Work. Small Town Policing.

I haven't posted a lot, lately. I will admit to having been a bit busy.

While our PD is down a man, I've had to step up and work patrol as a shift supervisor, instead of doing my investigator gig.

Throughout the month of September and the beginning of October, I've been hit with pretty major Index Crimes. Small towns still have them, though not as much as bigger towns. Here's the problem: because we don't investigate them as often as the bigger cities, we're not as experienced at the investigations thereof. The good news is, that barring other cases landing at the same time, we have more time to focus on them.

In this case, we (A) lucked out, and (B) knocked it out of the park.

At the beginning of September, I had come in to the office on my day off (I find that I do that a lot, lately), and tended to some paperwork. I wore a polo with a badge and gun and ID displayed, and had on some decent cargo pants and athletic shoes on. On my way home, I made a traffic stop, and towed the vehicle. Toward the end of the stop, the on-duty patrolman was dispatched to a disturbance. Over the radio, he reported that it was actually a serial burglary in progress. I responded from my traffic stop, in time to meet a couple who exited their house, having fought with the burglar-turned-home-invader. They directed me in the direction the man had fled. I got lucky, and found him in a back yard, and coaxed him at carbine-point to lie on the ground. When my cover officer arrived and tried to cuff him, the burglar attacked him physically. Long gun in hand, I used appropriate force to prevent the man from getting to my officer's gun, or escape. The burglar was taken into custody with a pretty good bruise to his backside, and a couple of taser barb marks in his back. I worked the case.

Two weeks later, I was on duty, and responded to a disturbance. When I knocked on the door at the disturbance, the resident briefly pointed a gun at me, and later at the responding officer who covered me. He fired a round in the air. I set up a perimeter, and we eventually took him into custody. I got a warrant and we got the gun.

Last week, we had a commercial armed robbery. I was off that week, but I came in. My chief and I checked a neighborhood outside of our town, and located the suspect vehicle. I got a warrant for it, and canvased the neighborhood, and we met the robber that evening. I took the robber's confession, and we recovered the gun used.

Our cases are rock-solid, and we're going to get good convictions on all of them.

Now I'm back on duty after a week "off."

And I'm nearly done with the paperwork.

Interesting story developing.

On April 17th, a fertilizer plant blew up in West, Texas.
At least 15 people were killed, mostly first responders.
Hundreds were injured. Hundreds of homes were obliterated, destroyed, or damaged.

There were two very newsworthy types of fertilizer there at the plant: anhydrous ammonia, and ammonia nitrate.

--Anhydrous ammonia is scary stuff. It is highly reactive to oxidizers, and gives off a caustic gas. It is stored as a liquid, in tanks. It is used in the production of methamphetamine.
--Ammonia nitrate is a plastic solid, and was used in the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City. It's highly explosive, but is more stable than Anhydrous.

News people cast around, talking to people who didn't know what they were talking about. I saw news stories early speculating that the firefighters had sprayed water onto reactive substances, causing the fire and explosion. I saw references to them responding to a re-kindle.

At this point, they still aren't exactly sure what caused the fire.

Blame came, as it always does. Someone HAS to be to blame.
If Texas governor Rick Perry hadn't realized that his political aspirations for the national stage were ended in 2012, I hope that he realizes now that it's over. Political cartoonists and pundits in California, Illinois, and the east coast all tore into Perry, for his recent attempts to woo investors to Texas with his quite correct claim that Texas is booming. In his radio spots, Perry cited no income tax, and less interference by regulations for Texas' success. His critics seized on this as Exhibit A in the case of why half a Texas town was blown off the face of the earth.

The truth is, that West is a hub community, in the midst of farmland. A fertilizer plant and seed company would certainly have been an economic engine there, 60 years ago. The town grew around it. These things happen.

But now, we find that BATFE[IEIO] and the Texas Rangers have an open case of Possession Of A Destructive Device against one of the paramedics who was a first responder with the West Volunteer Fire Department, and who lost friends in the blast. You can see the newsies champing at the bit to connect this with the cause of the blast. And I'll admit that it would make a helluva story. Haven't we all heard the tale of the firefighter who is a secret arsonist, and been amazed? What better story than to find out that this small-town medic wanted to be a Walter Mitty with Münchausen syndrome-by-bombing?

But it's not necessarily the case. The BATFE boys are in town. The Rangers are in town. They're looking under every rock for ANY clue as to what might possibly has caused that fire. So if Mr. Reed was into making homemade firecrackers in his garage, this is not a good time for him. If he's fulfilling a lifelong dream to make his own recoiless rifle in his basement, these guys might get a bit twitchedy, and put a case together on him, out of something to do.

But time will tell.

**EDIT**
Looks like it was components for a pipe bomb which Reed had. Ruh roh.

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.

By the way, Los Angeles PD? We're distancing.

