Bad night to be hammer-murderers.

You know, the sooner we implement sensible carpentry tool control, the sooner we'll have peace in our time.

Hurt feelings

I've cut him breaks before.

I've counseled him before.

I've dropped by his house and checked on his status, before.

On this particular night, I had to pull him over again.

And he lied to me.

And I told him I had caught him.

And he lied to me again.

And I told him that I had caught him, and gave him another chance.

And he lied to me again, and threw his friends under the bus.

And I arrested him. Gently.

And I took him to the P.D. Carefully.

And I sat him down without cuffs. Unsafely.

And I read him his rights. Dutifully.

And I asked him to write me a statement. Dutifully.

And he threw his friends and family under the bus. Legibly.

And I witnessed his signature to his confession. Dutifully.

And I began the book-in paperwork. Stolidly.

And he began to complain. Childishly.

And I continued with the paperwork, moving on to his PC affidavit. Studiously.

And he continued to complain. Viciously.

And I continued to write his rather lengthy PC affidavit. Doggedly.

And he began to hurl insults. Personally.

And I placed him in handcuffs. Safely.

And he continued to spit personal insults. Vitriolically.

And I called for another officer to join me. Blandly.

And he proceeded to come up with new attacks. Ichorously.

And the other officer arrived. Dutifully.

And the prisoner attacked him. Verbally.

And the officer engaged. Verbally.

And I intervened. Peacefully.

And I calmed the boy down. Reasonably.

And I turned back to my paperwork. Haggardly.

And he began the verbal abuse again. Insistently.

And he made veiled comments about our personal lives. Threateningly.

And I warned him not to say anything that could get him in trouble. Evenly.

And he calmed right down. Temporarily.

And he cast wild aspersions about our character. Blindly.

And we chuckled about the inaccuracy. Wryly.

And I transferred him to the transport officer. Gladly.

And I buckled him into the cruiser. Carefully.

And I wished him good luck. Sincerely.

And I clocked out, went home, and drank a beer. Unhappily.

Deadly force is authorized.

Through Marko and John Shirley, we hear of the story of scumbag Paul Landingham, a 37 year old Salem, OR man who attacked and began to rape a woman on crutches. While residents of the apartments behind the scene listened and looked on, the woman called for help. NOTHING would have been done, but for a car full of good Samaritans stopping. Three men hopped out and issued Mr. Landingham the ass-whipping he so richly deserved before he was arrested by the police.

Pretty-boy, Emo-esque, whiney Keith Cole is seen on camera, telling of how terrible it was that this bastard could just try to take her humanity. . . but he did nothing. None of the other apartment residents who heard the attack did, either. Shades of Kitty Genovese. John quite rightly points out that Keith Cole should be ashamed of himself. Indeed, he must never again call himself a man. Stopping a sexual assault in progress is certainly a worthwhile time to employ deadly force, if you're not tough enough to beat the bastard up.

_ _ _
Even after Tennessee v. Garner, deadly force is still authorized to re-apprehend escaped prisoners. Especially escaped armed murderers. Who just killed a cop to escape.

But the cops in Providence, RI didn't kill Esteban Carpio after he shot Det. Sgt Allen with the detective's own gun in April, 2006. They re-arrested him 45 minutes later, and he was shortly marched into a courtroom with a spitmask on. His relatives declared police brutality when they saw his swollen face. Interestingly, so did the reporters and analysts in this news story on the situation. Apparently, they were able to determine that Mr. Carpio's head injuries (which he fully recovered from) were sustained from unlawful force, rather than from the 60-foot leap from the interview room window, or from lawful struggle with him while he was being detained.

"The boy clearly took a beating," says a news woman. Carpio (the "boy") was a 26 year old man, in custody for the stabbing murder of an 81 year old woman.

It's frankly impressive that he walked into the courtroom alive and under his own steam, after having been arrested by the acquaintances of the cop he had just murdered. An FBI inquiry found no improper actions by the arresting cops.

Look-- I'm a professional cop, and I've NEVER given a late hit on an arrestee. I don't advocate it, and I never will. But in these situations-- both of which would have merited deadly force-- I frankly wouldn't have been too critical of the occasional fist or boot to the noggin of the bad guy.

Not a misogynist. NOT.

Look, I probably hold women to higher standards than I do men. They don't have that testosterone poisoning that we do, which makes us want to solve simple problems (e.g.: "The neighbor's dog is crapping in my yard.") with complicated or at least complicating solutions ("I'll settle his hash!" Blam! Blam! Blam! "Is that bullhorn coming from a helicopter?"). Ladies see sex, conflict, and self worth very differently, on the average, than does a man. Usually for the better.

But, boy, when you run across the dumber ones... it'll put you into a spell of the cranky mumblings that people might misinterpret to think that you're judging all women, by the actions of a few.

"Grumble mumble grumble idiot couldn't find her mumble grumble if she used both hands and called Directory Assis... grumble, mumble... "

Exhibit A:

Dumb Woman: "Officer, I'm so glad you stopped."

