Legal Fiat.

It's time we talked about "fiat."

Fiat is Latin for "let it be done."  

Merriam-Webster's first definition of the word is thus:

"1. a command or act of will that creates something without or as if without further effort According to the Bible, the world was created by fiat."

It is used in discussions of policy to further the discussion without getting bogged down in detail.
Basically, it means, "For the purposes of this discussion, we will assume that I have a waved a magic wand, and X has occurred."

Back when I was in  high school debate, we used fiat for all of our proposed plans to solve a topic.   An example would be, say, if the topic was on how to solve illegal immigration in the United States. The affirmative team would propose a plan, such as rounding up all the immigrants, or putting up a wall, or putting a border guard every fifty feet along the border, or whatnot, and the negative team would attack Significance, Harms, Inherency, Topicality, and Solvency (which was easily remembered by a lovely little acronymn) on the plan. Or, the defense could grant that the plan would work, but that there would be SUCH a disadvantage (such as lost cheap labor, or a shortage of cultural exchange (see: cheap taco stands)), that the plan wouldn't be worth it.

At no time, though, could the negative side attack that the plan could actually be effected. For the purposes of our discussion, the plan was put in place by fiat.

So here we are in the gun control debate, and everyone seems to believe that fiat is actually a workable thing.

"We will make it against the law to possess semi-automatic magazine-fed rifles!" would be the surprisingly-well-worded battlecry of the fiat-using gun banner.

Okay.  Let's pretend that passes, and federal law makes it illegal to own such a gun:
--There will be VIGOROUS attack on the law in the lower courts, and then the appellate courts, and then in the Supreme Court.  Let's pretend that the SCOTUS also upholds the law.
--Then, let's pretend that the executive branch mobilizes to enforce the law. How? Um, they'll put out public service announcements demanding that guns be turned in, else those with the guns will suffer severe federal penalties, with time in prison.
--And let's suppose that the good, law-abiding citizens of the U.S. do turn in their guns. Because they are law-abiding.
--And let's suppose that, everytime that they're caught with such a gun, a bad, non-law-abiding person goes to prison.
--And let's suppose that the prisons are able to take the influx of new prisoners.
--And let's suppose that a large quantity of guns remain in the public hands, against the law.
--How will the federal authorities, assisted I suppose by state and local police, get those firearms? 
--Will an order be given to go house-to-house? I assure you, the local cops aren't doing that. No, they will not.
--And remember that SCOTUS which affirmed the ban? They're NOT going to affirm a house-to-house search and arrest.
--And remember how all those good, law-abiding people turned in their guns? Just kidding. You just created a felony criminal class out of OTHERWISE good, law-abiding people. Now, they're legal-neutrals.
--And remember those actual bad guys, who don't follow the rules, and keep their guns, because, you know-- they're criminals? They're going to do what they want.

Fiat is a device for philosophy. Not for improving the nation that you have now.

While Fiats can be a lot of fun, they don't always work.

Photo by Tamara Keel. (Cropped.)

Random Thursday Thoughts

--Less than half of the US is now in the Middle Class. NPR finds this shocking. Reason says, "It's not that big a deal-- there are fewer lower class, and more upper class." It's like the statement of the simple fact that there is a minority which is far over-represented in the prison and jail population. One extreme is to believe that crime is inherent within that subset of the population. The other extreme is to believe and assert that the system is inherently racist.

--Looking at my level of income, number of people in my household, and my level of education, I'm trailing behind.

--Caleb wrote the obligatory piece on our POTUS claiming that the no-fly list should be used to restrict guns from citizens. It actually opens the discussion to some very important questions, though. If we let a regulatory agency with the force of law make regulations that take Constitutional rights away from people, what is the point of having a law, or a legislative process? This has been a question of mine about the actions of the BATFE and the TSA for a long time. Let's embrace the discussion, and thank our Constitutional Scholar POTUS for opening it up.

--In three weeks, Texans who have Concealed Handgun Licenses (CHLs) will have Licenses To Carry Handguns. (LCHs) We in North Texas anticipate lots of calls from pearl-clutchers seeing guns on the hips of citizens in public places, for the first time. I'm actually a big fan of them being concealed, because concealment removes (or at least strongly reduces) the incentive for people to carry guns for the wrong damned reason. It needs to be a tool, not a statement.

--I got tired of Pink Floyd back in college, when I had a morose roommate who would put 6 Pink Floyd albums into the CD changer and set it to Random/Infinite Repeat, and turn the amp up to 11 while he maundered. (Amazingly, that roommate is still one of my best friends.)  So I've not played any Pink Floyd for, oh 18 years. Yesterday, I played "On The Turning Away," and found myself with tears in my eyes.

--It's worth remembering that we as a nation are turning away from helping a lot of refugees, which lot is comprised of over 50% women and girls, and over 30% kids under 11. Because we are afraid.


--We got a nice new Roomba for the house, as an early Christmas gift for ourselves. We immediately named it Consuela. A guy on a local buy/sell/trade page online had an older model Roomba that his grandmother no longer wanted, so I talked him down considerably, and bought it. Within 24 hours, we had two robot minions cleaning our split-level house. I named the older model Rosie, for Rosie The Robot of The Jetsons.  My artistic 13 year-old daughter sketched her image of Consuela and Rosie, which we of course had to put up on our refrigerator:

The kid's got an eye, IMHO. 

-- Both my daughters this year are asking to borrow control of my Amazon account, to buy their Christmas gifts. We've had more boxes and parcels and packages dropped off at the front door of my house in the past year than in the combined total of my life, theretofore. 

--I qualified with the Glock 42 on Monday. That is a REALLY soft-shooting little pocket pistol. I had purchased it with Trijicons on it, and 600 rounds, from a friend. It will make a decent BUG, and I've found online the vest holster that I want to get for it for work. I just don't have the $85 lying around at present, what with all the other expenditures, as of late. Maybe next week. Or after Christmas.  

--Another officer had a Glock 43. That is an interesting pistol to shoot. It's FAR snappier in the recoil than the soft-shooting 42, which is to be expected as it is a 9X19 in basically the same sized gun. I may get one.