As with the Rampart scandal, and with the Rodney King thing, the vast majority of us police are distancing from the Los Angeles Police Department's actions.

I would LOVE to read that report, in which the officers shot two paper delivery ladies, who happened to be driving a pickup similar to the one that  a former-LAPD-officer-turned-rogue-murderer had been driving.

You read the story, and you understand that things are tense in LAPD right now. But that doesn't excuse violating The Four Rules:


Click to embiggen.

Rules 2 and 4 of this list are applicable. But mostly Rule 4.
We don't shoot at sounds in the dark. We don't shoot at the BoogieMan. We don't shoot someone because he MIGHT be dangerous. And I'll throw you one more bombshell out there: We don't even shoot positively-identified murder suspects to apprehend them, absent imminent threat to human life.

Perhaps Tennessee v. Garner (1985) rings a bell? The use of deadly force to apprehend a fleeing felon is not a constitutional seizure.

Now, I realize this guy (I still hate to use his name, because he's gone nuts putting out a manifesto, in which he gives shout-outs to Joe Biden, Ellen Degeneres, Tim Tebow, and Martin Sheen. Unstable, much?) has said some scary stuff, such as:

"The Violence of action will be HIGH. I am the reason TAC alert was established. I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty. ISR is my strength and your weakness. You will now live the life of the prey. Your RD's and homes away from work will be my AO and battle space. I will utilize every tool within INT collections that I learned from NMITC in Dam Neck. You have misjudged a sleeping giant. There is no conventional threat assessment for me. JAM, New Ba'ath party, 1920 rev BGE, ACM, AAF, AQAP, AQIM and AQIZ have nothing on me. 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."

He describes various groups within the LAPD that he declares high-value targets. He mentions knowing their routes to and from work.

So, scary, right?

That's part of the job. We get threats. It sucks. You go to work, and you do the job professionally, and you try to protect the citizens. And if your number comes up, then it sucks, but that's the job.

If there was ever a time to NOT oppress the citizenry, this is it. There are people that will actually take this kook seriously, and question everything about the LAPD, and declare that the LAPD is now trying to assassinate him to suppress "the truth." And if you gun down occupants of a similar pickup, they'll use that for fodder.

I remember looking for the participants in the Texas Seven gang, who murdered Officer Aubrey Hawkins about 30 miles down the road from where I was working. I remember how tense that was. I remember how we who worked deep nights checked the backs of vans, and trailers, and trucks, working alone.

I have felt that tension.

And still I say that we must now more than ever function with complete professionalism. It is at these times when it is most called for.

Thursday is thirsty.

--After staying up until 4:45 this morning watching Netflix videos to keep myself on my night shift schedule, I got a call at 10:00am from an assistant district attorney, who wanted to discuss a family violence case that I had filed. She was shocked that I had put my cell phone number on the cover sheet, and apologized for waking me. I told her that I would much rather be awakened by an ADA with a question than have the question go unanswered, and have the case suffer. I don't think she fully believed me.

--I woke up with a completely stopped up nose. I took a Zyrtec (well, a store brand cetirizine HCL, anyway), and feel so much better, now. I think that pill cost me a bit less than 50¢. It's good for 24 hours. No side effects. I like living in the future.

--Slate is putting up a graphic depiction of deaths by gunfire since the Sandy Hook shooting. Even though I'm politically opposed to the editor, there. I find the map pretty interesting to look at. Looks like Chicago has a problem.

--Speaking of graphic depictions, check out the weird wind here in north Texas.









Depending upon which end of US Hwy 82 you're on, the wind may be blowing briskly at 20mph from the north in Wichita Falls, or freshly from the south at 10 mph in Gainesville, which is about 80 miles to the east.

--It's really nice outside. I'm going to do some outside work today. To believe the East Coast-obsessed newsies, though, the Only People Who Matter will be buried in a blizzard today.

--This past weekend, my good friend Joe Speer, proprietor of Jackalope Rifle Company, was coming through town, and dropped off my elder daughter's custom Mossberg Chuckster model 620K .22 WMRF single shot bolt rifle. He had done it as a project rifle, starting with a heavily used old rifle, and did some lovely things. The barrel and receiver are reblued, the stock was refinished, a purple heartwood stock end tip was put on, an ebony pistolgrip cap was put on, and a buttpad was installed. He filled the wallowed-out sling swivel holes, and the hole where the tang sight (sadly not to be found!) had been ripped out. You can just see the wood plugs, but you cannot detect them by touch. The inletting is very good. The trigger is quite good. My daughter has something that I'd never had given me: a custom rifle.

Joe and I and my dad all went over to Big City to Cabella's, and found that there not only wasn't a round of .22 WMRF to be had, but due to panic buying, there was almost not a single round of any common caliber. But Joe, a rather strident fan of the .30-'06, happily reported that there were decent stocks left of his favorite caliber, even in the Remington Core Lokt 150g and 165g load-- arguably the single most popular load for that caliber. Smirking, Joe said, "That's because a man with a .30-'06 doesn't panic."

