That would be the motto for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. And it contains your full USDA recommended level of irony for the day.
Via BoingBoing’s Xeni Jardin, we learn that the murder (so far) of three people by an ex-cop, which sparked a remarkable outbreak of shooting of folks accused of DWDBT (Driving While Driving A Blue Truck) is not the only news to come out of LA law enforcement this week. Get your heads around this:
Seven Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies have been notified that the department intends to fire them for belonging to a secret law enforcement clique that allegedly celebrated shootings and branded its members with matching tattoos, officials said.
The Times reported last year about the existence of the clique, dubbed the Jump Out Boys, and the discovery of a pamphlet that described the group’s creed, which required aggressive policing and awarded tattoo modifications for police shootings.
Investigators did not find that the seven had actually, you know, killed anyone with their arquebuses whilst on night patrol…
…but I can’t say anyone who might be on the receiving end of “aggressive policing” would feel much comfort in that:
One member, who spoke to The Times and requested anonymity, said the group promoted only hard work and bravery. He dismissed concerns about the group’s tattoo, noting that deputies throughout the department get matching tattoos. He said there was nothing sinister about their creed or conduct. The deputy, who was notified of the department’s intent to terminate him, read The Times several passages from the pamphlet, which he said supported proactive policing.
“We are alpha dogs who think and act like the wolf, but never become the wolf,” one passage stated, comparing criminals to wolves. Another passage stated, “We are not afraid to get our hands dirty without any disgrace, dishonor or hesitation… sometimes (members) need to do the things they don’t want to in order to get where they want to be.”
…”We do not glorify shootings,” he continued. “What we do is commend and honor the shootings. I have to remember them because it can happen any time, any day. I don’t want to forget them because I’m glad I’m alive.”
The only good news out of this is that the Sherrif’s department does seem serious enough to actually fire these guys. I suppose you could file that impulse under “damage control,” but hell, I’ll take it.
I’ll add one more thing: being a cop is a terrifically hard job. It’s made harder by the unbelievable availability of firearms for any bad guy (or gal) to wield — which is why so many in law enforcement favor gun control.
But that job becomes harder, IMHO, not easier, the more you militarize the civilian act of policing. Such militarization doesn’t merely include weaponization, tactics and all that; it’s a culture too. And cultures can go very bad.
So I’m not calling down snark and thunder on everyone who does law enforcement. I am saying that as in so much else humans undertake, being a good cop, or department is a matter of eternal vigilance and all that.
Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, known as the ‘Night Watch’, 1642
trollhattan
Edit: never mind.
Big day in the Southland.
Handy
Small groups of crazy law enforcement is nothing new. Years ago there was a group in Riverside who had a tattoo of a viking on their leg.
skyway
Police Officer is at #15 on the list of dangerous jobs in the US, behind taxi driver and sanitation worker. They’re a bunch of sissies, cowering behind ever-bigger guns, instead of, you know, policing.
Comrade Mary
Guys, the site is seriously fucking borked. Chrome on Win 7 is now stuck on the Judd story as most recent, and my other browsers on Marley.
If any of y’all recently installed a plugin, you may want to yank it.
Cermet
Sorry but most Cops are rightwingers that fully support the same thugs that have removed all the gun control laws and made sure that assault weapons are available with extra clips. They also enforce laws that have created a culture that makes us, the people they are supposed to serve, criminals to be arrested even if we just image them during an arrest. This ignores their military attacks on people enforcing drug laws – especially the people who have done nothing yet are treated like dangerous criminals. Their job is tough because they vote for the very people that ensure that their job becomes even more dangerous – the better for the 0.01% to control our country – Cops view all normal people as the enemy as the elite hid behind their protection of laws made to make everyone but them, criminals.
ranchandsyrup
The officers that I know all swear that they’re cool, but there are a bunch of turds and/or psychopaths on the force…..
techno
Hey, if cops went after the banksters who tanked the economy with some that aggressive policing, I wouldn’t mind. And IF we were using drones to blow up Goldman Sachs, I’d all be for drone warfare. But Noooo. They use all this muscle against the poor and weak. So I’ll consider cops the enemies until they prove otherwise.
Scott S.
@Comrade Mary: I’ve been having the same trouble with Firefox. It takes multiple refreshes/cache reloads to get updates. I had to get to this page by clicking on a previously loaded post, then following the “Next Post” trail…
Baud
@Comrade Mary:
It’s amazing how messed up it is.
Ash Can
Quoted and emphasized. Really, FPers, what the flying fuck did you guys DO to this site??
The prophet Nostradumbass
Re: the picture. The Night Watch really needs to be seen in person to be fully appreciated.
kindness
They had Rembrandts tatooed on themselves? Must have cost a fortune.
celticdragonchick
The cops who seem to post the most often at the cop sites like policeone tend to be:
1. Very, very right wing
2. Hate the President passionately
3 Despise weak civilians who sue departments after they get shot/injured/home raided by accident when somebody in LE fucks up
4. Really, really like guns of every description and assault style weapons especially.
5. Loathe gun control
? Martin
@kindness: Depraved, but with good taste.
So, they’re still stuck up in Big Bear. Deploying what look like snipers. Still not getting the feeling the police know what the fuck is going on. The news is reporting that Dorner has sniper training, but I’m not sure that’s correct.
Zifnab25
I’m sorry. I see “alpha dogs” but I keep reading “assholes”. It’s all fun and games to have a mascot or icon or whatever, and bond with your coworkers. But the moment you start talking like this, you’re showing symptoms of a diseased mind.
You’re not dogs. You’re not wolves. You’re not feces-throwing-chimps with guns and badges. You’re officers of the peace. Act like it.
Ben Franklin
Sheriffs are one thing, Tom. LAPD used to be the elite of Calif Law Enforcement.
Many who wished to join were turned away. They had a severe psych screening process.
When you can’t get into LAPD you go get a job from the Sheriff. These are the bottom feeders of LE.
This guy in question was LAPD, and I’ve been bantering with y’all about his mental state.
Is he barmy, or just angry?
Roger Moore
@Ash Can:
You mean other than using FYWP?
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Are other WP sites this buggy? I don’t go to a whole lot of sites, but I can’t think of one as buggy as BJ.
PGE
I’m glad for the opportunity to link to my favorite King Crimson tune, which is about this painting.
“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlsAjke94Xc”
Just a phenomenal tune
Ben Franklin
@Baud:
Most WP sites don’t have the traffic BJ does. It’s like pulling a semi-trailer with a Nissan.
22over7
@Baud:
Oddly, it’s working fine for me using IE.
I don’t think I’ve ever written that before.
Tom Levenson
@celticdragonchick: Yup — no doubt there are plenty of cops who don’t understand that they are in fact agents of the civil power, not an occupying army.
But there are plenty — I’ve known some — who really do get it, and I do not want to suggest either that all cops are cruel bastards, nor that their work isn’t genuinely difficult.
@Ben Franklin: You got that right. Where I grew up — SF’s East Bay — the Alameda County Sheriffs were the ones you worried about. The Oakland cops were scary; the Berkeley force much more attuned to their community, but the sheriff’s were just flat out trouble.