--Last night I got the ingredients to make this Alton Brown recipe for eggnog. It's as if they said, "we'll shut down the circulatory system with fat and cholesterol! Wait, we wouldn't want the endocrine system to feel left out! Let's wreck the liver, and the pancreas, all at once, with a pint and a half of liquor, and a pound of sugar!"

--As I have dinner to make, and a board meeting to attend in half an hour, I have successfully avoided going to work out today, by writing this blog. (smirk)

DWI Trial

He had as good a defense as a man could ask for.

The defense attorney got a lot of stuff redacted from the trial: the drugs? Gone. (There was an ownership question, so we couldn't even mention them.) The passenger? Not to be mentioned.  Audio from the video? Muted. (On scene had been discussed the drugs, and the not-to-be-mentioned passenger.) 

Because of technical glitches, one of the three DVDs of the stop didn't work. 

I had made a typo on the PC affidavit, which made it into the text of the report. 

The defendant had refused to give blood, and I had shrugged and decided that my case was strong enough without it, so I didn't seek a blood draw warrant. 

In an interesting twist, the attorney really tried to nail me to the wall for NOT getting a warrant and taking his client's blood. I explained that, before 2007, I had NEVER gotten a warrant for someone's blood, and that I didn't like to bother judges unless I needed to. "It only takes, what, about 20 minutes, to do it?" the defense attorney asked. 

"Is that your experience? Because after hours, I tend to find that it takes longer, sir. In MY experience," I answered. 

The defense attorney really grilled me on Standardized Field Sobriety Tests. That guy knew his NHTSA manual, pretty well. Well, so did I. I guess I answered the questions about the tests fairly competently. Lord knows, I've been administering the tests long enough. He took me to task for presenting all nine steps out and back to the Walk And Turn Test, because the manual says to only demonstrate three, and then turn around and come back. To me, I was being MORE fair, and giving the defendant more of an example to follow, but he pressed the case (and, if I'm fair, made a good case) that by presenting the longer version of the example, I was making the defendant have to stand heel-to-toe for a longer time, thereby increasing the likelihood that he would lose his balance and stand normally. 

He asked me if it was "natural" or "unnatural" to stand like that for any period of time. I answered (perhaps a little impertinently) that, while it probably wasn't natural behavior, the question could be begged as to whether driving was in and of itself unnatural behavior. 

He grilled me hard about the videos. As well he should have. A the attorney for the defense, he should demand to know why a key piece of evidence was missing, and hold our --no, my-- feet to the fire for why I couldn't produce it. I answered honestly that I didn't know, and sure wished that I had it, for our case. (Honestly, he had to be cheering that it was not available, because the other two videos were quite damning.)  In fact, it was that missing video which probably gave him the best glint of hope for the trial. 

The jury returned in an hour and a half with a Guilty verdict. 

I shook the defense attorney's hand afterward. It turned out that he had represented a citizen who had sued my department and me a few years ago (I was eventually dismissed as a defendant.). I don't always wait to shake a defense attorney's hand. But he had stalwartly defended his client, and hadn't attempted to impugn my character while doing so. It was a spirited, honorable defense against a good (but not perfect) case. 

I hope the defendant finishes out his probation, clean. We don't need more guys in jail.

A lot of people --me included-- complain about how the government works. About how it unnecessarily oppresses the public. But in this case and many others, I have seen it made to account for why it charged a citizen with a crime. I have seen the government have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the crime was committed, by the defendant, during the time in question. That is due process. It is what we expect, but it is still a lot of work.

Warrants: how you serve them. (For the cops out there.)

I'm a garden-variety cop. My phone number is not zero, and I'm not a Billy Badass. I believe that I am competent at my job, though, and one aspect of that job is case development and evidence-gathering. Another is making arrests of those whom I have proven had sufficient probable cause to be taken to jail. If the event was on-view, I arrest them then and there. If I put the P.C. together after the fact, I get a warrant, and go arrest them later. 


I list here the steps to getting a warrant, because it seems like there are those who don't follow them, sometimes, and they make the news. Maybe we need to publish a primer, or something. So here's mine:


The first step in getting a warrant is to soundboard your plan against a competent cop. Sometimes this is your boss. Sometimes it's a peer with another agency. But explain what you're trying to do, and what evidence you have, and ask him or her to review your plan to check it for blind spots or subjective assumptions.  This is not just about being a professional-- it's about being fair to the suspect and to the system. Sometimes an investigator will miss a glaring reason why either:
1) The charge is incorrect or less appropriate than another charge,
2) The suspect is exempt from the charge due to statute or case law
3) The investigator needs to recuse himself from further investigation due to a conflict of interest.
4) Reason X, which hasn't been thought of yet.
Lots of cops don't do this, because they don't want to look like they're not capable of handling it by themselves. I used to be like that. Trust me: the seasoned cop soundboards, and does a better job because of it.


A second step (which is not necessary in my jurisdiction but which is a very good idea) is to run your proposed action by the local assistant District Attorney. He or she can often give advice about the procedure which is helpful (after all, they're the ones you're asking to prosecute the case in court). Just as importantly, though, you're getting a D.A. to sign off on your case, and take ownership of the case. This definitely helps.


A third step, in the service of a Search Warrant or Search And Arrest Warrant on a property is to go get photographs of exactly what you plan to search. Is it the shed behind 101 Main St? Get a few digital photos of it. Attach them to your Probable Cause Affidavit for your search warrant. Describe the property carefully in the first paragraph of the Warrant Affidavit.


Go take the affidavit and the warrant (You should have a generic warrant form on your thumb drive and on an office computer. Don't have one? Get one, right now. Save it. Make it editable. Don't wait until you need it; that's too late. Ask your D.A.) to the judge or magistrate. Swear to it, and get the warrant. Attach the photographs to it.  Make a copy of the warrant for the property owner/manager/tenant.


