconds later, officers, including Officer Rockwell, smashed open plaintiff Anthony Mitchell's front door with a metal ram as plaintiff stood in his living room. As plaintiff Anthony Mitchell stood in shock, the officers aimed their weapons at Anthony Mitchell and shouted obscenities at him and ordered him to lie down on the floor. Fearing for his life, plaintiff Anthony Mitchell dropped his phone and prostrated himself onto the floor of his living room, covering his face and hands.

Addressing plaintiff as "asshole," officers, including Officer Snyder, shouted conflicting orders at Anthony Mitchell, commanding him to both shut off his phone, which was on the floor in front of his head, and simultaneously commanding him to 'crawl' toward the officers. Confused and terrified, plaintiff Anthony Mitchell remained curled on the floor of his living room, with his hands over his face, and made no movement.

Although plaintiff Anthony Mitchell was lying motionless on the ground and posed no threat, officers, including Officer David Cawthorn, then fired multiple "pepperball" rounds at plaintiff as he lay defenseless on the floor of his living room. Anthony Mitchell was struck at least three times by shots fired from close range, injuring him and causing him severe pain.

Anthony Mitchell was charged with "obstructing an officer".  His father Michael was arrested while trying to leave a police command center which the cops lured him under false pretense so they could seize his house, too.

The Mitchells are suing the Henderson Police Department for violations of their Third and Fourth Amendment rights as well as "assault and battery, conspiracy, defamation, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, negligence, and infliction of emotional distress".

If the allegations are true, here's hoping that the Mitchells will bankrupt the Town of Henderson for allowing this to happen.  As for the cops themselves: in a sane world they would be taken to the village square and horsewhipped forty times as a dire warning to any who would wear and then abuse the badge of peace officer.

(That's a huge part of the problem right there: that we no longer have "peace officers" but "law enforcement officers".  There are many in this country who have come to believe that cops are becoming a government sanctioned gang of thugs not much different from the Bloods 'n the Crips.  Stories like this make it hard not to see some merit to that notion.)

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Bad Moon Rising: British cop's call for backup leads to luna-tickling mistake

A police officer in Great Britain is weathering international ribbing after calling in for reinforcements to help with a potentially dangerous situation... that turned out to be nothing more than the light of the silvery moon!

From the story at The Inquisitr:

According to Independent Online News, the story was originally picked up by Police magazine, which brought the cop’s startling encounter with the moon to the masses. In the article, the officer in question didn’t realize his mistake until after he’d told his co-workers that he might require backup.

“While single-crewed on night duty in Worcestershire a PC called up his sergeant letting him know that he was going up into the Clent Hills to investigate a ‘suspicious bright light’ that he could see shining from the other side of the hills,” the magazine revealed. “The call was for safety reasons as he might need back-up once he found the source. Twenty minutes later the PC called his sergeant back to reassure him that everything was ok and that he had found the source of the light.”

Fortunately, the mysterious light was nothing more than the moon hanging out in the heavens. All kidding aside, at least the cop was doing his job. Had the light turned out to be some sort of threat to the fine residents of Worcestershire, the poor guy would have been a hero. Sadly, he’s just the butt of a joke.

Personally, I don't think this guy should be ridiculed at all. Astral phenomenon has a long, long history of playing tricks with light on human visual acuity. I mean, the planet Venus has been mistaken for everything from distant volcanic eruptions to flying saucers. It's not the first time that somebody has been fooled by natural lights in the sky, and it won't be the last.

This policeman wasn't wrong to call for help if he thought there was legitimate reason for it. But still, all in all... it is a rather funny story :-)

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Police taser 86-year old bedridden grandmother

What. The. Hell. ?!?

I'd be really cautious about visiting El Reno, Oklahoma from now on. Sounds like the police department there are like too very many in this country: over-equipped with expensive gimmicks and over-eager to use them. In this case the lack of self-discipline almost cost the life of an 86-year old bedridden woman.

Here's the story from LewRockwell.com...

Lonnie Tinsley of El Reno, Oklahoma made a nearly fatal mistake last December 22 when he went to check on his grandma, Lona Vernon.

Concerned that Lona hadn’t taken her medications, Lonnie called 911 in the expectation that an emergency medical technician would be dispatched to the apartment to evaluate the bedridden 86-year-old woman.

Instead, that call for help was answered by nearly a dozen armed tax-feeders employed by the El Reno Police Department.

Understandably alarmed — and probably more than a little disgusted — by the presence of uninvited armed strangers in her home, Lona ordered them to leave. This directive, issued by a fragile female octogenarian confined to a hospital-style bed and tethered to an oxygen tank, was interpreted as “aggressive” behavior by Officer Thomas Duran, who ordered one of his associates : “Taser her!”