Me: "Well, it seemed like the thing to do; you kept following me."

DW: "I need to report a Hit and Run."

Me: [Tensing to run out and stop the perpetrator, but then stopping myself.] "Where and how long ago did it happen? You've been following me for over three blocks."

DW: "It was over at that shop? You know, across from the school?"

Me: [After waiting a second for clarification and getting none.] "Which school? There are several. What shop?"

I finally dragged out of her which shop (only by establishing what they sell).

Me: "That's a couple of miles from here. How long ago did this happen?"

DW: "Oh, it was right before I dropped Junior off at school-- say about 7:50? Don't they ring the bell at 8:00? I just know we were running late."

Me: "Ma'am, it's almost 10:30 AM, now. Why are you just now reporting a hit and run, 2.5 hours after it occurred?"

DW: "I had to get Junior to school."

Me: [Putting that aside for the moment and noticing a tightness in my jaw I hadn't noticed earlier that morning.] "So how did this happen? Wait. Let me bring you a piece of paper to draw it out for me."

After I diagrammed the parking lot on one of the sheets of typing paper I always carry on my clip board for just such exigencies, I drew a compass rose to indicate "N" in the corner, labeled the road adjacent, and handed it to her, asking her to show me how the crash occurred. She rotated the clip board around, and around, and around, and asked what the "Z" meant (seriously), and said that she couldn't make heads or tails of the diagram, and didn't know where everything was. I pointed out buildings, parking lot entrances, and streets. I may not be Michelangelo, but I've been drawing crash sketches for a large fraction of my existence on this earth, and I'm pretty competent at it.

I wondered not aloud whether this woman should be driving at all. Ever.

By doing something akin to the Sullivan/Keller exercise ("Yes! That's water, Helen!") where I took my pen and carefully outlined the articles on the sketch while she held the clipboard (that was important, apparently), I actually directed the pen in her hand to items in the parking lot to areas around the property, I got her oriented.

(Now that looks like a snark at Helen Keller. It's not. Helen Keller was one of the smartest people who ever lived. She, even with her being deaf and blind, would have understood the diagram faster, and would have conveyed to me how the crash had occurred more concisely. And, to look at the numerous dings and bits of body damage on this lady's car, would have been a better driver.)

So I established that she had gotten backed into by another car in the parking lot. She then pulled into the spot next to it, and watched the other car begin to back away. She went to great trouble to describe the car, and the kid in the back seat, and even the driver, which was helpful. I asked her the make of the car, but that was an exercise of sheerest optimism. She did, however, finally, as an afterthought, after I had asked twice whether she had it, present me with the license tag number that she had written down.

I asked her what she had done when the other car drove away.

DW: "I called my husband, of course!"

Of course.

Me: "On your cell phone?"

DW: "Yes. I could still see the car driving away, and wanted to know what to do."

Me: "Where did the car go?"

DW: "Oh, it got in line to drop of the kid at the school."

Me: "The kid in the car? He goes to school here in town?"

DW: "Yes."

Me: "And you saw the other car drop off the kid. How long did it take to drop a kid off and leave?"

DW: "Well, because I had to call my husband, I was about 10 places back of her, but it was busy, so I guess about 4 or 5 minutes."

Me: "Tell me again why you didn't call the police?"

DW: "Well, I didn't know what to do. And I didn't have your number."

Me: "You didn't know the number to 911?"

DW: "Well, I didn't think I should, you know..."

Me: "Ma'am, for a Hit & Run in progress, calling 911 is completely appropriate."

Sensing an accident report in my future, I asked for her driver license and insurance document. She produced a card with the name of a man she identified as her husband on it. I noticed the discrepancy between her license address and her insurance, and asked if she had moved recently.

"No, we moved 2 years ago," she said, looking at me like I was a fool for not knowing this.

"Okay, you might want to go notify the D.P.S. of your current address, so that you don't get a citation from someone," I said helpfully. Texas law requires you to notify of change of address within 30 days of moving. No, I had no intention of writing her for it, but someone might, so I thought I would just let her kn...

D.W.: [Aghast] "You're going to give me a ticket?!? I'm the victim! What did I do wrong?!?"

Me: "No, ma'am, I was just..."

D.W.: "I can't believe this! Some horrible person almost kills me, slams into me, and you want to write me a ticket!" she was warming up to the subject, so I raised my voice.

Me: "Ma'am! I am not writing you a citation for anything, here."

She immediately calmed down, and said in a self-satisfied tone, "Well I'm glad you came to your senses," she said tritely. "I'm the victim, after all. If you're not going to write me a ticket any more, may I have my stuff back," she said as she gestured toward the license and insurance card that I still held, forgotten, in my hand.

"Uh, sure. Let me just get your information written down for my report," I said, transcribing quickly. "So you now live at this address?" I referred to the address on the insurance card.

"Nooo." She was completely unable to hide her disgust at my stupidity. "That's my husband's address."

The address was only 5 miles away. "You are estranged from your husband, then?"

