Chalk Vandalism?!

This story is nearly two weeks old now, but I wanted to touch on it.  A woman in Napa Valley California was arrested on September 15th for writing with chalk on the side walk.  Initially when she was approached by an officer she was told it was okay, but moments later that same officer came back to gather the woman's identification.  When the woman who was later identified as Amy Larson refused to give any information she was immediately arrested.

Amy was charged with  felony vandalism and $10,000 bail was set, due to her clean record they dropped the bail though and released her.  That was after keeping her behind bars for four days though.  Amy believes that the real treason she was arrested had little to do with her 9/11 Truth and YouTube WTC 7 slogans she chalked though and more to do with her not telling the officer her name, address and birthday.  IE. Amy got arrested for not "showing her papers"

Yesterday amazing news came out of a Napa court room, Amy Larson's case has been dismissed.  A level headed and rational judge finally decided that using chalk on a sidewalk should not be a felony case.  THANK GOODNESS!  However this doesn't change the fact that a police officer felt they had the right to detain an innocent woman for four days.  A woman whose only crime was trying to spread the truth in a medium that washes away in the rain.

If you want to find out more check out the original Patch article detailing the arrest as well as yesterdays follow up informing the public about the dismissal.

This is not the first time in recent memory that citizens have been arrested for using chalk.  What is this country coming to that police officers are wasting their time and tax payers dollars arresting people writing in chalk?!  This obviously has little to do with vandalism and more to do with the content of the message being written.  The powers that be want us to know if we write anything to do with an investigation in to 9/11, The Occupation of Wall St, or similar questions of the status quo on the side walk we will be arrested.

Houston Police Kill Double Amputee

You would think that those who are called in to the line of duty as a police officer would have a high tolerance for fear and a steady hand when it comes to dealing with possibly dangerous situations.  This assumption comes from the fact that those who decide to become an officer of the law know that they are putting their lives on the line when dealing with what could be a lethal situation any given day.

A police officer who is dealing with such a situation should choose to use their weapon only if there is absolutely no other choice, and if they do go ahead and shoot someone who ends up being less lethal than perceived in the moment, that police officer should be put in jail.

Today, Sunday September 23rd a Houston Police Officer shot and killed a man with one arm and one leg.  The double amputee was in a wheel chair and living in a home for the mentally ill as he suffered from schizophrenia.  CNN explained the situation as follows:

A Houston police officer fatally shot in the head a schizophrenic, wheelchair-bound double amputee threatening people with a pen at a group home for the mentally ill after authorities said the man advanced on the officer's partner, police said.

"The officers made verbal commands for the suspect to drop whatever he had in his hand, to stay still and to speak with the officers, but the suspect continued to make threats," 

Officer Matt Marin, "in fear of the safety of his partner and the safety of himself, discharges his duty weapon, striking the suspect," 

The unnamed Houston police spokesperson said later Sunday that Marin himself was not cornered, unlike his partner, when he shot the wheelchair-bound man in the head. 

"This was an incident that didn't have to take place if the individual -- a police officer -- had been trained in dealing with emotionally disturbed individuals."

... So instead of grabbing this guys wheel chair and wheeling him away, an officer decided the best course of action was to shoot him in the head.  I can understand that the officer may not have known it was a pen at first, he thought it was a knife obviously, but this wheel chair bound amputee had no ability to lunge at anyone and was obviously paranoid and scared.

This is beyond disgusting and completely unacceptable behavior.  Why are police officers allowed to murder people?  Why do they get away with things like this with a simple slap on the wrist and a few days paid leave?  What in the world is wrong with our society that we condemn innocent dark skinned people to death row when the evidence is barely there to convict them, but when a police officer murders someone in public they are just doing their job?!

Police officers need to be held responsible for their actions.  Officer Matt Marin should be sentenced to death!  Justice with mercy my ass.