--I need to order a part from Numerich for my daughter's best friend's Ruger Mark II safety. Her dad bought it, took it apart to clean it like the good former Marine he was, and put it back together and couldn't get it to work. He gave to me to fix. Oops. We've got Missing Parts Syndrome. He's a great guy, and his daughter's like family for us, so I'm happy to buy the part for him.

--While we were running around, we let Joe's dog Butcher run around in Mom's back yard. Mom got home and texted me that the dog was gone. We bailed out of Cabella's and began the not-insignificant drive home, slightly panicking. Mom called me back. Butch was sitting on my front porch, patiently watching Joe's vehicle to make sure that he didn't go anywhere without his companion. I called off the search party, and we stopped and got some Whataburger. Apparently, they don't have those everywhere. Odd. Here, they're on every corner, seems like.

--My beloved burr grinder broke. We're getting another. In the meantime, I'm drinking coffee that came pre-ground, out of a big can. Huh. So this is how you people live, is it?

--I watched Shooter last night on NetFlix. It's almost unrecognizable as an adaptation of Stephen Hunter's great thriller Point Of Impact. I'm still amazed at how Hollywood flouts the rules, and lets a violent felon like Wahlberg handle every gun that they've got in their inventory. I'm amazed that BATFEIEIO gives him special dispensation to do so. But it's okay; he's on the side of the angels now*.  I could stand to see that Kate Mara chick a bit more, though. As learned in Starship Troopers, if you're going to completely stray from the book which the movie is based upon, you might as well put some hawt chicks in the flick.

--Speaking of the Robert A Heinlein novel Starship Troopers, someone has put up the unabridged audio book of it on YouTube, and it's a guilty pleasure to listen to while tending to other things around the house or while driving.  It won't last very long; someone will cry copyright violation**.

--It was getting kind of late last night when my wife and I decided upon pork loin for dinner. We thawed the three-pound hunk of meat in about 13 minutes, split it sagitally, dusted it with salt, pepper, thyme, and garlic powder, and coated it with olive oil. Then we put it into the oven at 350 for an hour, and programmed the oven to turn itself off. Then we went to the store. We returned to a fantastic dinner, with which we prepared mushroom gravy and peas and carrots. Total prep time for everything couldn't have broken 20 minutes. Again-- the future? She is tasty.

--When I learned that a DWI Third Or More case that I had filed got a conviction, I was pleased. When I saw that the driver got several years of prison time, I was impressed. The driver had been represented by a very good attorney, and the evidence, while solid, was circumstantial. This was a first felony DWI for the driver, and no one saw the driver actually driving. However, the investigator did a fine job. :) I sent an email congratulating the prosecutorial team for excellent work. I don't know if it makes their day to hear praise from a lowly street cop, but it makes my day to get positive feedback from them. Believe it or not, I don't believe that most of those people are in it for the money, nor the power.

--My wife and the girls have infected me with an earworm. Those Walk Off The Earth people, who got internet fame for doing a superb version of Somebody That I Used To Know using five band members and one acoustic guitar, have put up a new song. It's one-take live acapella dubstep version*** of Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble".  I have never taken anything remotely beatbox to be a serious artistic style, but dang if their visiting artist ("KRNFX") doesn't actually kinda impress me as having a talent.

I stress that this normally would not be my cup of tea. Uh, it's just something the kids had on. :rolleyes:

_________________________________________
*By which we mean to say, he wants to ban all guns.

**And well they should. The people who produced and published that audiobook deserve to get paid for their work. I'm a fan of defending intellectual property rights. But, yeah, I listened to the audiobook all the way through. Does that make me a hypocrite?

***Does that even make sense?

"It's okay, he's with us."

A lot of people don't know that, until 1995, Texas had a rather stiff law against carrying pistols. Oh, long guns were okay, but to carry a handgun within one's scope of reach, one had better have been engaged in or en route to or returning from a lawful sporting activity, or had to be a cop or military, or, strangely, had to be "traveling."

Traveling was not defined in the Texas Penal Code. One judge would choose to interpret it as crossing county lines. Another would say that it was crossing three county lines. Still another would say that it was crossing three counties, with intent to stay the night. All the while, the charge of Unlawful Carrying Of A Weapon (or "UCW") bore a Class B, and later a Class A (up to one year in jail!) penalty.

There was no such thing as a license to carry a pistol in public, concealed or otherwise. That didn't come until 1995.*

But throughout the nation, Texas had a reputation for being a bastion of the gun-toters. And our gun culture was in fact quite strong.

How does one resolve this? No one could legally carry?!?

Well....