SERVE THE WARRANT YOURSELF.
I'm not saying "serve it all by yourself." But you will physically be there. Even if you need to assemble a team of 20 snake-eating Professional Operators (tm) to help you, you will be present when that warrant is served. You will brief everyone helping you on what to expect, and what you're trying to accomplish.  "They got the wrong address" is not an acceptable excuse. In such an instance, you, the investigator obtaining the warrant, have personally failed.


You will see that everyone on the warrant service team is attired in an easily-recognizable police uniform. Warrant service is not the time to go Office Casual. This is the time for badges displayed, patches displayed, and large patches with the name of your agency presented prominently. You will all carry police identification as well, which you will gladly present if at all possible to do so safely. Every officer present on the warrant service team will be identified, and their role given, on the call for service or incident report.


You will make contact in a courteous, professional manner with the homeowner or resident or manager, and state your business. You will present them with a copy of the judge's order to search the specified property. You will then make clear that you are going to follow that order at that time. While there is a clear imperative, here, this does not have to be an adversarial dialogue. Be respectful to that citizen; you work for him or her.

Document how you go about this. Roll video, with audio. I like car video, backed up by body cameras.


Secure the scene. Be courteous but direct. Screaming "Get On The Ground" and pointing weapons at people who happen to be there is not courteous. Don't point weapons at people just because you're serving a warrant and they're present. You need to be able to articulate why they were a threat before you point a weapon at someone.  I'm serious about this.


As I've written before, don't serve No-Knock Warrants unless there's a hostage present.


Leave a list of what you took as a receipt for the resident or manager. Have a scribe keep the list during the search, and photograph what you took and what the condition of it was.


Get out.


Send a return to the judge or magistrate, showing that the warrant was served, and what you seized.




Lots of cops say, "that's above my pay grade." "That's for the detectives." "That's just the way I was shown how, and we don't have time for that." 


Fellow peace officers, a search warrant is a very specific exception to rights held by our citizens. Take it seriously. Do it right. Even if you don't do them, know HOW to do them. If learning how is too much trouble, then go find other work, please. We've got this.


Let us be professionals.

The unions. (Why I don't want to be part of them.)

So, today, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) released it's opinion on Harris v. Quinn.


The main question:

May a State, consistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, compel personal care providers to accept and financially support a private organization as their exclusive representative to petition the State for greater reimbursements from its Medicaid programs?

The question we thought that it would settle is whether a person could be compelled to pay union dues without joining the union, just because of the job that he or she held?


The pivotal case of precedent was Abood v. Detroit Board Of Education, which had affirmed that they could, saying that it was fine to require share payment of those in the public sector who benefitted from collective bargaining agreements. The thinking was, "Hey, you benefitted from this agreement that gets you better wages and benefits, so you better pay up and not be a freeloader."


It puts in mind that guy who signs the card on the gift that he did not contribute anything to. Well that's not right, is it??!? 


But to continue the analogy, consider the other employee who comes to you and says, "It's Bob's birthday. I bought him a new laptop. Everyone's chipping in $50. Cough it up." Well, that's not fair, either.  First, I like $50. I need my $50. Also, this creates dangerous precedent. What about when it's Maria's birthday? And Gordon's birthday?* Are we going to do this EVERY year? And you get to decide how much I chip in? Can't I just opt out and not sign the card? I'm just trying to work, here.


You'll note that the cases are in Detroit, MI, and Illinois, where unions are a big deal. I myself find it amazing that a person can be compelled to pay union dues, and be told that it's okay, because they don't have to actually join the union; they only have to subsidize it.


As it is, Abood didn't get fully overturned, because the Court didn't find that the petitioners (contract employees receiving state subsidies for home health care) were the best fit. They didn't have good enough standing. But Justice Alito made clear that he is rubbing his palms together to receive a case that fits the issue best. As well he should.


Unions have done some good things in this country. The ability to belong to a union is of course nothing that I dispute. But they have generally gone too far, and the law as it has stood under Abood v. Detroit B.O.E. has been nothing less than a state requirement to join and subsidize a union.


I see current unions as doing crazy things.  I know a local industrial manufacturer which employs union workers to make its trucks. Brand new employees with no more than high school diplomas can start working on the line at around $30 an hour, which sounds great... until they're laid off after a few months. When they get a big order, they recall the workers. There's no job continuity. If their union hadn't bargained so stiffly, these young men and women could keep $18/hour jobs (which is a living wage in Texas, I assure you), and not miss work.  


I am a cop. I regularly hear about how police unions make it next to impossible to fire a dirty cop. And, in some places, that's embarrassingly true. Regular readers here may recall how I pushed for a letter-writing campaign to have Officer Harless with the Canton, OH PD fired after his incident, after which his union actually temporarily won his job back for him. 


So excuse me if I don't particularly like unions. They make hard-working, honest employees look like lazy money-grabbers. They have hurt the reputation of my own profession, even while I work in a "Right To Work" state. It is jokingly stated that "Right To Work" really means "Right To Terminate," and there's some truth to that. I can be fired from my job pretty much any time. I don't have a union protecting me. Oh, I belong to the Texas Municipal Police Association, which provides me with legal insurance (I pay in monthly dues, and in exchange, I get a policy for up to a million bucks to pay for legit legal fees, in such instance as if I am sued), but that's not a union. I'm not entitled to my job or my badge. And I'm fine with that-- it means that I and my co-workers had best keep our walk on the straight and narrow.


I am embarrassed for public employees who feel otherwise.




___________
*Or Big Bird's? Or Cookie Monster's?  Sorry. The names came at random.

Controlling one's own destiny.

Well-known and well-thought-of firearms trainer Louis Awerbuck passed away this week.


I never met the man, but I’ve friends who knew him (like Tam and Rich). I have of course read his stuff for years.


There is something to be said for placing no dependence upon others, if that is your greatest fear (it is not mine). There is yet more to be said for going out on your own terms.


The freedom to decide how we meet our fate is ultimately what most of us who meet here and at my other haunts are talking about. No sane person wants to get into a gunfight. But nobody wants to have all of their options taken from them, either. Louis Awerbuck, it seems to me, made his career out of helping others to maintain their options. 