LanceThruster
I have first hand experience with the flaws of the LA County Sheriffs Dept. A former next door neighbor who was a Sheriffs Deputy was convicted of rape. The other neighbors caused me to move away because of their kids’ boom stereos and loud exhausts. They had some connection with the PD (they were fire dept connected) and after a while, the sheriffs (other than a select few) would hassle me for making the noise complaints in the first place. One actually tried to tell me it was illegal to use a chain saw on Sunday. I said his boss would be interested to know that, because I can buy beer on Sunday so I was pretty sure “blue laws” were a thing of the past. He backed down but he was still a serious horse’s rear end.
Most of the cops I’ve known have the personalities that like messing with people. The exception as far as my experience has been our own campus safety officers who are generally quite personable and helpful.
The Other Chuck
No, you’re developmentally challenged little boys who shouldn’t be trusted with guns. Be glad you’re not being put down like vicious dogs.
Baud
@22over7:
I’ve been using mostly mobile today, but I’m getting the same issues as others here have described.
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
Control freaks who freak out at even the most mild non-compliance.
Ask them why they chose LE for a career, and they’ll say Public Service, but firefighters and paramedics don’t carry weapons.
? Martin
Holy shit, just saw a shot of the blue pickup that police opened fire on – there must be 3 dozen bullet holes in that truck. God knows how many more missed. Those women delivering papers are lucky to be alive. There are more bullet holes in the house down the street.
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Mary: Yeah, it finally hit me too. It keeps erasing my nym.
Ben Franklin
@? Martin:
I counted 60-80 holes. It qualifies as a miracle.
The Moar You Know
1. The site is seriously borked. Too many weird symptoms to list.
2. I’ve had good experiences with cops. None of those were in Southern California, where I grew up and where I currently live. I’m fucking glad I don’t drive a pickup today – sold it two years ago – because driving one is all the excuse needed today to get riddled with a magazine or two full of .40 cal fun.
The cops down here in San Diego are fucking unreal, aided and abetted by a legal system that has never once prosecuted a cop for anything – think about that – and the ones to the north of me in Los Angeles may possibly be worse.
The right-wing douche cops won’t reconsider their special privileges WRT purchasing weapons – both current and retired LE can buy anything they want in California, including full-auto if they feel like it – because the copkiller is black and what do you expect from those people anyway?
I can’t condone what the guy is doing but after a lifetime of being called nigger by your coworkers, then getting drummed out of the department and having your career ruined for calling out a coworker for brutality, something that is so likely to have actually happened here that I don’t doubt the guys story at all, I understand. I understand why. I just wish he wouldn’t have killed anyone in the first place, and wish he’d stop now. But dammit, I understand why he felt driven to go there.
This will end with Dorner’s execution. Not in a prison but on live TV. I’ve seen it happen here before. He knows it, too.
Trollhattan
@22over7:
On IE8 here, and earlier today I didn’t experience of the troubles described by others, but now when I open the site THIS post doesn’t exist, the previous post is first in the queue and ony shows 20 comments. When I click that post, the actual 80 or 90 comments display and I can navigate to this post from the link on top.
And my nym disappeared in the entry field.
Forget it Jake, it’s BJ.
Suffern ACE
@Ash Can: On my phone, no one has posted since Anne Laurie late last night, no matter how many times I refresh.
I believe this is their way of saying – contribute to the site rebuild.
Ben Franklin
@The Moar You Know:
Yet you don’t find him mentally unbalanced? Or are we lost in the semantics of the word ‘crazy’?
Citizen_X
This is going to become my go-to excuse for every asshole move I make from now on.
The Moar You Know
@Ben Franklin: No. He is oriented, focused, acts with purpose, has a full understanding of the consequences of his actions and expresses his thoughts in a linear fashion. Legally, he’s not crazy. Nor would a psychologist find him crazy.
Now, if you’re of the mindset that anyone who murders is crazy – and that’s a debate worth having as a society – then he is crazy. But that’s not a definition of crazy that we use.
JPL
Mike J (I think) said refreshing with Ctrl, Shift, R brings up the current post.
Ohmmade
Good guys with guns can turn into bad guys with guns quite fast.
Cassidy
I wanted to go into LE because I felt my skills as a soldier would transfer best. I’m glad I picked Fire/ Rescue. It is about the public service for me. I don’t need a gun to do that.
Ben Franklin
@The Moar You Know:
I thought you might be using the clinical/legal def. No, that’s not what I’ve been saying.
The legal definition has to do with the inability to discern right/wrong.
Most of these recent shooters have been purposeful and lucid in their behaviors. We don’t normally get a manifesto.
But in his FB he says (paraphrased) “What would you do to get your reputation back?”
Does he think his acts will draw attention to his plight, and therefore the consequences will be forfeit, because he has been wronged? Don’t know. But i think we can’t rule out some depression drugs, or even a brain tumor.
Whitman shares some characteristics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman
Trollhattan
Coincidentally, this is occurring today, up north.
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/02/california-legislators-unveil-new-gun-control-push.html#storylink=cpy
bemused
@? Martin:
That’s what freaked me out. Then I thought how freaked out the police doing the shooting had to be. And I got more freaked out.
Redshift
Weird. The site has been fine for me all day (both on Chrome on Vista and on Firefox on my phone.)
KG
I know a lot of southern California cops. They are all good people. Their views on certain things are probably tainted by their own experiences and the experiences of their peers – but that’s an element of being human, so I don’t fault them for that. They’re mostly good people trying to do good, then again, most of them work in the suburbs too.
These LA Deputies though, are something special. The LA Times had a pic this morning of the tattoo. Skull, pistol, and playing cards Ace and Eight of spades. Dead man’s hand. Looks a hell of a lot like a tattoo you’d see on a biker in a bad TV show about bikers.
This LAPD guy… that’s just crazy shit and I have no idea what to say about it.
LanceThruster
@Ben Franklin:
I had a Sheriffs Deputy almost bust a gasket when I came out my front door and would not sit down on my stoop. They had responded to a call by my crazy neighbors against my roommate who was sitting in his car to make a cell phone call.
He acted as if I was coming out to interfere, and I felt a little claustraphobic as he had my blocked on my own porch. I asked if I could sit down on the curb instead and he settled down a bit. He was so high strung that to my own annoyance, I thanked him for “diffusing” the situation to keep him calm.
Am I legally allowed to tell him to remove himself from my property if he has no business coming on to it in the first place (though I generally wouldn’t because I know the easiest way to lock horns with a cop is by telling them what they’re *not* allowed to do)?
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
Am I legally allowed to tell him to remove himself from my property if he has no business coming on to it in the first place (though I generally wouldn’t because I know the easiest way to lock horns with a cop is by telling them what they’re *not* allowed to do)?
I wouldn’t advise you to evict him from your porch.
He can’t enter your house without your permission or probable cause, but he can approach the front door.
shortstop
@Trollhattan: Good.
eemom
I know it’s crazy, and I wouldn’t say it if I weren’t desperate, but perhaps someone should notify Cole that the site is fucked?