Remember that "Traveling" exemption? It's here, at 46.15(b)(2). It wasn't until September 1, 2007 (12 years after concealed carry was adopted in Texas) that we finally changed the law to permit one to carry a concealed weapon while operating a vehicle, regardless of the distance one went. A couple of years before, the Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot had surprised many by issuing an opinion that Travelling should be regarded as any legal transportation by a motor vehicle by a person not a member of a street gang, who is carrying concealed and not committing a crime greater than a Class C misdemeanor. The new law basically adopted that opinion, built right into Sec. 46.02. (Making the Nonapplicability statute kind of redundant, actually.)

There's nothing like a little ambiguity in the law, to see that it's applied differently to different people. I assure you that, in the Good Bad Old Days,  Tex and Good Ol' Joe weren't troubled with arrests for totin' their pistols. Nor was Grammaw, for carrying that old derringer in her purse. Also, pastor Brown? His proclivity for keeping a Woodsman in the glove box was just overlooked. They weren't Unlawfully Carrying Weapons! They, dear reader, were Traveling.

Because they were white.

Or belonged to the officer's church.

Or family.

Or a coach of the boys' baseball team.

But mostly, white.

Selective enforcement is a dirty way to apply a law, and friends, I'm afraid Texas had it pretty well institutionalized. I'm not proud of that era in Texas history, which went way back to the 19th century:

(Click to embiggen, and see what we passed in 1889. )

See, the law was applied to "those people," while the swarthier races, or even just those whom the officer didn't care for would be charged.

So think about how it would have gone down if Ice T, a black gun rights advocate, or Wayne LaPierre, a white gun rights advocate, had appeared on television, committing a felony possession of a high-capacity magazine.

But David Gregory is white, and is a gun control advocate, so let's let him go.

He didn't mean nothin'.

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*And the predictions were dire. "Blood in the streets!" "Armed showdowns over traffic disputes!" were forecast. Even as a cop, I've never (not once!) seen such, in over a dozen years in law enforcement.

Vultures.

CNN and Slate are both putting up the name of the coward who walked through a Connecticut school, murdering children. They're linking to his Facebook page. They're putting up his picture.

And they do this because they know that people will wonder what the face of such a monster looks like.

I'll tell you what he looks like: he looks like you and me. He just lost his grasp on humanity, and turned evil.

I beg you, friends: don't go look.

Every time someone clicks to go to these sites, then the vultures who linked to the stories, with Tweets and stories and teasers of his name and what he did-- they feel validated. The end justifies the means. Their job is to get people to come to their site. They did it. Good job!

Ever think of the cost, though? 

It would be an unusual reader here who didn't know the names of the murderers at Columbine.   In the months that followed that massacre, the names and pictures of K. and H. were splashed across the media like so much blood. That's notoriety. To a demented mind considering going out in a blaze of... something... that's star power, right there. Who remembers the names of the victims, though?

Enough of this. End this.

Condemn those who spread the names of the murderers for the salacious sake of "news." Don't visit the sites with these stories. Refuse to breathe their names on your blog, or in public.

Stop feeding the monsters.

Cold December Morn.

--The temperature is in the mid 20s, this morning. We had a wet front come over at about about 5:00 this morning, and we found this when the kids left for school:

Y'all up north may not believe this, but this , but my daughters literally were excited about this as our first snow of the season.

--I have my final for Public Administration tonight.

--The morning news talk guys are talking about how the Dallas Cowboys had another player get arrested after he rolled his Benz and killed his teammate. I'm curious about the decision to charge him with Involuntary Manslaughter, rather than Intoxication Manslaughter. EDIT: They reported it wrong. It's Intoxication Manslaughter.

--The football player's defendant's attorney is claiming that the bond of $500,000 was 17 times too high for the charge, and that this was more appropriate for a capital murder charge. Bond is set to secure attendance at trial, and not as punishment. When you have a person likely to abscond, the bond is set higher. When someone has a great deal of money, the bond is often set a good deal higher, because the intent is to make it significant. The judge may well have been aware of the minimum salary paid professional football players.

--I shaved my moustache off last night. My wife cheered. I kept going and buzzed my head again. My wife booed.

--Careful observation will find the Anti-Feline-Disruption Device which we have installed on our Christmas Tree:

We lost a pretty good number of glass ornaments last year.

--The good weather has had a lot of people putting up Christmas decorations. It's cheery. But I'm not a fan of the inflatable lighted yard decorations. A popular one this year is a helicopter that has spinning blades and Santa, and is emblazoned "Holly-Copter." I've seen it on the ground, on a black wire stand to make it appear to be hovering over the lawn, and perched on the roof near the chimney of houses in my town.
--One of our officers at qualifications this week feels that .45s just shoot better. His proof? He turned in a better group with his Glock 21 than with his issue G31, and I turned in a better group with my Kimber 1911 than with my issue gun. Hey, I'm all for people getting their confidence from whatever magic feather they've got to hold onto, but the opposite of data is anecdote.