On Police Shooting Dogs.

Caleb posted about police shooting dogs. I responded there, but decided to bring it here as a post, as well.


This is an emotional topic.
I'm going to speak here as a cop, but also as an academic who has put 20 years into Criminal Justice studies. I ask that people not take this personally, and please don't take my words as those of all police.
_____________


1. Animals are property.
This one statement is going to get a lot of people riled up that I say it, but it's a fact. They are owned.  If someone takes your dog without your permission, and that person is caught, then they are charged with Theft, not Kidnapping.  Animals including dogs are bought and sold at a brisk rate.  
People know this to be a fact, but they cannot embrace it, when their dog is a family member to them. This is about emotion. Emotion, we know, is neither right nor wrong-- it simply is. But it can play merry hell with an equation built only on facts.


2. Emotions seem to trump logic.
If a cop serves a felony warrant, and uses a sledge hammer to break open a beautiful oaken door, people say, "Well, that's a shame about the door, but if the warrant was in order and the homeowner wasn't opening up, then it was time to open it however." If that same cop is met by a scared and aggressive dog that is doing what arguably is its job (protecting the household), but which is also endangering the cop with bloodshed, and the officer uses his weapon to stop what is the threat of what is, after all, property, from hurting him, the same logic often isn't used. It is short circuited by emotion.


3. Officers should not have to be bitten first.
I have been bitten on the job. I've gone to the ER and been treated and then bought new $70 uniform pants out of my own pocket, and never gotten recompensed for it. I've had dogs nip at me, and come charging into my taser and baton. I will die with clear scars left on my body that I have obtained from dogs attacking me while on the job. On a couple of occasions, I'll be honest with you: I should have shot the dog.

I have heard it said by people upset about a shooting that the dog hadn't bitten the officer yet. Given a large enough dog, a grown man can be permanently injured by a dog attack. Often it is shocking how small a dog can render lifelong injuries to a man. Without getting into breeds, we all know the breeds of dogs that are used the most for dog fighting, which are nowhere near the largest breeds. Sometimes a 40 lb dog is enough to permanently harm a man. Consider also the biological weapons in the dog's bite. Dogs left to roam and attack are often the same kind of dogs not getting their shots.


4. Officers should be trained better about dogs.
Jeff Cooper once said that a properly-trained police officer ought to be able to deal with a single dog attacking him. For the most part, I don't disagree, and that's frankly the main reason that I've never shot a dog that was attacking me while on the job. I have tazed them, and I have used my expandable baton, and I have used my steel-toed boots on them. A lot of the reason that I have not shot dogs when I would have been approved to do so by policy is because of #2, above: Emotions Trump Logic. I had a lieutenant get on to me about tazing my second dog attacking me in 2 months (both were pit bulls, and I promise you, both were in the immediate act of trying to get a mouthful of me. This wasn't a dog trotting up to check me out. One was airborne at me when the barbs hit.), because Taser cartridges are more expensive than pistol cartridges. He may have been speaking tongue in cheek, but I pointed out that I was able to resolve the problem without having our department featured in the news for "Another Cop Shoots Another Dog," and that's a win.  (Also, I was in a vey residential area, and I don't like skipping pistol bullets around if I can help it.)


I will say, though, that modern expandable batons were mostly built more as pain compliance devices than as bone-breaking weapons, and they are surprisingly ineffective at rendering incapacitating injuries. To this end, the old second-growth hickory batons were FAR superior. The main feature of an expandable baton is that it is always on the belt of an officer. Strangely, most cops seem to forget about it. That's a two-pound chunk that they carry on their belt every workday for years, but they literally forget to use it. This is frankly a training issue.


5. There are times to shoot the dog.
When there is more than one dog coming after the officer, all bets are off. It is my professional opinion that packed-up dogs attacking a person need to be met with deadly force, unless we're talking about Chihuahuas or Pekinese or teacup varieties of canines. (In which case, proper footwork is key.) 
During documented high-risk incidents, when the dog comes after an officer engaging in something that needs his undivided attention, shooting a dog may be the best option, keeping in mind #1. If the officer is swinging away with his baton to defend himself against a dog, he is not focusing on the other threats around him, be they a felon to arrest, or traffic. This last paragraph is not going to make me popular, because of #2.


6. We could bear rethinking the dog issue.
Because the dogs are such a hot topic, and so ubiquitous, we might re-think ways of dealing with them? How? I don't really know. Shin and forearm guards for warrant service where dogs are known to be come to mind, but I really question how effective they would be. I will tell you that tasers are of questionable use if you don't have a means of securing the animal while it's down. Catch poles might be a good piece of kit to bring. Dart guns are basically non-starters, because the amount of sedative that will put a dog down immediately is generally the amount of sedative that will kill the dog. Also, these things are time and resource-consuming. When you are going in to extract a felon, things need to move along rickety-tick.


For officers making a routine call upon a house for an administrative or non-emergency purpose, teaching them to survey the area before walking into the yard is worth doing. If a dog moves up aggressively, back off an call animal control.
We need to keep in mind Robert Peel's 2nd, 3rd, and 4th principles.


7. A lot of this problem could be fixed by talking to the dog owners.
I've already said that we need to do away with no-knock warrants except in hostage situations.
Knock on the door. Call them.  Tell them that you need them to put their dog up. Sometimes that's what it takes. It kills the element of surprise, but not the dog. This isn't always possible, but it's possible sometimes:
"Hello?"
"Hey, Mr. Smith? Bob Smith of 123 Any Street?"
"Yeah? Who's this?"
"This is the police. We're out front. And out back. We have a warrant for your arrest/ to search the house. We are in uniform, and in marked patrol units. We need you to put the dog away and come on out. If we have to come in, and the dog attacks us, we'll be forced to shoot the dog, and none of us ever wants that. Please comply immediately."
"Okay, I'll put the dog in the kennel/bathroom/closet. Don't shoot. I'm coming out."
This happens. Not all the time. Sometimes it's not feasible. But it does happen. Maybe it could happen a little more.