Wells Fargo B & E

This is one of the saddest stories I've ever read.  Wells Fargo hired a crew to break in to an elderly couples home, steal all of their stuff and destroy it.  The nefarious bank was under the impression that they owned a mortgage on the house, which in fact they did not!  The owners of the home had literally built it with their own two hands.  Now after raising three generations of their family in their dessert home every single item they have ever owned was taken and destroyed in a matter of hours.  A CBS affiliate in LA had this to say about the situation:

A crew broke into Alvin and Pat Tjosaas’ desert home and took everything after being directed by Wells Fargo to secure the structure.

The couple, however, didn’t have a mortgage on the home.

Alvin said the deputy sheriff said, “Good news, we know who took (your possessions)…Wells Fargo. Bad news, your stuff is all gone.”

The couple seem pretty forgiving about this situation being quoted as saying:

“When you put your heart into something…it makes me real sad. I’m just glad I have my sweetheart. We’ve been together a long time,”

This make's him real sad, if a bank came in and stole every worldly possession of mine that I had accumulated over decades I would be furious, there would be no end to the obscenities and threats coming out of my mouth.What does the bank have to say for themselves?

“We are deeply sorry for the very personal losses the Tjosaas family suffered as a result of their home being mistakenly secured,” said Alfredo Padilla. “We are moving quickly to reach out to the family to resolve this unfortunate situation in an attempt to right this wrong.”

Whether the victims of this crime get paid some large sum doesn't change the fact that there were almost certainly irreplaceable relics of their children's past as well as unique keepsake that the couple had acquired over years of being together.  Stuff that money cannot buy.  So what I want to know is, who is going to jail for this?   

If I were to break in to someones home to take all their stuff and then got caught I would be arrested on the spot.  Yet an entire crew worth of people went in to this home illegally and a banker sent the word to the crew to go on this heist.  Sounds to me like a kingpin and his cronies just admitted to their crimes.  So when are they going to be arrested?

As mad as I am I had to do a bit more research on this subject and it ends up that the home was actually Alvin Tjosaas' parents home, who he was the caretaker of.  It still had tons of Alvins tools, his fathers WWI uniform, an American flag and appliances that were all taken.  Then to add insult to injury, when they came back to check on it a few days later another crew hired by Well Fargo had made the same mistake and cleared out the remainder of the house.

I can't take it anymore I am fuming over this story, go to ABC to find out more.

LAPD VS Unarmed Women

I stared this blog nearly four months ago after reading about a Dekalb County police officer who kicked a pregnant woman in the stomach.

Last month while my girlfriend and I were driving from Virginia to Texas we passed through Dekalb County Georgia.  The only reason I even realized it was because I saw a police speed trap on the side of the road.  When I saw Dekalb County proudly emblazoned on the side of the car it was almost like seeing a celebrity, a member of the police department who inspired me to start this blog.

On the entire other side of the country though, the LAPD has spent the past few days putting Dekalb County's Dickhead Cops to shame.  I normally paraphrase and quote the articles I find, but in this case I think it is more appropriate that I just copy and paste the entire blog from Boing Boing that popped up in my Google Reader this afternoon:

A drug-addicted woman who dropped off her two children at a police station because she recognized that she was unable to care for them was tracked down by LAPD officers who reportedly told her to "get your fat ass in the car," threatened to stomp her genitals, then followed through on that threat.

35-year-old Alesia Thomas is reported to have been "combative." After being stomped in the groin, she suffocated while being taken into custody, and died.

Why do we know about this, and why are five LAPD officers now under internal and criminal investigation in her death? The altercation in front of her apartment was captured by a patrol car's video camera.

This news comes in the same week that Los Angeles Police chief Charlie Beck vowed an investigation into another video that shows two LAPD officers body-slam another woman, a 5'4" tall mother and nurse targeted for using her cell phone while driving.

Michelle Jordan, 34, pulled over into a Del Taco parking lot after being flagged down by police. She then got out of her car. Surveillance video from the Del Taco camera shows that two male police officers slammed her into the ground—twice. Then, they exchange a celebratory fist-bump.