--My wife bought a 100 count case of Tillamook individually-wrapped 3/4 oz Sharp Cheddar, and another of Colby-Jack. She was embarrassed, but pointed out that they were only $10 a case. I had her get another case, of Pepper Jack. Our refrigerator crispers are packed with over 14 lbs of handy slices of quality cheese. We thought they'd go for lunches, but it's amazing how handy those are for quickly slapping together a Quesadilla without dirtying a knife. At some time we may have to admit that we have a problem.

________________________________

Coercive rape.

Define, please.

I completely believe that a man is guilty of it if he tells his victim "If you don't permit me to have sex with you, I will do X," in which X is some bad thing or thing that the man knows the victim does not want to happen.

But what of , for example, the husband or significant other, who at bedtime asks his wife or girlfriend (with whom he is regularly physically intimate) for sex, and is told no, but persists in pestering her for it until she gives in, just so that she can get some sleep? Is this not using sleep deprivation as torture? Also, does it matter if she eventually ends up enjoying the encounter, despite initial refusal? (Assume zero physical menacing took place, other than the fact that the actor was in the room with the potential victim.)

If it IS defined as Coercive Rape, what percentage of serious relationships have involved some form of it?

And if "rape is rape," does this mean that this is technically the same thing as the violent stranger attack rape that is the stereotype of the term but is less common than acquaintance rape (still rape), drugged rape (still rape), etc?

Discuss. Feel free to get your extreme (liberal or conservative) views on.

Meanwhile, up in Tam's back yard:

A naked Hoosier daddy gets his ninja on.
Wow.

Some cops need to learn some basic control techniques. I saw WAY too much dependence on TASER, there. With that amount of manpower, this guy should have been no problem. Get astraddle the guy above the waist, control his head, and get the cuffs on fast. But for entertainment value, the surprise ending was pretty impressive.

A time to kill.

Down in the wooded coastal plain of Lavaca County, TX, we're pretty proud of the Spoetzl Brewery that's been making Shiner beer for over 100 years. Also, there's a kind of old school wisdom that supports an interesting point in Texas law:

(a) A person is justified in using deadly force against another: (1) if the actor would be justified in using force against the other under Section 9.31; and (2) when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary: (A) to protect the actor against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful deadly force; or (B) to prevent the other's imminent commission of aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery.

Texas Penal Code Section 9.32

I've always wondered if I would see such a case. Dad walks in, finds another man molesting his daughter, and kills that man. The especially compelling part about this new case in Shiner, TX is that the alleged molester (now deceased) was with a 4 year old girl, and that the father used his bare hands to kill the man.

They'll trot it before the grand jury to get the dad acquitted, but it looks like everyone is willing to sign off on it, due to the above Penal Code reading.

If it happened the way that it is alleged, I'm fine with it, too, in my heart. But you know, the story reads that the father "stopped him by striking him in the head several times." How many strikes to the head were rendered after the effective cessation of the aggravated sexual assault?

I think back to the 2009 case of OKC pharmacist Jerome Ersland, who shot and killed a robber that he had just incapacitated, and was convicted of murder. There was even video of the whole stick-up.  But this was a little girl being raped, and this is Texas, and there's no video of the father's final swings, so I guess it's his story to tell.

I sincerely hope that, if it all went as he says, it all works out for the father and his daughter.

Shop Tawk

Last night I had a nice chat with Sam, an old co-worker of mine from back when. Sam works in what most folks would consider a small town, but which is the biggest town in about 20 miles in any direction. As such, it's a hub, and as a hub on the interstate highway, it's a local Mecca of business. And dealing drugs, while not a legally-sanctioned business, is still a business. Sam reports that they're finding their local gang list is blossoming like flowers in spring.

"Local" is misleading-- the gangs are oriented toward California and Chicago. Some of the members really are from there. (I was not aware that Bakersfield, CA was a gang haven.) But they're showing up in Sam's neck o' the woods, and they're getting pretty bad. There have been some rather heavy drive-by's of houses. That crap doesn't fly much, in semi-rural Texas.

My good buddy LawDog, further up the (different) road, is similarly working in a hub town, with similar gang problems.

In the small town that I work for, we're too close to other much larger towns and cities-- the gangs aren't really a problem so much as the individual naughty folk.

Half a decade ago, when he got his third arrest in as many days for it, Sam had observed to me that "the whole world's on meth, now." We agreed that it wasn't the possession of methamphetimine that got us worked up-- it was the lifestyle that was repeatedly surrounding our meth users. (Theft, burglary, robbery, criminal mischief, fights, DWI...) He told me last night that in his current town, he's seeing a year's worth of our old city's bad guys in a shift.

I may ride out with ol' Sam one of these nights. No, I don't want to go work with his city, at all. But it might be enlightening to see how they do things there. Just to see.

Professional. (Student.)