I know of one incident in which someone whom I know personally was actually held hostage by a family member of hers, who had put their pit bulls in different bedrooms around the house to prevent SWAT from entering. He was drunk, and actually fired random shots during the stand-off. He finally permitted his hostage to leave. After the hostage-taker finally gave himself up, the former hostage convinced the officers --who were going in to clear the house-- to permit her to secure the dogs. The dogs were upset and would have attacked the strangers when they entered the bedrooms unaccompanied by her. My congratulations to the flexibility and professionalism of the North Richland Hills Police Department for handling that situation the way that they did.


8. Finally, I will say that Generalizations Fail.
When we say "There is NEVER a reason to" do thus and so, we are almost always stating an error of fact.  When we say, "An officer should ALWAYS respond to X with Y" we will pretty much always be forgetting about an exception. But guidelines would be a good thing.


It would be really nice if people-- thoughtful people-- didn't have a basis to state that it looks like some cops basically just look like they wanted an excuse to fire their firearm. On the vast, vast majority of the time, it's not true. Let's be sure and make that point by finding ways to limit when we have to do so.

My desk.

I don't recall if I had mentioned it, by my friend Rabbit gave me one of my very favorite cups, recently.

I'm betting that it confuses 'em her at the office.

Let them wonder. :)

Racial tension.

When our President, Barack Obama, was elected in November of 2008, I hadn't voted for him. But I took some solace in the thought that at least some of our national racial tension would now be eased. No longer could we say that a black man had less of a chance in this country, when the most powerful man in the world and leader of this nation was a black man. Then he was re-elected. Well, now surely the cries of racial injustice would be... well, not silenced, but quelled, somewhat.

Man, am I a sucker.

I'm not going to make this a blog about Zimmerman and Martin, except to note that I want to live in a country where, if the state cannot eliminate reasonable doubt, the accused goes free. Yeah, that means that O.J. walks. Yeah, that means that we miss jailing some really despicable persons. But if we can't eliminate reasonable doubt to a jury, then what business do we have taking a person's liberty?

I have long held that the most racist people in our country are the most outspoken activists against it. I have never seen the Reverend Jesse Jackson nor Reverend Al Sharpton leap to the defense of an accused white person. Yet they immediately offer damning condemnations of whites, and furious defense of blacks, in controversial cases involving mixed race crime. Given their histories, I wonder why they're considered relevant.*

But I'll admit to actually being shocked that our President is one of those people, who become instant and amazing criminal analysts based upon the race of the accused and of the victim.

Maybe I should have known better, after our President, with less than half a year in office, declared that Cambridge Police had "acted stupidly" in their arrest of black activist Henry Louis Gates. Later, our President, often declared one of the most articulate and well-spoken men ever to hold office, gave the non-apology:  

"I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically — and I could have calibrated those words differently." 

In other words, "I'm sorry that I'm catching flack over this."**

But I thought, well, he's too smart to do that again. Barry's a lot of things, but he's not dumb.

This Spring, our President said: "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon." Some took this to mean that he was siding with the Martin family's account of how the case went. But I thought, "Hey, maybe he's trying to remind us that there are other sides to the story, and that we should all remember the other person's point of view." Look, I make a point of trying to see the other side of things.

But today***, our President said "Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago."
Again, I don't think so. 35 years ago, Barrack Obama was a privileged kid graduating high school in Hawaii. He was a smart kid on a mission. I'm beginning to wonder if he wasn't a little smarter at that time than he is now. Because this Nobel Peace Prize recipient isn't bridging very well; he's dividing. I don't actually believe that he means to.


_________________________________________
*Full disclosure: In early 1988, I shook Jesse Jackson's hand, following a speech that he gave at a local college while he ran for the Democratic nomination for President. (I had cut class to see the guy.) The man was a dynamic speaker. He was optimistic. He stirred that crowd up. I was impressed, and not a little shaken, by his ability to whip up several thousand people into a chant. I was at the time reminded of an After-School Movie called The Wave, in which a group of students get caught up in a fervor during an experiment about cults. I wasn't sure what he was, but I knew a force to be reckoned with when I saw one.

**Wikipedia says, "An opinion poll released by Pew Research found that 41 percent disapproved of Obama's "handling of the situation", while only 29 percent approved,^[60] and support from white voters dropped from 53 percent to 46 percent."

 ***On which lawmakers are trying to overturn aspects of the 1965 Voters' Rights Act, to give states more freedom to change voting regulation without the federal oversight that was found necessary for some states 46 years ago:

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: "My Fair Lady" had just won the Oscar for best picture, "My Girl" by the Temptations topped the charts, and "Bonanza" was the most-watched show on television.

How it DIDN'T go down.

Just before I went to sleep last night, I checked online from bed, and found that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had been apprehended. I cheered, briefly stirring but slightly my sleeping wife.

Some things which are going to be remembered:
1. Tsarnaev and his brother were from another country known for terrorist attacks, but were not intercepted by the State Department or ICE.

2. The brothers were found on photographs and videos taken by private citizens, not taken by government entities.

3. Laws against making, possessing, placing, or using explosive devices (of which Senator Lautenberg is apparently unaware of the existence) did not catch the bombers. New laws would not have helped.

4. While a brief roadblock for a manhunt DID help catch the final fugitive, it was not a discovery by the police but rather a tip from a homeowner that caught the suspected bomber.*

5. At no point during the 22 hour manhunt did anyone hear a Watertown, MA resident utter the phrase, "Man, I'm glad that the Commonwealth made it so hard for me to have a firearm, right now!"


_______________________________
*In virtually every successful manhunt which I have taken part in, this has been the case.

The things we do.

My wife and I shop for food. We shop for clothes. We prepare meals for ourselves and for the family. We help prepare lunches for the kids. We clean up after meals. We oversee our children's cleanup of the house. We direct our children in matters of hygiene. We tutor our kids in schoolwork. We take our kids to school. We do home maintenance. We go to our jobs for our paychecks. We pay our home bills. We obtain and distribute cell phones to the family. We buy and distribute gifts. We put together family get-togethers. We put together vacations. We visit the doctor. We take our kids to the dentist. We attend recitals and concerts and competitions and meets and matches and contests. We attend to sick kids. We fight (verbally). We laugh. We discuss. We watch shows together. We garden. We sleep together (in snoring repose). We tend to animals. We eat together. We deal with the everyday problems and surprises and expected drudgery of life, when living with another person.