“Don’t taze my granny!” exclaimed Tinsley. According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Tinsley’s “obstructive” behavior prompted the police to threaten him with their tasers. He was then was assaulted, removed from the room, thrown to the floor, handcuffed, and detained in a police car. At this point, the heroes in blue turned their attention to Lona.

The tactical situation was daunting; at this point, the police had only a 10-1 advantage over a subject who — according to Duran’s official report — had taken an “aggressive posture” in her hospital bed. The sacred imperative of “officer safety” dictated that the subject be thoroughly softened up in order to minimize resistance.

Accordingly, one of the officers approached Lona and “stepped on her oxygen hose until she began to suffer oxygen deprivation,” narrates the complaint, based on Lona’s account. One of the officers then shot her with a taser, but the connection wasn’t solid. A second fired his taser, “striking her to the left of the midline of her upper chest, and applied high voltage, causing burns to her chest, extreme pain,” and unconsciousness. Lona was then handcuffed with sufficient ruthlessness to tear the soft flesh of her forearms, causing her to bleed.

After her wounds were treated at a local hospital, Lona was confined for six days in the psychiatric ward at the insistence of her deranged assailants from the El Reno Police Department.

It has long been established that the worst thing to do in an emergency is to call the police. In this case, Lonnie Tinsley didn’t call the police, yet they barged in anyway and quite nearly “helped” his grandma to death.

Like Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff character said in No Country for Old Men: You can't make up a story like this and I'd dare ya to even try.

I'll wager good money that all the police "officers" involved in this situation will get a citation for bravery. Along with a raise in salary. That seems to be the standard procedure for "law enforcement officers" who abuse their power: they not only get away with it, they get rewarded for it.

Anything else that I would like to say about the cops involved, is being barely constrained by the angels of my better nature. But here's hoping Lona Vernon and her family sue the hell out of the city of El Reno, Oklahoma.

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A joke that I gotta share here...

Courtesy of good friend Jason Overby...

Cop: "Your eyes look red. Have you been smoking pot?"

Guy: "No but your eyes look glazed, have you been eating donuts?"

Heh-heh, clever :-)

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A "beer summit"?!

So in a little more than a hundred years we have gone from President Theodore Roosevelt negotiating peace between the Russians and the Japanese, to now President Barack Obama inviting Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley to the White House to drink some beer.

(Read my original thoughts last week about this whole inane situation.)

If this is what it now means to be President of the United States, then perhaps Jimmy Carter didn't fully employ the assets available to him. He should have turned his brother Billy Carter loose onto the international stage... and we could have had world peace within a few short months!

Can anyone honestly imagine Ronald Reagan or Harry Truman doing something like this? Not as President, anyway. The office carries with it a kind of dignified weight that, unfortunately, I'm not seeing honored very much at all lately. Then again, this sort of thing has been building/devolving for years anyway, so I guess it's only a natural progression.

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So what do I believe about law enforcement?

Earlier today I received an e-mail from a fella named John, who is a law enforcement officer in a major metropolitan area. John has been a supporter of the Transformers score (out today!) but he mainly wrote to share some concerns he had with things I've written here lately about law officers abusing their power.

It was a very good letter that he wrote me. And I absolutely listened to him and took his words to heart. And it made me realize that maybe I haven't adequately shared my beliefs regarding law enforcement. So I wrote back to him, explaining more about my position. And I thought that maybe it would be well if I shared those thoughts here, also.

So here's my reply to John:

Please understand that at no time have I wanted to imply that I have "something against" law officers, because I don't. There are several who are very good friends of mine. Are family, even. I've never known any of them to have anything but a sober mind toward their profession. In that respect this entire county has been blessed: we really do seem to have the kind of police and sheriff's office personnel who hearken back to Andy and Barney of Mayberry: "peace officers", not "law enforcement officers", in that they try to create peace rather than impose it.

The stance that I write from is based on a long study of human history in general and human nature in particular. The biggest observation I have made is that given power and the authority to use it, all of us - absent the humility that comes with a never-ceasing seeking and chasing after God and fully understanding our place before Him - *will* abuse that power. I do believe we need law officers in our society. But just as they stand to counter the people being overwhelmed by a sense of power, so too do they require a counter... as does everything regarding our government.

It's a very delicate balance between too much power given individuals, and too much power given the government. One way leads to utter chaos, the other leads to imposed order. Anarchy or a statist government. I'd rather we not have either.

So a measure of constant vigilance is called for on the part of all individuals in a society: citizens and government alike.

This goes back to something that you referenced: Romans 13. Yes, we are to respect the authority of government. But here's the question: WHO exactly is in authority in America? Because we have two documents written by the Founding Fathers - the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution - which clearly delineate that all government and authority in the United States derive from the people. It is not government for sake of government, but government of the people, by the people and for the people. If we believe that government is an authority unto itself and that dictates that authority and wields power on its own terms, then we have already become something far different than what the Founders envisioned and intended.