Recall that test that I went in to get? Turns out that I got a 92. It was a take-home test that my professor had given to us two weeks before, and I started working on it just after midnight of the morning that it was to be turned in. My wife is furious at me for getting an A on something that I put so little effort into (It's 40% of my semester grade.). "You'll never learn if you don't get stomped with a D or something when you do that! Instead, you get rewarded for procrastinating!" she fumed. "How do you do that?!?" (It was just a 12 page paper, plus a page of works cited.)

"I did it because this is the crap that I've been thinking about for over ten years," I answered. This is what I do."

And by that, I mean that I evaluate the state of our Homeland Security from a street-level bureaucrat's perspective, and from a graduate student's perspective.

And I play with kids in sandboxes like this one, and this one, and this one, and... well, lots of smart folk.

My evaluation of Homeland Security is that we're spending $58 Billion a year real money (and losing another ~$40B) for something that doesn't work. The guys that we're catching? The cases are thin, man. They're usually turned in or caught by citizens. And TSA, which won't publish its efficacy (National Security, don't you know) is rumored to be missing 70% of what it's there for, while being proven publicly to be responsible for thefts, frauds, inappropriate gropings, ridicule by public servants, and general abuse of office.

How many freedoms do we want to give up? Remember how we said "They hate us for our freedom?" Have we decided "Well there's your problem, right there!"?!?

Shooting the kid.

The other day, Brownsville cops shot and killed a 15 year old boy who was brandishing a gun in a school with over 700 kids in it.

The family is upset, saying it was unnecessary use of force*. The boy was just an 8th grader. He was a Good Student**. He was a Good Boy. Active in his church. Not affiliated with gangs. It was only a pellet gun. They shouldn't have shot a minor and certainly not more than once, and DEFINITELY not in the back of the head. Tragic over-reaction, says the family.

Really? Let's listen to the 911 call.  Huh. People were bunkered down. The kid was roaming the halls of a school full of kids. He'd been told repeatedly to put the gun down. He was not in Taser range. He'd said that he was not afraid to die. He was displaying this:

I've posted my concerns about bullet magnets before, and written of an incident almost ten years ago with one. I recall how, at that time, when I presented the boy with his own Airsoft version of a CZ75 from my own holster, the kid didn't even recognize his own plastic gun:

In Brownsville:
The boy threatened people with the gun, which looked very realistic.
The boy talked about not being afraid to die.
The boy was mobile in a school full of potential victims and hostages.
The boy had been challenged, and refused to put the apparent weapon down.
Bullets from the gun of a juvenile kill people just as dead as those from the gun of an adult.
This was sadly a suicide by cop, performed by an unstable kid.

The Brownsville cops did what they had to do.
And that's a damned shame.



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*In that ridiculous story, the reporter does his Live! stand-up in Dallas, TX. Even using Google Earth to stretch a line from Dallas to Brownsville, it's 475 miles, and that takes you over the Gulf of Mexico. Google Maps says that the short route to drive it (through Victoria) is actually 529 miles. Why the network thought that it means ANYTHING to have the reporter stand outside in Dallas, TX is beyond me. It would make about as much sense to have a reporter stand outside of a mobile van in New York City to report on a shooting in Hampstead, NC. (which is the same distance by air.)


** Nothing like getting it right the third time. My 8th grader is only 13, and actually started 8th grade when she was only 12. By age 15, I was about 6'4", 200+ lbs, and wore my first beard as a sophomore in high school. Physically, I was indistinguishable from a grown man.

Random ThanksWednesday Thoughts.