To protect and serve.

Empire State Shooting

By now we've all heard of the shooting that took place in front of the Empire State Building the morning of August 24th.  One victim dead and the gunman shot by two NYPD police officers also dead, with nine wounded and bleeding out on the streets.  A gory scene for sure, but what might not be making the rounds as quickly as the initial news is that ALL nine of those wounded during the shooing were victims of the police officers trigger fingers.

Fox News of all places had this to say about the wounded bystanders:

All nine bystanders caught in the crossfire of a shooting outside New York City's iconic Empire State Building were wounded by two police officers who had never fired their weapons on duty, authorities confirmed Saturday.

While the shooter did turn around abruptly and aim his gun at the officers giving them every right to open fire, you'd think there would be more consequences against the NYPD and the two officers in general for injuring nine innocent civilians.  Further testing after the gruesome morning events proved that:

"it appears that all nine of the victims were struck either by fragments or by bullets fired by police,"

Thank goodness none of the injuries are life threatening, however this doesn't take away from the fact that these nine people who were walking down the street on what seemed to be any given morning were abruptly hospitalized due to shoddy police work.  Unsurprising to absolutely no one Commisioner Ray Kelly applauds the work of his officers, being quoted as saying the officers had:

"a gun right in their face" and "responded quickly, and they responded appropriately."

As well as:

"These officers, having looked at the tape myself, had absolutely no choice,"

Once again as proven time and time again, if you're wearing a badge it is legal to shoot and maim just about anyone for any reason.  If you don't have that badge though expect to be murdered in cold blood for all to see.  Instilling that fear in the populace so we all know, don't mess with the police!

As always this blog is skewed towards putting a negative spin on police actions.  I was not there and have read the same news as many other people around the nation have.  I am sure that these officers did what it took to protect their lives and in the moment what they thought they needed to do to protect bystanders.

It is just very sad that those bystanders ended up being the victims of sixteen rounds shot at a perpetrator in an extremely robust section of New York City.

Burlington Riot Police VS New England Hippies

There is power in our voices, 

There is power in the land, 

Saying yes to the earth 

We say no to tar sand.

In 1968 during the Democratic National Convention police officers in Chicago took unprecedented actions against protesters.  The video footage of violent responses from authority figures against non violent protesters stirred a generation in to action.  In 2012 it seems like every other afternoon we see more and more footage of violent responses from police officers against non violent protesters.  Instead of learning a lesson from 40 years ago we've descended in to a depth of depravity regarding the use of pepper spray, rubber bullets and flash grenades that the flower children from a generation past could have never even fathomed in their worse nightmares.

The last place one would imagine to see police officers dressed like soldiers would be a small ski resort town like Burlington VT.  Sadly this weekend officers dressed ready to fight against the Taliban aimed and shot guns at protesters wearing, to put it kindly, very little.  A woman wearing literally a bikini top and skirt was on the front line staring down the barrel of riot police in bullet proof vests carrying shields, baton and guns.  Is this really necessary?!

According to The Burlington Free Press:

Burlington police in riot gear shot a number of protesters with rubber bullets and pepper-sprayed and hit others as a large, peaceful demonstration turned violent and ugly Sunday afternoon. 

They go on to say:

Demonstrators said police in riot gear, about 25 of them, cleared the driveway forcefully, pushing people into the street. At least two individuals were shot with rubber bullets, and at least two others were sprayed with pepper spray.

“The demonstrators blocked big gigantic buses,” said Bea Bookchin of Burlington, who had attended the earlier demonstration. “so the police slowly pressed against the people. The police moved forward with their shields against people.”

When questioned by a reporter one protester had this to say:

Did the police overreact? 

“Absolutely,”Tokar said. “Their only concern was to get the bus out as quickly as possible, no matter what the consequences.”