LanceThruster
@Ben Franklin:
Thx. I figured as much.
? Martin
@bemused: Yeah, these guys are seriously on edge.
@KG: I’ve had nothing but good experiences with SoCal city police and county sheriffs, personally, but not with LAPD specifically.
Trollhattan
@eemom:
You kidding? Cole is tied up in the laundry room with a note taped to him:
“Uoo gets malloon guisse syyt baak wen I getz moar ahi.”
–
TooncesTunchThe Moar You Know
@Ben Franklin: I think we can. A brain tumor usually has some very debilitating effects on a person’s visual or motor skills. His are quite obviously fine.
Depression drugs – and some antipsychotics – can and do cause murderous rages. Nortryptiline is one that’s known for it. But none of them has ever caused a rage that lasts for four years and manifests itself in a meticulously planned series of assassinations and opportunistic mayhem.
I think the guy had a legitimate grievance, but then made a very conscious decision to turn it over to his dark side and to do his worst. He talks of “What would you do to get your reputation back?” He seems to me to understand that he’s not going to live to see that, he just seems to be hoping that the word will get out about what he went through.
Well, the word’s out.
Matthew Reid Krell
This piece reminded of something Sam Vimes once thought, which I can’t remember the precise wording, but it goes something like,
LanceThruster
Here was the verdict in that rape case, btw. What I remember about him talking over the fence was he had quite the temper (complained rather vociferously about the wild parrots in the area because he slept in the daytime – i.e. “I’d like to kill them all!”) and that his wife was scary cute (kind of a Morgan Fairchild lookalike) with beautiful 6 year old daughter. In a follow up story, the judge gave him the full 33 year sentence because he was unrepentent and claimed the sex was ‘consensual’. Someone clearly doesn’t understand “assault under the color of authority.”
I like how he thought carrying a bible with him throughout the trial was gonna work some magic for him.
Good riddance, creep.
celticdragonchick
@? Martin:
I counted nearly 50 bullet holes. That was the second wrong truck in a matter of hours that was shot to pieces by police. People over at the LA Times are warning drivers of any dark pickup truck to stay home. The police don’t seem to give a shit at this point who gets shot. (Note, the guy has probably jacked another vehicle since it looks like his truck is abandoned and burned…)
Also, I am officially no longer paying any attention to claims that guns are best left to the police. Not after this series of fiascos today. My own kid knows better then to start blowing away random newspaper carriers on the street, fer chrissakes.
celticdragonchick
Picture of the back of the truck that was shot up by Torrance’s finest…
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/02/ex-cop-manhunt-newspaper-delivery-women-shot.html
SatanicPanic
@Comrade Mary: It wasn’t working at all for me for the better part of the day. Here I am home sick and got all day to snark on stuff and I can’t even log in. bummer
Ben Franklin
@celticdragonchick:
It is possible, since he’s been planning for this, that he had an additional vehicle, burned the truck to draw the cops and give him time while they id’d it, and drove on.
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
Ha. That’s my situation also.
Ben Franklin
@The Moar You Know:
Charles(one-shot) Whitman and the Tumor
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/27/mind-murderer_n_1384102.html
Raven
@celticdragonchick: They were West Hollywood detectives posted as security on a high ranking police officer’s house.
Trollhattan
@celticdragonchick:
Know what else is scary? It’s a Toyota Tacoma.
“All Japanese [trucks] look alike.”
Ben Franklin
@Raven:
GOLD badge detectives? This is sum bullshit.
SatanicPanic
@Baud: Your comment at 58 captured it perfectly
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
celticdragonchick
@Raven:
I’ll take your word for it. Other folks are claiming it was Torrance PD…but it was a fucking disgrace in any event.
The Moar You Know
@Ben Franklin: I know who Whitman was and what he did. I don’t find their actions, and especially their written material, remotely comparable.
SatanicPanic
@celticdragonchick: LA cops have never been the gold standard for police work.
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
Shit. Only one of those was intended.
Maybe in a couple of years, we’ll be able to achieve the functionality of the Usenet.
? Martin
@Ben Franklin: Big Bear is mostly winter cabins/rentals. Lots of residences and some vehicles with nobody around to report a break-in or a stolen vehicle. If he did that, he better be long gone because there’s very few roads out of that area – 3 paved and not many unpaved.
There’s plenty of places to hide up there, but short of walking out (hard, particularly if you’re hauling a bunch of guns or other gear – in the snow, no less – storm coming in tonight) I don’t think there’s any way he’s getting off the mountain by car without being caught.
shortstop
@celticdragonchick:
So you’re bravely embracing a position you’ve held all along. Right on.
freelancer
Wow. Fucked up site is fucked up.
Ben Franklin
@The Moar You Know:
A brain tumor usually has some very debilitating effects on a person’s visual or motor skills. His are quite obviously fine.
You may know who Whitman is, but you find his motor skills sub-par?
Not remotely comparable?
Loviatar
@General Stuck / @Raven
All the victims of this particular gang in blue got what they deserved just like Ms. Soto.
You fuck with Authority (the elite) you get the shaft.
/sarcasm
Ben Franklin
@? Martin:
I hope you are right. I live about 30 miles NW of Big Bear, and I don’t like visitors.
raven
@celticdragonchick: Split the diff:
shortstop
@Ben Franklin: Okay, but you realize that sentence made you sound a little like the Unibomber, right? ;)
ETA: Unibomber? Unabomber? Neither ever looks right.
peorgietirebiter
I went to high school in Long Beach in the 70’s and the LBPD were pretty solid cops. Lakewood
and the county line was less than half a mile from our school. Even back then we were all very consicous of that because it was L.A. County Sheriffs turf and the rules changed.
Unlike city cops, L.A. Sheriffs were required to spend 3 years working the county jail before they could transfer to patrol. They all seemd to perfect the dicka tude during those three years.
Plus LAPD got all the good stories in the press, etc.
raven
“CNN says that it received a package from Christopher Jordan Dorner, a former Los Angeles police officer turned murder suspect. The package was addressed to Anderson Cooper. “Inside was a note, DVD, and a coin shot thru with bullet holes,” Cooper tweeted. ”AC360″ will address it tonight.”
“Dorner’s manifesto starts somewhat cohesive but rambles off when he starts sending notes to politicians, TV news personalities and entertainers. He praises New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former President George H.W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Charlie Sheen, Larry David and Ellen Degeneres, among others.
Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, (KCBS anchor) Pat Harvey, Brian Williams, Soledad Obrien (sic), Wolf Blitzer, Meredith Viera (sic), Tavis Smiley, and Anderson Cooper, keep up the great work and follow Cronkite’s lead. I hold many of you in the same regard as Tom Brokaw and the late Peter Jennings. Cooper, stop nagging and berating your guest, they’re your (guest). Mr. Scarborough, we met at McGuire’s pub in P-cola in 2002 when I was stationed there. It was an honor conversing with you about politics, family, and life.