• --I'm halfway through my second six pack of Left Hand Brewery Milk Stout beer in as many weeks. Not only does it not suck, but it is my favorite stout, now. Yeah, it's that good. And they live up their tag line: "Dark and delicious, America's great milk stout will change your perception about what a stout can be."  I like many bitter beers, but most stouts out there can taste too sour for my preference. Not this stuff.
• --I stayed up until past 2:00PM after a 12 hour shift last night that ended (ostensibly) at 06:00AM. Why do I do that to myself?
• --Well, part of the reason was that I just realized that Having A Kindle Means Never Having To Delay Gratification, so when I saw yet another reference to The Guns Of The South and yet again realized that while I knew the story, I hadn't yet read it, I clicked Download, and started reading it 30 seconds later.
• --My sergeant called me at 4:30PM to borrow a .22 LR rifle to put down a sick cat. How the hell is it that: A: Our P.D. doesn't have one, and B: A sergeant in a Texas Police Department doesn't have one? 20 minutes later he brought it back with only one round left in the 7 round magazine. I didn't ask.
• --My brother dropped by shortly thereafter, and started digging through my refrigerator for a soft drink. All I had to offer was Topo Chico. He was unfamiliar, which was odd to me. What Texas boy, who grew up eating in taquerias, doesn't know the greenish-glassed goodness of that mineral water? I mixed him up an orange Italian soda with it.
• --Looking at the link to Topo Chico, above, I was surprised to notice that they were advertising it in a twist-off cap plastic bottle, which admittedly was the traditionally greenish clear color.  I've only ever gotten it in the returnable lift-cap bottles that feel so cold in the hand when you're hot.
• --The tag line that they say in their little video on the Topo Chico site is "¡Siempre cae bien!" This means something like "Always falls well," which I suppose means that it's a good pour. But I thought that I heard them say, "Simply dive in!" I've always heard that the tiny bubbles created by waterfalls create an aerated water that will not sustain buoyancy, and people have been known to drown when diving into waterfall pools. I looked it up once, curious of the myth, and found out that there's something to it. But what of carbonated beverages? They actually can lift things to the surface that don't normally float. Example? Toss a grape into a glass of champagne or fresh club soda. Bubbles form on the grape, lifting it up to the surface. At that point, the bubbles pop on the surface, and the now-unsupported grape sinks, and the cycle continues until the drink goes flat. So which is it? Would I float or sink in a vat of Topo Chico, were I to Simply Dive In? What if I dived into the pool at the bottom of a free-fall waterfall of Topo Chico?
• --How much would that experiment cost me?
• --I'll bet it'd really tickle to do that if you did it while skinny-dipping.
• --Having thought that thought, I'm afraid that I can't drink anymore TC until I've verified the source of it isn't a bottling plant at the base of a heavily-used waterfall.
• --I recently found out that a mentally-ill guy that I put in jail for an illegal weapon, just so that he could get some social services, got 37 days. A gang-banger that I arrested for Agg Assault Deadly Weapon plead it down to Deadly Conduct and got two days. That's not fair.
• --My daughter just got a "Show Rabbit" for Ag this week. That means that, while she's out of town with her sister and my wife, I've got a rabbit. If you're keeping count, the menagerie is now: 1 gold fish, 2 cats, 3 chickens, and a black (pedigreed) rabbit.

Cowards all.

If you don't do something to stop an adult from abusing children, when you have full knowledge of it? You're a coward.

When you read the findings of fact by the grand jury investigation against former Penn State coach Gerald Sandusky, you see a pattern: Again and again and again, adults caught the guy sexually forcing himself upon young boys, and they did nothing.   In at least two of the instances listed, adult men actually personally observed the retired coach engaged in sexual assaults of a prepubescent or adolescent boy, and they walked away.  I wonder how they felt later about doing nothing to interrupt the activity?

Some called his organization. Some talked it over with their own co-workers. Some talked to the university (where some of the actions took place).  The first case reported was from back in 1994. 

Sandusky had started a program called The Second Mile, which took at-risk kids in. He had a lot of access to kids of that age. No one knows how many children he victimized over the years.

If you find out that someone is being hurt, and you do nothing to stop it, then* you're a coward.

Be better than that, please.

_____________________________________
*regardless of the fact that failure to report the abuse is in itself a violation of the law...

Self-Justification

Tam, as she often does, hit the nail on the head:

"Having a dedicated Agency responsible for "gun crimes" creates an incentive to find and, if necessary, manufacture gun crimes in order to justify their existence."

It is not because I'm a generalist that I am annoyed at the BATF. Hey, I'm all for specialization, in complicated areas. I just recently did a sexual assault investigation with the assistance of a larger city investigator who specializes in that, specifically on children. (And bless his heart for that. I would get burnt out within about 2 months of that work.) Two weeks ago, I provided some intel to a detective who specializes in copper theft. (Note: detectives who work in such areas are GOLD MINES for info on the meth trade in their area.) When I have a financial crime, I know just the detective to call on for help, and she's brilliant. Time to lift fingerprints? I call a neighboring crime lab. Specialization makes sense, in a lot of areas. Those fellows are better at it than I am, due to their familiarity with the topic. They are all subject matter experts.

Large cities generally break down their police department's investigative bureaus into sections like Property Crime, Violent Crime, Sex Crimes, Juvenile Crime, and Homicide. That's fine; there has to be some way to delegate cases. But when you create an entire agency that specializes in a specific type of crime, you run into problems. What if that type of crime is down that year? Their budget could be in jeopardy.

The problem is compounded when the premise of the crime fighting is in question, in the first place.

But we have a system in this nation, good or bad, that dictates how guns are sold from dealers. It's hackneyed, but it's followed. As FFL licencees are generally quite law-abiding folks, the prospect of committing felonies rightfully scares hell out of them. So obvious straw purchases are not permitted. Clear felonies in firearms purchases are denied. Unless. Unless the aforementioned hackneyed system is intentionally sabotaged by the agency ordering its use, to create more crimes for that agency to investigate.

This would be akin to the FBI ordering that the back door to banks be left unlocked, and the vaults be left ajar, with the alarm passcode be scrawled in pencil on the wall next to the door.