I'm missing something.

Oh, yeah. We also occasionally have sex, as married people will do.

If the amount of time that we spent on this last thing were even one half of 1% of our time together, I think that we would be a very unusual married couple, after 15 years of marriage. I certainly could not characterize that as being an identifier of the state of wedlock.

If it's teh ghey seks that makes opponents afraid of gay marriage, then I submit that they have a seriously skewed view of what a marriage actually is.

I'm not much of a joiner. But maybe there are things worth standing shoulder to shoulder about, regardless of whether you're concerned about being regarded as just doing what the others are doing.

If you hadn't realized that I believe in equal rights for all, then you haven't been paying much attention to me.



Test your blood pressure:

I subscribe to Democrats Dot Com Unity. They send me entertaining email alerts. This last one read as follows:

Dear Activist,The irresponsible arms trade fuels serious human rights abuses, armed violence, poverty and conflict around the world.Next week, world leaders will gather at the U.N. to negotiate an international Arms Trade Treaty to establish global arms trade controls to keep weapons out of the hands of war criminals and human rights abusers.Tell President Obama: we need a strong Arms Trade Treaty now.Thanks for all you do!Bob Fertik
Friend –

Join us: fight for an arms treaty that puts human rights first! TAKE ACTION Tell President Obama: We need a strong Arms Trade Treaty now >>

No one – not you, not me, not the millions of responsible gun owners here in the US and around the world – wants to see arms and ammunition fall into the hands of war criminals, terrorists or human rights abusers.
Yet, there are no binding international laws – not one – to regulate the global arms and ammunition trade, making it fairly easy for those dangerous actors to access conventional weapons and commit atrocities.
Such a large global problem requires a global solution: a legally binding Arms Trade Treaty to prevent the irresponsible global transfer of weapons without infringing on domestic rights to bear arms.
Take action: Ask President Obama to support a strong Arms Trade Treaty.
Later this month, world leaders will gather at the United Nations to negotiate the Arms Trade Treaty. Oxfam has been campaigning for a strong treaty for more than a decade, and our fight has never been more important than it is right now.
What's making our work even harder? The National Rifle Association and its allies are spreading lies and misconceptions about the Arms Trade Treaty – and, unfortunately, it's working. That's why we're setting the record straight, right here:
The Arms Trade Treaty will prevent international arms sales to known war criminals while protecting millions of people from human rights abuses. It will have no effect on the Second Amendment right of US citizens to bear arms – domestic rights fall outside the scope of the treaty.
A bulletproof arms trade treaty – and the safety it can bring to families around the world – is a vital part of the fight against poverty and injustice. President Obama needs to know that you support a robust arms trade treaty, and that's why we're asking you to speak up today.
Act now: Write to President Obama and ask him to support a strong Arms Trade Treaty that will save lives and make the world a safer place.
Poor regulation of global arms trade threatens the security and rights of millions of people, exposing them to death, rape, assault and displacement. For people working to lift themselves out of poverty in communities plagued by armed violence, easy access to conventional arms threatens both lives and livelihoods.
It's our job to speak up for those communities and to fight for a strong Arms Trade Treaty – so thank you for taking action and standing with us today.
Sincerely,
Judy Beals
Oxfam America

The green links go to the following online petition: 

We need an international arms trade treaty NOWResponsible gun owners don't want weapons to end up in the hands of criminals. Responsible nations shouldn't either.The irresponsible arms trade fuels serious human rights abuses, armed violence, poverty and conflict around the world. In many areas of the world, armed conflict and poverty go hand-in-hand. For people working to lift themselves out of poverty and living in communities plagued by armed violence, the poor regulation of conventional weapons threatens both lives and livelihoods.From March 18 to 28, world leaders and their negotiating teams will gather at the United Nations to hammer out an international arms trade treaty. The proposed treaty would restrict arms sales to war criminals and human rights abusers, while at the same time not infringe the Second Amendment rights of US citizens.A bulletproof arms trade treaty – and the safety it can bring to families around the world – is a vital part of the fight against poverty and injustice. With it, we can help save lives, prevent human rights abuses and protect the livelihoods of people around the world. President Obama needs to hear that you support a robust arms trade treaty – speak up today.Act now: Ask the President to support a strong Arms Trade Treaty that will save lives and make the world a safer place.

Because it always works so well when we put the ability to defend ourselves into the hands of other nations.


Just thought you might want to know what they're up to.

"Arbitrary and Capricious."

I don't drink sugar soft drinks*. Oh, I love them, but I came to grips a long time ago with the fact that I have to watch my calorie intake, and that I'm a slob. That slob part references the fact that sugar drinks make everthing sticky, once they spill. I spill. I know this about myself, and I've taken the measure of avoiding sugary drinks. Also, there is the fact that two of my immediate family have adult-onset diabetes. While my sugar levels are good, I don't care to tempt fate. So, in addition to unsweetened coffee and tea, I will often enjoy a cold diet soda.

It has likely been 20 years or more since I had a Big Gulp full of sugary soft drink.

I tell you this to explain that it is not any kind of personal addiction to high-fructose corn syrup-laden beverages that makes me so very pleased with the ruling of Justice Milton A. Tingling Jr. of New York's State Supreme Court in Manhatten, when he recently struck down our largest city's ban on large sugared soft drinks.

In his ruling, Justice Tingling made clear that the ordinance was not only questionable in its justification, but in its jurisdiction, as well. The city of New York's Board Of Health was interpretting its own jurisdiction to be whatever it said it was. 

That interpretation, the judge wrote, “would leave its authority to define, create, mandate and enforce limited only by its own imagination,” and “create an administrative Leviathan.”

The schadenfreude. It tastes sweet.