The initial tipping point in instigating the violence was, as it so many times seems to be, a complete misunderstanding:

“One policeman tripped,” over a dropped banner, Fernandez said, “and that’s when they began firing. They pepper-sprayed a man who was just standing there. It was a gross overuse of violence,” he said. “It was completely unnecessary.” 

Another protester pondered why the police are so willing to attack their fellow citizens with such little provocation: 

“I want to know why they’re willing to inflict pain,” he continued. “Misunderstanding is met with aggression. It doesn’t make sense. Today we were trying to open up a conversation,” he said. “This is Vermont. We’ve been shut out.”

“The world is messed up, and historically the only thing that has changed things is when people organize,”

Recording the Actions of Police

Any time there is a protest, a violent crime or even just a couple cops on the street harassing a citizen chances are there will be dozens of people within shouting distance with a camera right in their pocket.  In the case of a protest the massive demonstrations almost demand to be captured on film, a violent crime can many times draw out the more depraved individuals who would like to share their disturbing video online and when a police officer is harassing someone unjustly it is not only our right, but our duty to record them and report them to their superiors.

Sadly many MANY individuals have been arrested, beaten, and had their equipment broken or stolen while filming any given police officer.  Washington D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier came out July 24th to reiterate the fact that U.S. citizens have every right to film on duty police officers.  Ars Technica reports that:

"A bystander has the same right to take photographs or make recordings as a member of the media," Chief Lanier writes. The First Amendment protects the right to record the activities of police officers, not only in public places such as parks and sidewalks, but also in "an individual’s home or business, common areas of public and private facilities and buildings, and any other public or private facility at which the individual has a legal right to be present."

Lanier says that if an officer sees an individual recording his or her actions, the officer may not use that as a basis to ask the citizen for ID, demand an explanation for the recording, deliberately obstruct the camera, or arrest the citizen. And she stresses that under no circumstances should the citizen be asked to stop recording. 

That applies even in cases where the citizen is recording "from a position that impedes or interferes with the safety of members or their ability to perform their duties." In that situation, she says, the officer may ask the person to move out of the way, but the officer "shall not order the person to stop photographing or recording." 

She also notes that "a person has the right to express criticism of the police activity being
observed.

There is NO reason a cop should take your camera from you unless you specifically allow them to.  

"Consent to take possession of a recording device or medium must be given voluntarily," 

Even if there is deemed to be evidence or contraband inside the camera a superior officer needs to be called in order to circumvent the necessary warrant normally needed to take someones personal possession.  If they do have probable cause to review the contents of your camera:

"photographs or recordings that have been seized as evidence and are not directly related to the exigent purpose shall not be reviewed"

If for any reason the police confiscate your camera they are NOT allowed to delete anything from it.  Chances are what they are attempting to delete is evidence that they were conducting their job inproperly or breaking the law themselves.  The article goes on to say that officers:

"shall not, under any circumstances, erase or delete, or instruct or require any other person to erase or delete, any recorded images or sounds from any camera or other recording device. [Officers] shall maintain cameras and other recording devices that are in Department custody so that they can be returned to the owner intact with all images or recordings undisturbed."

Of course this is all great that the Police Chief announced all of this, so what happens the very next day according to Pixiq:

an undercover cop snatched a cell phone from a man who was recording an investigation in public.

When they finally returned the phone back to Earl Staley later that day, he said his memory card was missing.

Apologist for the police claim that the officer in question may not have known about the "new" rules handed down by the chief.  When in reality these are not new rules at all just her REITERATING the existing laws for ignorant and uneducated police officers who don't care to actually know the laws of their land.  As always this does not reflect on ALL cops, there are many MANY great police officers out there doing their job properly and upholding the laws to the tee.

It's the Steroid Headed Macho Man Dumb Asses who think they can do whatever they want to a U.S. citizen that puts all of their peers in a negative light.  Sadly when things like this happen the officer in question rarely if ever gets even a warning.  The police are allowed to break as many laws as they want in order to make sure no one else even thinks about bending them.  What a truly sad state of affairs we find ourselves in.