Willie Geist, you’re a talented and charismatic journalist. Stop with all the talk show shenanigans and get back to your core of reporting. Your future is brighter than most”
dance around in your bones
I had a brother-in-law who was a cop in a big city, and he was sweet (once me and my husband left a joint on his front seat when we borrowed his car, and he just tossed it down to us when he found it – we lived in the basement – “y’all left somethin’ in my car”) and later he was busted for taking audio equipment on the downlow.
This was way back in the day – late 60’s.
Cops can be a mixed bag.
Ben Franklin
@shortstop:
snark is a difficult exercise, but mebbe it will keep SB Sheriffs from messin’ wit me.
? Martin
@Ben Franklin: Well, his first victims were killed about a mile from where I am now.
I suspect he’s either going to head back toward the LAPD or try and get out of the country. I doubt he’s going your way, or my way for that matter.
? Martin
@shortstop: UNiversity & Airline BOMber.
The ‘A’ has meaning.
raven
Maybe they’ll get him with DRONZZZZZ
? Martin
@raven: Wait, he praises Joe Scarborough and Wolf Blitzer? My god, the man is insane.
Mandalay
@Tom Levenson:
I challenge this conventional wisdom. The requirements for becoming a cop are not very high, and as someone has already pointed out, it is only #15 in terms of being a dangerous job. Being a logger or a trucker or a garbage collector is more dangerous. I suspect that simply being a black male is more dangerous than being a cop, though I can’t find the numbers to prove it either way.
And 99% of the people who deal with a cop are wary, respectful, or shit-scared. Sure, you can get a bullet in the back of the head at any time, but so can a taxi driver or someone working in a convenience store in a bad part of town. So if it is not especially dangerous, just what is it that makes being a cop a “terrifically hard job”? Is it harder than being a probation officer, or a court appointed defense lawyer, or a deep sea fisherman, or a high school teacher with kids who don’t want to learn? I don’t think so.
I hear how tough it is being a cop all the time, but I don’t see that it is true. I think we romanticize the whole thing.
John O
Watching CNN for the last hour or two (I know) I have the distinct impression that the LA shooter has a legit gripe. They want to talk about everything but whether or not that’s possible.
We wind these people up pretty tight, and act all surprised when one of ’em breaks. It’s weird to me.
shortstop
@Mandalay: You have to admit that wearing the vest in very hot weather has gotta suck.
Trollhattan
@shortstop:
Am just a few miles from the site of one of his murders. Boy, doesn’t that seem like a long while ago?
In other gun deaths, I’d completely missed this.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/02/07/5172881/autopsies-expected-soon-in-denver.html#storylink=cpy
shortstop
@Trollhattan: But but but MEDEA! She didn’t have a gun!
Ben Franklin
@? Martin:
Laguna Niguel? Lucky you. It used to be one of the safest places in OC.
celticdragonchick
@shortstop:
I think this incident pretty much puts it to rest. We now have demonstrable (and repeated in field conditions!) proof that police officers are entirely willing to shoot innocent civilians on sight in their haste to commit an extra judicial execution of a suspect.
Sorry, but that cannot be squared with the assertion that police have extra speshul powers an’ trainin’ that the rest of the civilian population does not have and cannot handle.
After reading some of the stuff posted from the cops at Policeone, I seriously wonder how the fuck any of them are trusted with firearms. I see no reason at all to leave my personal safety in the hands of people like this.
I would be willing to bet serious money that the officers who put those two women in the hospital will NOT be fired and that any discipline will be challenged by the BPO and overturned on appeal because of the “stress of the situation”.
Gwangung
@? Martin: told they were two elderly ASIAN women.
LAPD not so swift…
celticdragonchick
@peorgietirebiter:
Same thing with Orange County sheriff dept. What the hell is it with the sheriff depts in Southern California (I grew up near San Bernardino)
I remember when my dad taught at Moreno Valley High and one of his good students came in and my dad could tell something was really wrong with the kid. It seemed that a couple of nights previously, he had been at a dance club and collided with a Riverside County deputy. The guy would not take an apology, put cuffs on the kid and then him and another officer beat the shit of of the kid in the back of the squad car and left him there for hours.
Ben Franklin
@celticdragonchick:
Well said. I certainly don’t think the cops are the People’s enemy, yet. But I worry they will stay home in their Citadel to protect their own blood, when the shit flies. I won’t rely on them, and hope the anti-gun folks will respect those of us who have chosen to arm themselves.
? Martin
@Ben Franklin: Irvine. Even safer.
@Gwangung: It was dark. I doubt they saw the occupants of the truck, driving slowly with lights off, rolling down the window to toss a newspaper into a driveway. Probably looked like a drive-by. Fuck up, sure.
LanceThruster
@shortstop:
My latest come on since moving to the high desert is, “There’s always room for a Mrs. Unabomber, ya know.”
Heliopause
Has anybody read the entire manifesto? I’m about 2/3 the way through and it’s fascinating.
Jager
A friend of mine used to race on Mulholland Drive back in the 70’s,if they got caught by the LA County Deputies, they didn’t get a ticket, they got the shit beat out of them instead.
SatanicPanic
@celticdragonchick: The plural of anecdote still isn’t data.
Maude
I am still Anon.
Other than that the site works.
The news is saying perhaps three are dead.
Ben Franklin
@LanceThruster:
Hesperia…Victorville?
shortstop
@LanceThruster: No chick can resist that. If any man had tried it on me, the word “no” would have disappeared from my vocab.
? Martin
@celticdragonchick:
That’s just about the worst interpretation of this I think anyone could come up with. Your argument actually reduces to “Since police accidentally or irresponsibly shoot people all the time, everyone should be able to accidentally or irresponsibly shoot people as well.”
Guns are dangerous. Period. Police carry them as a matter of necessity and with that comes a necessary cost. Citizens (in most cases) do not need to carry them as a matter of necessity, and therefore we do not need to accept the cost that comes with them. This is the precise argument why we entrust military weapons to the military and not to civilians – it’s a necessary cost that will be born by a specifically identified subset of the population, but we will not tolerate that cost going any further.
celticdragonchick
@SatanicPanic:
Two incidents within one hour and two blocks from each other constitute data. Aaaaand there is an awful lot more collected over the years on the subject of police shooting the wrong people or having “accidental” discharges with fatal results.
From a former cop who also thinks this looks like a premeditated attempt at execution:
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/07/16888732-women-shot-by-cops-were-just-delivering-papers
Fred Stein
I normally support the cops on these posts having been one myself for many years, but this shooting strikes me as an over reaction – I went through hours of training on identifying potential threats and the appropriate level of force to use in response … this was reinforced on the streets where you learned to read the situation, and these were detectives, not rookies! … Now, I wasn’t on the scene to see what the officers may have perceived as being threatening to them; and a vehicle traveling without headlights at night is suspicious; but the article makes it sound like a premeditated execution. They are looking for a single, quite large baldheaded male, and this vehicle had two females – just a little bit of a difference and enough that should have put a little more restraint on an itchy trigger finger. I pray for the women to recover; and hope that their settlement with the city will be large enough for the pain and suffering they experienced. Then to have it happen again several blocks away? I hope they catch this Dorner fellow soon . . . so the citizens in the community can feel safe from the police paranoia and overreaction.