By the way, here's an interesting historical note: "the sword" that Paul writes about in verse 4 of that chapter was not something that Roman soldiers used in the line of duty like a pistol or a taser. It was actually a fairly small sword that all soldiers charged with keeping the peace were issued as a visible indication of their job: more like a badge than a serious weapon. These were rarely, if ever, actually used. But from these came the tradition that eventually gave you the badge that you wear in the line of duty.

Where do law officers fit in all of this?

If the people cannot live in the understanding that there is something above them (as with your beliefs, I hold that this is God) then it does fall to government to establish that, however inadequately it can do so. But that's still better than doing nothing at all. Law officers are a material, tangible reminder of something higher than man and if need be, they work to actively establish that fact. Along with not only the rest of our judicial system but everything of government that we have in our society, from the voting booth on up to the White House.

I think that at their best, law officers do remind is that this is still a government of our own making, and that each of us has a role in that, whether paid or unpaid. Police and sheriff's deputies have taken this a step further: it's not just a matter of personal responsibility but something that they have chosen to make a full-time profession of, and this is quite admirable. In a perfect society, every citizen would be just as serious about upholding the rule of law.

It's the rule of man that worries me though. And I've read too much of history to know what happens when man becomes too inebriated with power and authority.

John, I must run for now but I do thank you for taking the time to write to me about your concerns. Please know that I *have* taken what you have written to heart. And please know that at no time have I meant to encourage harm or anything other than respect to your and your fellows in your profession. I'm just trying to do right by *everyone* - law officers and citizens alike - per the big picture... 'cuz I'd rather like to have a country still worth passing down to my own children someday.

Remember folks: this government doesn't belong to itself. It belongs to you. And this country is what you choose to make of it, whether by your action or your apathy. I'd rather we take that responsibility seriously, so that good men and women like John who do serve in law enforcement (or as "peace officers" as I prefer to call them) won't have to shoulder that burden any more than they really should have to.

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Bad cops, fear, and the Second Amendment

A deputy sheriff in Minnesota shot and killed a family's dog, in front of a 2-year old toddler in the family's yard. It's a pretty sick story.

Who here is willing to bet that after an "internal investigation" that it's going to be announced that the deputy over-reacted and will be fired?

More likely the sheriff's department will come out and say that the deputy did nothing wrong, and will soon be back at work as if nothing happened.

That's what always happens in these situations. And they've been happening all too often in the past few years.

Let me be clear on something: for the most part, I honestly believe, there are good people in law enforcement. I've known plenty of them over the years. Some are good friends, if not outright members of my family. I can't say that there's been any reason for me to think anything but very highly of them.

Unfortunately, there are some people out there who are employed in law enforcement agencies, who do not deserve to be wearing a badge. And there are starting to be plenty enough of those that they are ruining things for the rest of us, including their fellow officers.

These thugs - the ones who do this kind of thing - always get away with it. They never go punished. Or if they ever have, I've certainly never heard about it.

I won't deny that there are some lesser angels of my nature. This is going to be one of those times when I give them a voice...

The Second Amendment has but one purpose: to give good people without badges the authority to shoot and kill bad people with badges, if need be.

Peace in the community ultimately can't be something that we can rely on duly-sworn officers of the law to create and uphold. It's something that every citizen is called upon to build.

What is the purpose of police and sheriff's deputies, then? To be a bulwark against the citizenry being consumed by its appetite for power, which ultimately leads to chaos and anarchy. But without the citizens likewise providing a bulwark against the government's own appetite for power, there becomes something worse.

If people employed by government are abusing the power of government, then it becomes a moral obligation for those being governed to remove these agents of government by any means necessary. Up to and including with lethal force, if all else fails (and it will always be my prayer that it never comes to that).

Would this thug of a deputy have been so quick to have killed an innocent dog in front of a baby, if he had felt that someone would have shot back at him in retaliation? Probably not. But what would be so wrong with a sheriff's deputy or any other law enforcement officer being susceptible to the same kind of fear that it seems too many of them try to instill in us?

Maybe America needs the bullet-riddled bodies of a few bad cops laying around, as a warning to the others that they can't abuse the power that's been entrusted to them.

Is that an evil thing to say? No. Just something that comes after long observation of human nature. And the biggest thing that I've learned about human nature is that it ultimately cannot be trusted with power, without some kind of checks and accountability. These bad cops get away with what they do because they aren't held accountable. And unfortunately, I don't know of what else is going to shake them back to their senses without their knowing that some of their own kind are pushing daisies because of their own arrogance.

"They" need to be in more fear of us than we are in fear of them. That's the way it must be. Otherwise, we really will be living in a police state.

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Cop uses confiscated weed in brownies, then calls 911: "I think we're dead"

Thanks to Mark Childrey for sending this along...

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