Are you listening, Feds?

___________________
*As a general rule, this is the case. About twice a year, I will indulge in a nice cold Coca-Cola, especially when in the company of friends, and when a dram or two of rum and perhaps a lime might be involved.

Oh, good. He's looking out for our hearing, now, too.

So I can assume, Mayor Bloomberg, that since you are concerned about the safety of our ears, we can now depend upon your support for legislation reforming current laws against suppressors?

Thoughts on violence.

--This nation is split right now. There is little in the way of a "conversation about guns and violence." It is two sides, squaring off. It's not pretty, and it's not really effective.

--Under the New Public Service model of governance, we are supposed to engage in a dialogue until we decide what to do, without regard to completing our goal, or achieving a real consensus.

--Those of us interested in maintaining the right to keep and to bear arms are acting calmer than those who blame firearms for the violence in which they are used.
This isn't because we're less upset. 

--Belief that ONE SINGLE POLICY will stop the violence is pretty naive. Thus, even though I believe that there are things that we can and probably should do to reduce the violence, I don't present them and then nod self-assuredly and declare "that's what will finally fix the problem."

--I've said before and I will say again that this nation has a serious problem in identifying and managing our mentally ill. We don't even deal with the emergent ones.

--If I truly believed that we could put the genie back in the bottle, and eliminate all firearms from this planet in an attempt to rid the planet of gun violence, I might well consider it, even though I agree with Marko's excellent essay, here. But it's not possible, so why entertain the mental exercise? If we're going to do that, why not settle invisibility versus flight for a superpower?

--If guns are the problem, why is my life not steeped in violence? Even though I literally am dispatched to every call involving violence in my jurisdiction for half of every other day, I have seen very little in the way of gun violence in the last 12 years of service. I've never been shot at. I've never shot at anyone. I've never arrested anyone for intentionally shooting at another person (true story!). I've only a handful of times arrested people for pointing guns at others. This is in Texas, where private ownership of firearms is almost unrestricted: No limit to number of guns, no registration of guns, no waiting period, no state restriction on private sales, no state restriction on ammunition* or magazines. If you get it federally registered, you can even own an automatic weapon.

--Some folks will see that above comment and say, "well, he works in a small town, so that's different." Well, which is it? Either we're back-woods hicks who are armed to the teeth and seething in violence, or I'm working for Mayberry, and we all get along so great, no one would ever be so unkind as to shoot someone else.  It must not be the guns, though, because EVERY home here seems to have a collection of firearms.

--Firearms were virtually uncontrolled before 1934, then more so in 1968, and more so in 1986. Yet school shootings have increased almost exponentially since just the late 1990s. Why? Yes, there are more guns. Yes, more people live in urban environments. But those aren't the answer. The problem of mass shootings has grown far faster than the rate of gun ownership. Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman, when I saw him speak, opined that the problem grew in direct proportion to the proliferation of first-person shooter video games. Hm.  I don't think that blaming the games themselves is the answer. But I'll for damn sure agree that there's an inured effect upon the players to distance themselves from the perceived consequences of their actions. 

I see evidence of dissociative behavior among youth that I didn't see much before. Youngsters engaged in online debate move quickly to direct each other to kill themselves. We've got individuals scattered among us who genuinely don't see other people as real. We've always had such sociopaths (for such they are), but it seems like we've started distilling them, and creating a higher likelihood that we'll have to deal with them.

--I am real. And so are you.

--The world will never be Nerf'd. We cannot stop violence, much. But maybe we can attenuate it. Maybe we can actually get a handle on what we can do to help reduce the chance that future sick persons will decide to destroy others.  I'm going to try. Please try in your way, too.

--Let me know what you think. I'm interested.
_____________________
*Except armor-piercing handgun ammunition.

HIPAA

"HIPAA" is the dirtiest word I hear, some days. And given the profane things discussed in my day-to-day life, that's impressive.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was an important piece of legislature, passed too late in a time when people had suffered from their healthcare information under one insurance agency not being properly shared with another.  Part of that improper information sharing was the OVER-sharing of patients' private information. This law had provisions to protect Grampaw from having the highlights of his colostomy broadcast throughout the parish, or news of his grandaughter Suzie's prescription for antibiotics for a social disease picked up on spring break making its way around campus from the quack shack.

As soon as it was passed in 1996, everyone began to focus on the privacy concerns in HIPAA. So much so, in fact, that I've seen more than one healthcare professional misquote it as "HIPPA," for "Health Information Privacy Protection Act."[sic] Which does not exist.

If they can't even get the NAME OR THE ACRONYMN right, how are they expected to get the content of that large document right? Answer? They don't. I've had more garbage told to me under the umbrella of "We can't tell you that. Sorry. HIPAA."

I once was on duty on a deep night shift in the early aughts, when Dave, a buddy of mine from one of my undergraduate Criminal Justice classes and a sergeant for another police department in our county, was given a rather difficult roadblock to deal with. See, Dave had to work a major multicar crash caused by a drunk driver going the wrong way on a major highway. Dave and his comrades blocked the highway, saw that the wounded were transported by EMS, and had the highway cleared by the wrecker agencies.  Part of Dave's duties was to create a landing zone (LZ) for a private helicopter ambulance to land to pick up the suspected drunk driver, who was badly injured in the wreck. After it was all cleared up, Dave sensibly enough radioed our county dispatcher and inquired as to which hospital he should go for the mandatory blood draw that he was going to perform on the driver, who was now a suspect for Intoxication Assault. The county dispatcher called the helicopter ambulance dispatcher, who then, unbelievably, informed the county dispatcher that she could not release that information because of "HIPAA." 

Dave was audibly frustrated over the radio. I went to the PD, printed out the exceptions when medical information could be released, circled the section of Law Enforcement Exceptions ("...to identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person..."), circled the pertinent portion twice with a black Magic Marker, and faxed it to Dave's PD, to the County Dispatcher, and to the office that I thought might be the dispatcher for Moronic Private Helo Medical Transport. Then I sat down and read the document. It wasn't that hard.