Trollhattan
@? Martin:
They sure weren’t night beat cops, who’d know that this is how newspapers are delivered pretty much all over the state. And if it’s recycle bin night, it’s the bottle and can scavengers.
Fucking itchy trigger fingers.
Omnes Omnibus
@celticdragonchick: So having everyone walk around strapped will fix it?
raven
@Trollhattan: Fear is a hell of a motivator.
raven
@celticdragonchick: Uh
“One was shot once and the other twice; both were were expected to survive. Police did not release their names.”
That is not an execution.
bemused
@SatanicPanic:
That is an awesome sentence. I plan on using that whenever the opportunity arises.
Ben Franklin
@Trollhattan:
Fucking itchy trigger fingers
Or, nervous fingers. i don’t know which is worse. Aren’t most of these guys combat veterans, or were they in the rear with the gear?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@celticdragonchick:
I doubt that they’re all cops. None of them may be. I just waltzed through the registration process for that site and I’ve never been a cop.
MomSense
@raven:
Seriously, when can we get some domestic dronezzzzz?!
raven
@Ben Franklin: That is such a stupid fucking question on so many levels.
shortstop
@celticdragonchick: Nobody’s supporting the cops’ actions here. The fact that these guys are nuts does not make you sane — as your body of comments on this topic clearly demonstrates.
Now stop pretending this is new and useful information leading you toward suddenly doing something you were always going to do anyway. No objective data has ever influenced you before; we know it’s not going to now. You’re quite obviously trying to convince yourself, and wasting everybody else’s time day after day while you do it.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
Also, too, part of the reason the cops were so trigger happy in this case is because they knew there was somebody out there with a nasty arsenal who was targeting the guy they were trying to protect. I suspect that the fear that the people they’re interacting with are packing serious heat is a large factor in other instances of police trigger happiness. If relatively few people were heavily armed, that would be less of an issue and the police could be more restrained in their use of lethal violence.
MomSense
@Heliopause:
No, too busy preparing for snowpocalypse. Any good dish? Please do tell.
PeakVT
Some good news about guns, if the Democrats seize the issue.
Ben Franklin
@raven:
Most cops come from the military, don’t they? They have the requisite training from the Academy, don’t they? It’s stupid to expect detectives to use some caution? We are talking about a vehicle with 50+ bullet holes, aren’t we?
But I’M fucking stupid.
Steeplejack
@? Martin:
The corollary is that we need to improve and/or reform our police. The militarization of law enforcement in the past 20 years has had dreadful effects, and that’s in addition to the longstanding issues of (potential) corruption, the “thin blue line” of silence regarding fellow cops’ malfeasance, not screening out authoritarian assholes, etc.
gwangung
@raven:
That’s not competence, though.
Anoniminous
Substitute the two Asian women for two gun nuts with AR-15s (a very possible scenario) and that situation would have turned into a minor war.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin:
Link?
raven
@Ben Franklin: “It’s stupid to expect detectives to use some caution?” Of course it’s not, the stupid part was the “combat vets” or “in the rear with the gear” drivel.
Steeplejack
@raven:
Check yourself, ace. She wrote “premeditated attempt at execution.”
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Yea and they are all 11 bravo, none of that fobbie shit.
raven
@Steeplejack: mea culpa
eta I’m watching the Illini lose the absolute LAST chance they have to make the tournament and my reading is hampered.
SatanicPanic
@bemused: I wish I could take credit for that one, but it’s an old one
celticdragonchick
@? Martin:
Your strawman caught fire.
I am arguing that assertions made here in this forum to the effect that “Police should be the only people trusted to carry arms” looks dubious since it appears that an unknown but dangerously significant number of these police cannot be trusted at all. I happen to agree that some folks on the CCW side of things are as bad if not worse (Trayvon Martin? Hello?)
So?
Since actual reform of how LE recruits and trains is utterly unlikely (and in fact will be even deeper entrenched because of the background to this incident), then what are the public to do?
It is telling that community organizers in Chicago and Detroit advise young people of color to talk to cops like they would to a dangerous wild animal:
Slowly, without sudden motions and remain very calm.
So maybe my trip to left wing radicalism has led me to this:
The police are looking a lot like actual enemies of the people far too often, and not the protectors. We all saw what Police did repeatedly to Occupy protesters. Some things happened here in NC at Occupy Chapel Hill that should have made the news, but did not.
I really do not know what the answer is right now, but I am convinced that we are sliding into a semi-authoritarian police state where the too many people are now being regarded as potential hostiles by police that now operate as an occupying army. (See the LAPD in the late 80’s to mid 90’s and Operation Hammer) I also don’t think for one moment that any person will even remotely be able to resist these guys, no matter how many AR-15’s (and personal fantasies) they have stockpiled.
All I can do here is try to make sure I can protect myself and my own family as best as I can and minimize contact with potentially hostile police as much as possible. This last bit is the worst of all, since I personally know good people in LE. I have had family in LE. I sure as hell do not recognize what happened to it over the last 20 years.
? Martin
@Trollhattan:
Yeah. They’re on tac alert, which means everyone is in uniform. They’re putting folks on security details that probably haven’t done a patrol in years.
I don’t know. Overreaction to the threat, poor decisions on how to deploy staff, understaffed for this kind of thing, not well trained officers, all of the above – not sure. Possibly a lot of bad decisions going around here.
I think it’s absurd to argue that civilians would do better. Fuck, we know the military screws this up as well. Accepting an armed society is accepting that innocent people are going to die. Is that more or less likely to happen from the military or the police or from civilians? 11,000 shooting homicides happened last year. A comparable number of accidental shootings, with about 1000 people killed – with 30% of Americans owning guns (about 50% of adults).
We have about .25% of the population serving as police, or nearly 1% of gun owners being police. So they should (assuming all things equal) be responsible for about 10 people killed accidentally, 110 injured, and about 110 killed maliciously. Does anyone believe that police are responsible for that many? Anywhere remotely close to that many?
? Martin
@Steeplejack: No argument there. But how we implement law enforcement has fuckall to do with how we allow the public to arm themselves.
opie_jeanne
@? Martin: I own a cabin a few miles from there, in Blue Jay. We visit it about 4 times a year and it’s stocked with a bit of food so if he finds a place like ours and figures out how to turn on the water he could hole up for a week or two, maybe more, before anyone noticed him. The cabins on either side are unoccupied but we do have a couple of year-round neighbors who know us and kind of keep an eye out. We have an alarm system but the local gendarmes generally do a drive-by, don’t even get out of their car when we have a false alarm (mouse or chipmunk got inside and knocked a Kleenex box off of a table. )
I have a friend who was trying to get out of Big Bear around 4pm today for a doctor appointment down the hill. I think he must have managed it because he hasn’t been back online grousing about being sent back to his house.
opie_jeanne
@Ben Franklin: Isn’t there a back road out of Big Bear? I know there’s one out of Crestline that goes over to Lake Silverwood.
bemused
@SatanicPanic:
New to me, maybe I’ll luck out and it will be new to the first person I use it on and I will look clever.