I believe that I've mentioned before that using numbers to try to promote your own crime-fighting agency is a double-edged sword. Trying to pump them up is a Bad Idea, friends. Look, you chief administrators: You're spin doctors, right? Right. If crime stats are down, we all know that you can just say "Look at what an effective job that we've done! Our agency needs more resources to continue in our quest to stamp out crime!" And if crime stats are up, you get to sound the alarm that "Now, more than ever, we need more resources to fight the growing trend of crime!" You can serve it up either way. We all know that.

You don't have to make more. Got it?
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While at a nearby police range recently, I had to wait for the local ATF agents to finish their stuff. One of them, a friendly lady agent, chatted with me for a few minutes. I enjoyed our talk, but wondered if she was as annoyed by my shirt as I was by her hat. Her aftermarket custom hat was similar the standard ATF ballcap, but with the words "Mt. Carmel" embroidered in smaller letters below the agency letters. Marvy.

She didn't remark on my shirt, which I had ordered a decade ago through the assistance of the now-famous author and then fellow TFL denizen, Larry Correia:


I don't know if she understood the meaning behind the words "MOLON LABE." If she did, I suspect that she would have been confused as to why I, a cop, ordered the shirt, and why I, a cop, still wear the shirt.

Meanwhile, I don't have to guess whether the sentiment would have been understood by the Texas Ranger recently seen in the area with the Gonzales battle flag scrimshawed on the outside grip panel of his ivory stocks of his 1911 pistol.

But there I go, taking up for generalists. :)

Remember the collar-bomber bank heist story?

Back in August, 2003, pizza delivery man Brian Wells robbed a bank with a bomb locked around his neck. When the cops caught him, he sat on the ground in front of a police car, while they all waited for the bomb squad. On camera, he exploded 15 minutes later.

Well, Wired Magazine writer Rich Schapiro wrote a superb story on that case, which really, finally gives us The Rest Of The Story.

Go read.

"Hey, she said she was 18!"

North Texas attorney Richard Gladden is trying to get the statutory rape law repealed. His argument is that if an adult didn't know that the juvenile was under-aged, then it shouldn't be a crime for him to have consensual sex with that juvenile. The stories told by the reporter are very compelling*. Innocent servicemen, preyed upon by sexually-advanced teens with women's bodies who claim to be full adults. Their lives ruined by felony convictions and lifetime sex offender registration.

They showed some pictures of girls with developed figures and their faces blurred out, as evidence that you just can't tell. How were these men --properly the victims themselves-- to know that these little seductresses weren't adults?

Hey, I know that the average age of the onset of puberty has dropped remarkably in the last 100 years or so, but this sounds the same as those morons who whine, "How can you even tell if she wanted it? I mean, I was getting mixed signals from that bus driver..." The fact is, if you're grown up enough to have consensual sex, then you need to be grown up enough to know who you're potentially making a baby with, or trading your next infection with.


If you can't tell that this kid isn't 18, you're not doing any kind of due diligence between your ears.

The funny thing is, I think that we've got too many felonies, and I think that it's pretty dumb that there's no graduation between "illegal, but not a felony," and "wholesale felony."

Just this month, I had to turn down a complainant's case of Sexual Assault Of A Child, which the victim's mother had brought to me. It seems that her kid, at 15, was having sex with an actor who was 18. Sexual Assault, right? Well, Texas Penal Code provides an affirmative defense if the actor is not greater than 3 years older than the victim. In this case, the actor was 2 years and 9 months older than the complainant's kid. Had the kid been 4 months younger, then I would have had a third degree felony case to deal with. Just 100 days one way or the other made the difference between a felony and no crime at all in this state. Can't we graduate it a little bit, like Theft and Criminal Mischief?

What bugs me about this is that, should Counselor Gladden's proposed legal change be made, every dadgummed pedophile with a van, a bag of candy, and a map to the parks and elementary school bus routes in the state is going to claim "Hey, I didn't know! She said she was taking classes at State U when I complimented her tricycle and offered her some Jesus Juice!"

________________________

*You've got to laugh at the graphic, though. When they mention that the Marine was arrested with the girl in Yuma, AZ, the screen filled with a map showing the location of Yuma. Not that this had any real bearing on the story. They just thought that you might want to know where Yuma was, apparently.

Well, at least her credibility is shot.

Two years ago, Washington D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said that the availability of handguns in the city would make the city more dangerous. The Supreme Court (where she was disarmed to enter, to her delight) overturned D.C.'s thirty year ban on handguns, and we have ended up with the lowest homicide rate in Washington since the 1960's.

But Chief Lanier has a reason for this:

Chief Cathy Lanier attributes the continuing drop to more community involvement, aggressive pursuit of gun crimes and better technology.

So what was she doing from 2006 to 2008? All of a sudden, community involvement and better technology has made this massive leap forward? Before 2008, the DC Metro P.D. didn't aggressively pursue gun crimes, but decided to do so, now?

In other news, injuries due to slipping and falling in the blood in the streets are down. Officials report that this is due to citizens wearing better foot gear.