The other morning, while visiting my partner in the hospital, I saw his wife smile as he happily dug into the fruit and yogurt that I'd fetched him from the cafeteria, and I whipped out my camera phone to take a quick picture, mostly to send to both their phones. The ICU nurse jumped in, speedy-quick: "You can't take his picture without his explicit permission. It's against HIPAA."

Okay, now look: I appreciate her looking out for my buddy. I really do. More than I can express. I appreciate that my partner isn't quite as fully alert right this minute as he is when he's at his best. But she had stood right there when he had told the doc that I was his partner, like family, and was thus privy to the doctor's briefing him. She had heard me jokingly suggest that he really wanted a Foley catheter while there, and she had heard him laughing with it. I'm on his team.  I come in peace. I mean him no harm. His wife, who saw me taking the shot, had leaned in close to him and smiled for the picture.

But most importantly, I'm not subject to HIPAA. I'm not a medical professional. I wasn't handling his information. I'm in no way licensed, medically. It doesn't apply to me.

"Consent is not needed for photography done by the patient’s family members or friends..."

The passing of conservatives.

My conservative friends often think that I'm a damned liberal, and my liberal friends either think that I'm an uber-conservative fascist pig, or that I'm a bag of self-contradictions.
Let me make this clear: I don't take my stance to be contrary, or to "stand out and be different." I would LOVE to be able to side with a great big majority.

But right now, the two majorities are:
--people who think that it's more fair, and even intellectual, to distribute everything but rights.
--people who think that we should not distribute the wealth, but still should assert control over others' rights.

I've said all this before.
Lately, I've been thinking how great it would be to see an openly atheist or agnostic candidate run for President. I think all of the discussions about a candidate's fitness to lead, based upon his religion, are bollocks. Given that I want the President not to impose his religion upon the nation, I'd prefer him or she to keep their yap shut on the issue. The same goes with information about his marriage.

Let's do this, shall we? Let's get to reducing the interference that the government has in our lives, and reducing the expenditures. Let's just drop the social issues for a bit, shall we?

And while we're at it (and Republicans, I'm talking to you, because even though you're screwed beyond belief with your mix of social interference and laissez-faire party planks, you're still the only big party willing to attempt to be the Grownups in the room, so I lean faintly in your direction.), let's quit listening to idiots like Rush Limbaugh, who had me at "why should I pay?" (a legit question) but lost me at "lemme see you nekkid."

Oh, and finally, as a person who leans TEA Party and Libertarian, I propose that we mourn the untimely passing of Andrew Breitbart. He raised interesting points, and flew in the faces even of a lot of Conservatives. He challenged the status quo. His passing diminishes the exchange.

Remember when...?

Remember when real freedom fighters didn't have to throw themselves under the 11" wheels of police scooters moving at 2 mph* to get attention, like a malingering ball player?

Remember how, back in the early-to-mid 1960s, the folks fighting to stop oppression didn't have to invent oppressive acts? They were attacked by police with truncheons, and firehoses, and dogs, and unstopped mobs with bricks.

Remember how they did not whine to get out of going to jail, because they felt that they were doing the right thing by going to jail?

Remember how real protestors for freedom have really risked everything?

Quit blocking the streets. Grown-ups have things to do. Call us when you've got something real. It's not like there's no way to do so.
________________________________
*Seriously, in one video that I saw of one of the Occupy Wall Street incidents, the scooter was moving so slowly that I was impressed that the bike actually could stay upright.

We can do better than this.

I've cussed people while in uniform, before. I'm not proud of it. As a matter of fact, I'm generally ashamed of it. But it's happened.

The most recent circumstance was as I was investigating a Visiting Burglar who was loitering around downtown at 3:00 AM, with a car full of burglary tools. I casually asked him his name, and he lied to me. I knew it. He knew that I knew it, and my cover officer knew it. When a check of that name and date of birth came back as "No Record Found," (strange for a guy covered with prison gang tattoos), I investigated until my cover officer discovered V.B.'s real illustrious past, and that V.B. had a warrant. I told V.B. to turn around, so that I could pat him down. I asked him carefully and clearly if he had anything on him that could cut me or poke me. He assured me that he didn't.

The last pocket that I checked had a used syringe in it.

"What the f**k?!? G*dD***it, you said that you didn't have anything like that! S**t!" I blurted out. He began to apologize profusely.

Now, I have to admit that I'm scared of being poked by used needles from a guy like this, who was in fact a bug-carrier. Still, I should have conducted myself more professionally. If my chief or city council or one of my citizens ask me about this, I shall have to apologize for my actions. I already have apologized to the arrestee, just before I took him to jail, as a matter of fact. Apologizing for unprofessionalism doesn't excuse it, but it's the second step* in beginning to make it a little better.

_ _ _ _

Friend Gay Cynic passed on this little video of a Canton, OH police officer losing his mind over what he perceived as a late notification by a concealed carry license holder during the traffic stop.

I haven't watched the whole video, because I got to 9:08 before I couldn't listen to any more.** This isn't a "days off" offense. This is a "pack your stuff, and move on" offense. I would actually consult with the city attorney to consider charges against the officer for terroristic threats made against the driver. As a street cop, I'm disgusted at this.



______________________________
*Everyone knows the first step, right?
**Okay, I've listened to a bit more. It gets worse.

The thing about freedom and equality...

...it spreads.

My co-worker came into the police department this morning to relieve me. While I finished up on a DWI report, he checked his web-based email, which popped up the news. “So,” he said with what I perceived as a smirk, “New York state has made it legal for gays to marry…!”

“Good. Maybe we’ll be next,” I said.

“I know, right?!?” said my conservative, VERY hetero, recently-married cop buddy.

Despite the stereotypes and the expectations of the opposition, many, many of us stand behind equality. More than the bigots know. That’s part of their downfall.

My friend may well have been trying to set up a derisive joke, but the things he said over the next few seconds told me that really, he'd just been waiting to hear someone else say that they support equality. I'm glad that I could answer that call. I think that he'll feel more empowered to next time start that discussion with, "It's about damned time."