Speaking of feeling clever, stupid Sen Burr, NC, made a water boarding joke at Brennan’s confirmation hearing today, “I’ll be brief, you’re on your fourth glass of water and I don’t want to be accused of waterboarding you.” Burr was quite pleased with himself.
Peorgietirebiter
@celticdragonchick: Yup. Jack In the Box was a local hang out that the sheriffs would periodically drop by to strut and generally harrass us while we were standing in the parking lot. They’d ask for i.d., drink from our sodas to “check” for alcohol, etc.
One night after a sheriff ” tested” a coke I’d just bought, I made a point of throwing it in the trash, when I could have just gotten a new straw.
I was cuffed, pushed down on the asphalt and arrested for loitering. At the substation they discovered I had $158 bucks in my wallet (friday night and I just got paid) and released me without booking me or apologizing or giving me a ride home. Tools.
Ben Franklin
@opie_jeanne:
Hwy 138 is thru Crestline. There is a backdoor that takes you through to Apple Valley. I believe it’s Hwy 18
opie_jeanne
@Ben Franklin: Are you in Hesperia or thereabouts?
? Martin
@celticdragonchick:
You need to stop reading fringe websites. This is Glenn Beck level nuttery. Crime is down. Police abuses are down. You’re more sensitive to it because the massive proliferation of cameras is documenting the abuse out there better than ever, but the result is less abuse better advertised, not more abuse.
If you want to fix the police, fix the police. Guns have nothing to do with that.
Ben Franklin
@raven:
No offense intended. It was directed to those personnel who had no direct combat experience. i believe the nomenclature originated from the Mils, themselves.
Ben Franklin
@opie_jeanne:
I’m a desert rat. Phelan/Pinion Hills below Wrightwood.
opie_jeanne
@celticdragonchick: That would have been the Riverside County Sheriff’s deputies.
They had a theft ring in Riverside when we were newly married and had just moved there.
Narcissus
So if you’re LAPD and you blow away a couple of Asian old women, does that bring down your high score or what
I mean do you lose a life or a continue or something
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Cross-examination? It’s a lawyerly tac. Cherry-picking ist verboten.
celticdragonchick
@? Martin:
You should note that an awful lot of the public do not care to get consent from you (or me) on that. If they have an illusion of control that they get from a gun*, then people on the other side maintain a similar illusion of determining what society should do and how others can be forced to do that. It did not work with Prohibition. It has been an utter failure with the War on Drugs. It does not work with gun control, at least not in this society. I suppose that something interesting could be said about a nation that so regularly destroys its’ own laws.
*(I own guns but I do not think they give me much control at all save in very limited circumstances that I don’t want to be in…ever)
raven
@Ben Franklin: Indeed it did. There’s a lot’s of latitude on this “combat vet” stuff.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: So you don’t have a link then?
Heliopause
@MomSense:
Starts with a lengthy explication of his grievances with the LAPD, which he alleges is deeply corrupt and sociopathic, and gets seriously bogged down in details, so if your time is limited skip ahead to the last 25% or so where he says good-bye to personal friends and celebrities that he admires or detests.
SmallAxe
Man alive that “Manifesto” is a read. Sounds pretty coherent for the most part and a legitimate gripe. Some highlights though are scary:
Tells pursuers he will use all of his significant military intelligence background and networks to target them and their families wherever they are.
Tells them not to use aircraft as he has weaponry to combat.
Tells them their armored vehicles are useless too as he has Barret .50s plural (confirming he has at least some sniper training somewhere Martin)
Confirms he has multiple assault weapons with suppressors. And goes on to rant FOR gun control and say how ridiculously easy it was for him to acquire that equipment.
Scary stuff, this guy looks like Training Day 2 the dark version with Psycho Rambo mixed in.
mclaren
Big fucking surprise. America is sliding into fascism, these guys are the brownshirts. Nothing to see here, folks, move along.
Uber-macho cops like these “elite” task force members will be the ones who round up the gays and feminists and peaceniks and liberals when we get all the way to full fascists…and commenters like Mnemosyne and General Crackpot Fake Name will be the informers who single out the victims and tell the brownshirts “Take that one away. And make sure to bury him deep.”
opie_jeanne
@Ben Franklin: I know about the one in Crestline, I’ve used it several times. Not the most pleasant drive when you meet an idiot on one of those blind hairpins who has decided to use your lane because they’re afraid of the drop-off on their side of the road. Or they’re just lazy/bad drivers.
raven
@SmallAxe: And the SA-7 Manpads?
Todd
Dude is motivated, thinking clearly, sane and on a mission for a high profile target.
He’s going to succeed with getting at least one, maybe two, and nobody has the first idea what he is driving anymore.
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
No, I don’t. But that doesn’t give you any air. Your subservience to the Legal System will remain intact as long as you wish it to. But I understand that is your livelihood, so I’ll let it pass.
raven
@mclaren: Why don’t you post your address?
opie_jeanne
@Ben Franklin: I remember the fruit stand that used to be in Phelan. We had a friend who owned a house on Fred Lane in Pinon Hills. Fred was a character who built the first house on the road. He used to feed the quail and various other critters; they’d start running across her yard about an hour before sunset. It was hilarious because they were so eager. She had to arrange for water delivery, there was no water service there.
Todd
Bratton needs to get off the tube. He’s a bloviating gasbag, and is going to get his own dumbass killed.
celticdragonchick
@? Martin:
Fringe websites?
I read the fucking news. James Fallows over at the Atlantic was running a story last year (and took one of my emails) on police militarization. Some geniuses in the Sheriff’s dept nearby in South Carolina had an M113 APC with a cupola mounted .50 cal M2 machine gun. The SWAT team was posing around it with MP5 submachineguns and the like. A fucking suburban county in South Carolina with a damned anti aircraft weapon mounted on it. A .50 cal slug is ungodly. It will tear through a cinderblock wall like paper. It will shred through your house, the next one after that, the house down the street and then wind up in a barn three miles away. It has no place in law enforcement. It is meant to kill helicopters and Soviet BTR’s.
Radley Balko over at Huffington Post is doing a lot of the primary documentation on police militarization in the last twenty years, and SWAT team abuses, use of deadly force on civilians and abuse of search warrant are not going down by a long shot. If anything, they are increasing after 9/11 unleashed billions in military hardware to domestic police.
SmallAxe
@raven:
Yes crazy stuff. Here are some of the relevant quotes from the Manifesto:
“Do not deploy airships or gunships. SA-7 Manpads will be waiting. As you know I also own Barrett .50′s so your APC are defunct and futile.”
“Hopefully you analyst have done your homework. You are aware that I have always been the top shot, highest score, an expert in rifle qualifications in every unit I’ve been in. I will utilize every bit of small arms training, demolition, ordnance, and survival training I’ve been given.”
Fat LL Cool J Rambo indeed.
celticdragonchick
@Ben Franklin:
I remember a state dirt road (pretty well passable in summer, but not sure about winter) that lead from the back side of Big Bear down to Apple Valley.
raven
@celticdragonchick: I dunno, they use them to stop vehicles.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: That is pure dipshittery. I asked you if you have a link to support your statement and, when you don’t have it, you respond with this?
raven
@SmallAxe: Yea, I read it this morning.
opie_jeanne
@celticdragonchick: That’s what I thought. Didn’t it take off near Lake Baldwin?
Ben Franklin
@opie_jeanne:
. Fred was a character
OMG. The whole geography is populated with characters. Almost as many characters as mountain folk. :+)
Violet
Is there a new thread up? I read about FYWP not showing new threads earlier. I don’t see one, but this post has been on top for a long time and maybe my browser is messed up or BJ is messed up with FYWP.
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
That is pure dipshittery
Right back, atcha’
celticdragonchick
@opie_jeanne:
Yes. I was thinking it was by Holcomb Valley, but it has been a long time since I went around that way.
SatanicPanic
@celticdragonchick: The thing about is that few people are actually proposing banning all guns like prohibition. Guns should be treated like a vice- the model we’ve used to gradually cut down on smoking is a good one for how we could reduce gun violence.
Alison
@Violet: Don’t think so, because it’s still this one when I refreshed the cache. Another thing I keep seeing is my cookies disappearing, or I guess that’s what it is. When I came here earlier today, my comment info wasn’t already filled in which is usually is. Weirdness abounds.
raven
@Alison: On FF I only get Ann Laurie’s late night post from early this am.
Ben Franklin
@SatanicPanic:
Maybe the Police could take an example from the unarmed Bobbies of the UK
gwangung
@Ben Franklin: That’s impressive.
celticdragonchick
@raven:
*cough*
*cough*
Uh, yeah…armored vehicles on a high lethality battlefield.
If the wingnut militias start bringing discount BMP-1 IFV’s out to play, then I might allow for the local big bellied bubba sheriff to have a fucking .50 cal.
Problem is…I give even odds that bubba sheriff will part of the wingnut militia…
celticdragonchick
@SatanicPanic:
Maybe so.
Maude
@raven:
Not getting all of the comments now, have to refresh. Latest FF.
Ben Franklin
@gwangung:
Pillow fights often are impressive….
SatanicPanic
@Ben Franklin: I’d support that. Part of the problem with saying “the cops have so many guns, I have to buy one!” is that the cops are saying “citizens have so many guns, we need bigger ones.” It takes two to make an arms race.
opie_jeanne
@Ben Franklin: We only visited the place a few times so I didn’t meet the rest of the neighbors. There was a family that was living in a school bus while they built a house. I seem to remember that they had a lot of kids and the house didn’t change much over the three or four years that we visited.
I just looked at the Google map of the place and I think I can pick out her place, her father’s really. He was the character. Got laid off at retirement age from the aerospace industry in Orange County, so he and her mom joined the Peace Corps. When they got back he helped organize the math department at Tougaloo College as a volunteer, which had started as a “Normal School” for former slaves.
raven
@celticdragonchick:
Hob
@Ben Franklin: Dude, you made a claim that most cops are ex-military. Omnes just asked you where you’re getting that idea— which sounds a little dubious to me too; some, sure, undoubtedly more than in other jobs, but most? I don’t know why you’re getting all pissy that someone asked you for a link for that. If you have information, I’d honestly be curious to see it.
opie_jeanne
@celticdragonchick: Holcomb Valley is… interesting. The last time I was there was in 1988 and there were so many signs warning that trespassers would be shot that it made us nervous. I had a carload of kids, we were looking for some place I don’t remember, and I think we finally gave up and went back to the cabin in Big Bear we had rented.
raven
@opie_jeanne: Uh, yea, it ain’t just Humbolt.
Ben Franklin
@SatanicPanic:
It started with the North Hollywood shoot-out…..
Quid Pro Quo.
Ben Franklin
@Hob:
The best I could come up with was 20%, but Omnes was being less honest than he normally is and cherry-picked the lawyerly kibble he could challenge me on. No problem. i have his number
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: Okay, you don’t like lawyers; I get it. I am a lawyer. I asked you for a link to support something you said, and, therefore, it is some sneaky lawyer trick as opposed to what people do in blog threads all the time. Christ, what the fuck is your problem?
SmallAxe
@raven:
.50’s were used by Koresh & team at Waco too to fire through the walls that’s what hits the ATF guys on the roof in the famous video.
SmallAxe
@raven:
.50’s were used by Koresh & team at Waco too to fire through the walls that’s what hits the ATF guys on the roof in the famous video.
celticdragonchick
@opie_jeanne:
]
Yep. A huge LE theft ring was broken up here in Davidson County (I think) in NC just after we moved here. The Sheriff had his own crime syndicate looting the homes of suspects.
gwangung
@Ben Franklin: Especially by an egocentric twit. An entertaining way of saying “I got nothing.”
Ben Franklin
@opie_jeanne:
How long have you lived in Crestline? My bizness used to take me on the Rim from BB to Arrowhead and Crestline, and i preferred the folks in Crestline; More working class and down-to-earth than the rest of the community.
Ben Franklin
@gwangung:
I got somethin’ for you; right here………
SatanicPanic
@Ben Franklin: An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind
raven
Anne has a Friday night thread up!
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Christ, what the fuck is your problem?
Disingenous Cherry-picking…..
gwangung
@Ben Franklin: I take it back. You’re being a dick. Part of your being a dick is that other people around here were taking you seriously when they had every indication you WERE being serious.
And that’s supposed to make you look BETTER than Omnes?
celticdragonchick
@raven:
The Coast Guard is a uniformed service. Coast guard cutters have heavy weapons, and I have no problem with that.
The Barrett is a semi auto rifle that uses (I think) a five round box magazine. That being said, do you want that being used within five miles of where you live? I sure as hell don’t.
That. Round. Will. Not. Stop.
Shoot out an engine block? It will go though the engine, the passenger, the person in the back seat, out the back and do something interesting to the next vehicle in line, and possible the one after that as well, in addition to all the lucky people who happened to be in the way.
I fired an M2 in the army, and it is the only weapon I have ever shot that scared me. You cannot imagine how freakishly powerful that thing is until you put your hands on the spade grips. Just taking it apart for cleaning can kill you! If you didn’t make sure the spring is not cocked back, it will actually impale you you when you go to take the back plate off! We were told to watch for that since an average of two or three people a year die when trying to clean the damned thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: You basically made a group of assertions in your comment. Most seemed self-evidently true. That one did not, so I asked for a link. I am sorry if I embarrassed you when you didn’t have it, but, Jesus, grow up.
Edited slightly for clarity.
Ben Franklin
@gwangung:
You take what back? You mean YOU were being serious? Holy Shite.
Here’s the problema. This thread has been about your favorite authoritarian going full stupid, and it pisses y’all off because it detracts from your preferred pov. The fact that.
GUNZ can be misused by even the police, has you in a twitter state. Try looking at the big picture for a change. It’s not that difficult.
celticdragonchick
@opie_jeanne:
That sounds about right. Real scary mountain folks up there. I remember when the City of San Bernardino made carrying those big buck knives illegal in Malls and theaters since the Holcomb Valley types were scaring the hell out of everyone else at Central City Mall.
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Don’t act like the offended and innocent party. You knew exactly what you were doing.
I’ve never seen you behave like a troll before, so it’s taken me aback.
Joseph Nobles
Anybody who didn’t catch why Tom posted the Rembrandt to this post should check out the documentary on the painting I’m certain he’s referencing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSAg5EqgiMI
Wicked, wicked Tom Levenson.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Franklin: Okay, asshole. I do know exactly what I was doing. I was asking you to support an assertion you made that I doubted was correct. People do this all the time. How is this cherry picking or trollish? And then I am going to drop this because I don’t want the thread derailed any further.
Ben Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
‘Nuff said on this.
freelancer
@Ben Franklin:
[citation needed]
? Martin
@celticdragonchick:
Polling says that at least 90% of the public do care, including most NRA members. And if we presented this as a purely objective argument (should machine guns be restricted? miniguns? computer automated machine guns? I think we’d get pretty close to 100%.
For all the 2nd amendment ‘shall not be infringed’ frothing at the mouth, there is no public interest in dropping the restrictions on machine guns – and they full well know it. That alone is evidence that the public does want that consent.
And how does that translate into:
Overall, most police forces have been unwinding that 9/11 buildup because they can’t afford it. They couldn’t afford it then, but the feds gave them the money and they bought shiny things with it. Just because the wind-down isn’t as widely reported as the ramp-up doesn’t mean it’s not happening. And South Carolina is hardly a credible data point for the nation given their secessionist attitude. You can argue that southern states are ramping up to fight off the looming Obama Marxist power grab, which is what that appears to be, but personally I wouldn’t consider that anything other than a regional issue, not a national one.
Consider that the LAPD generally didn’t deploy high powered guns until a couple of yahoos with body armor and modified semi-autos decided to shoot up Hollywood following a bank robbery, and the cops discovered that 1,000 rounds of ammo wasn’t enough to stop them. Was that deployment of higher powered weapons a ‘militarization’ or a response to an actual problem – one, it should be noted, by an abundance of access to weapons by civilians. If you want a less militarized police, you’re going to have to accept a less militarized citizenry. This is a classic MAD scenario playing out.
Bob In Portland
@Handy: The Aryan Nations found the LAPD and the LA Sheriffs fertile recruitment grounds. Also, in the late 90s there were several stories about an anti-woman group of cops led by Mark Fuhrman. Anyone remember that one?
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/557445/NY-paper-says-Fuhrman-led-anti-women-police-group.html?pg=all
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: Folk wisdom from my grandfather: Most cops are bullies; that’s why they joined the force.
opie_jeanne
@Ben Franklin: I don’t live in Crestline, I own a vacation cabin in Blue Jay. bought it in 2008. We have lived in Southern California most of our married lives, Riverside for 23, Huntington Beach for 2, and Anaheim for 7, and now we live near Seattle.
We used the cabin when we came down to visit my dad, who lived in Upland. He passed away in September at age 94 and now we are questioning the wisdom of hanging on to the cabin. I guess we could convert it to a rental but I think I’d rather just sell it.
Blue Jay is more like Crestline than Arrowhead, but we have the nice grocery story (Jensen’s) and the theater. We found the place when we were trying to buy one in Crestline; it’s a little old cabin, built in 1923, originally a single room with a big fireplace and an outhouse. It’s a little bigger now and has indoor plumbing.
Anoniminous
Hello?
(tap, tap, tap)
Is this thing on?
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I decided a while back to pie bf because it always ends up like this. He is a waste of time and I can waste enough time without the pain in the ass.
A moocher
@celticdragonchick: absolutely….becuase if the women in the blue truck had been packing, they’d absolutely have shown those cops what for.
The lesson is not that civilians should be carrying heavy fire power as well. The lesson is that civilian police forces should be properly trained and disciplined, and not allowed to go rampaging through the streets shooting and killing random members of the public whenever their dander gets up. And I do not fucking care how many of their number get shot on a given day: no affront or physical assault or murder of a police officer justifies the rest acting like a bunch of cossacks.
Ruckus
@A moocher:
Exactly.
Full Metal Wingnut
Lol the idea that asking for a citation is some sneaky litigator tactic is pretty rich. You got called out, deal with it you fucking microcephalic.
Full Metal Wingnut
Lol the idea that asking for a citation is some sneaky litigator tactic is pretty rich. You got called out, deal with it you fucking microcephalic.
M. Bouffant
Nagonna read the whole thread, & someone probably got to this, but just in case, don’t believe the LASD cares beyond damage control this time either:
feebog
OK, I wasn’t going to comment on this thread because I have intimate knowledge of the LA County Sheriff’s Dept. (I’m a Hearing Officer with the LAC Civil Service Commission). However, this is too much:
The LASD is pretty much a Dictatorship. Lee Baca could very easily get rid of these “organizations”. He could forbid them within the LASD and enforce that through the disciplinary process. The fact that he is hiding behind the first amendment instead of cutting out the cancer within his department speaks volumes.
LanceThruster
@feebog:
Thx for the inside info.
LanceThruster
@Ben Franklin:
Near Palmdale. We’re a space-faring rocket community!
LanceThruster
@shortstop:
xD
Jebediah
@Omnes Omnibus:
I am sure this thread is totally dead, but I wanted to say that I am starting to think you have a Ben Franklin problem the way Cole has a Derf problem. Did you turn him down for the prom or something? Cuz he’s seeming a little irrational.
Ben Franklin
@Full Metal Wingnut: @Ruckus: @freelancer: @Omnes Omnibus:
Cherry-picker pie, anyone? I don’t give a shit if you don’t like my defense lawyer tactics.
I can dish out dishonesty just as well as y’all like to do. I have a pie menu, as well.
Make sure you don’t get any pastry filling on your lawyer’s ties.
Pococurante
@A moocher:
So it would be better if the cops had used .50s on that truck…
Anyway there is no way I’d knowingly use my gun against LE. But then there is a long sad history when LE gets the wrong house, does a kick in, and gun down people and animals whether they had guns or not.
These ‘wars’ on terrorism and drugs have shredded our culture. It does seem voter paranoia is ebbing and we are swinging back to center. Once the Nixon Youth generation dies off we’ll do even better.
shortstop
@Ben Franklin: You keep using this word “cherrypicking.” I don’t think it means — in fact, I damn well know it doesn’t mean — what you think it means.
Stupid or needlessly belligerent: pick one or the other. The combo doesn’t look good on you.
LanceThruster
@Pococurante:
The “Don’t tase me, bro'” moment showed how inept LE is by escalating situations totally beyond what is necessary considering the circumstances. Despite what has been said elsewhere in their defense, they often act as the goon squad for hire for TPTB.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Ben Franklin: Your lawlerly tactics? It was Omnes you were accusing of that. I’m not convinced you’re smart enough to utilize any.
You got called out, you made a nonsensical accusation. Sorry you got butthurt.
LanceThruster
BJ blowed up real good!