"No, we are divorced, for the last 5 years," she said slowly, as if to an idiot child.

"Have you remarried?" I asked. Oh, trust me. I knew it really had no bearing on anything, but I just wanted to know how much I was understanding. Or misunderstanding. Whatever.

D.W.: "No."

Me: [Pondering] "So it was your ex-husband that you called while the other driver drove away, rather than calling 911."

D.W.: "Well, yes. Of course." [Surprised that I hadn't realized that from the start.]

I disengaged as fast as possible.
_ _ _
Exhibit B:

Later that day, I was typing up a report at the P.D. when Dispatch notified me that I had a "Meet Complainant" call at the P.D.

"Uh, I'm right here," I reported. "The door's unlocked."

"She says that she's been parked out front for 10 minutes but can't find anyone," the dispatcher advised. I had been working on paperwork in the office by the front door for half an hour. I opened the door and saw an older woman pensively smoking in a small sedan out front.

"Uh, show me on scene," I told Dispatch.

"There you are!" chided the older woman as she got out of her car.

"How can I help you?" I asked as I held open the front door for her to come into the P.D.

"You can tell me why you arrested my grandson today!" she announced.

"Ma'am, I haven't made an arrest today. And if I'm not mistaken, neither has any other officer with my police department today, because we've had no arrests today. What's your grandson's name?" I asked as I opened a computer browser to the public website to look up the boy's name. "How old is he?" I asked, figuring that it was possible that he wasn't even on the public site, because he was obviously a young teenager, and would be in the juvenile system.

"26," she said.

I was aghast. She went on. "I already paid his tickets with y'all last month! You shouldn't have put him in jail for them!"

"He's in jail for traffic citations?" I asked as the page came up. Yep, Mid-Sized City P.D. had arrested him for warrants issued on unpaid traffic citations out of our city an hour and a half before. Before I looked up his history, I asked if he had been to jail before.

"Oh, my word, yes. Y'all just won't leave him alone! I've had to bail him out 5 times this year. It's not his fault that he gets in trouble-- he has A.D.D."

What do you say to that? I pulled up his history, and saw that A.D.D. had caused him to be arrested for stealing, for driving with a suspended driver's license, for possessing dope, and for driving while intoxicated. Damn those bastard cops, and double-damn the greedy drug companies for charging too much for Ritalin!

I wondered why she was in such a hurry to get him out. "Does he have a job?" I asked.

"Yes!" She said as she beamed proudly. "He starts next week. As a matter of fact, yesterday we got the judge from another charge to postpone his upcoming court appearance so that he could go to work."

"But he's not working now, so..." I began, thinking to suggest that he sit out the tickets for a few days, and also thinking that she would learn that her darling grandson wouldn't just waste away to nothing if he spent a night in hoosegow for his own actions or failures to act.

"A.D.D.! I told you! It's not his fault that he can't keep a job! Plus, with you people always putting him in jail, it's hard for him to keep a job, anyway. He gets depressed," she accused.

"Well," I said, turning around from the computer, "He's never been in our system, so we don't have any information on him. I guess that he just didn't pay his tickets."

"But you put a warrant out for him!" she accused.

"No ma'am, that was the municipal court that issued the warrant, after he failed to appear," I said.

"Well, I'll pay right now for those tickets --but I could swear that I paid for them last month-- so you can let him out," she said, reaching into her purse.

"You'll need to discuss that with the municipal court clerk," I said. "But he can't get out until he's been bonded out at the jail."

"Can't you just call and have him let go?" she asked. "After all-- it's not his fault. I was the one who didn't pay his tickets."

I sat there astounded. "No, ma'am. He has to stay arrested until he posts bond to appear in court, or until a judge orders him released. Aren't you tired of bonding out a 26 year old man?"

She pursed her lips, nodded, and said, "I sure am! Why can't you just leave him alone? Can't you see that it's hard enough on him as it is?"

"I'm sure it is," I said, as I held open the door for her to leave. "Good luck ma'am. Buh bye."

_ _ _
And so on.

My whole day went like that. I had to run over to the municipal court to calm down a mother who was lambasting the court clerk who had the audacity to demand that her own 25 year old son (who was not present) honor the payment plan that he had signed to pay for his citations for driving without driver license, insurance, etc. The fact that her son had a much sought-after professional tradesman's license, a job, and a meth habit didn't seem to make her see why she shouldn't act as the sole point of contact on her little sonny boy's city court case.

I went to knock on the front door of a house where I found a three year-old playing unattended in the street. He was stopping traffic, literally. The mother complained that I was sticking my nose in where it didn't belong, and then got mad at me when I asked for her full name and date of birth, along with the child's. Hell yes, a report was going to be made.

I finished my day with a phone call from a woman who wanted advice on how to get her kid back from her ex-husband. There had been no custody agreement, because they hadn't been officially married. He wanted his car back from her before he would give her back their child. She, who didn't have a driver's license, didn't want to give him the satisfaction. He just wanted the car, she said, so that he could sell it to buy more meth before he went to prison in two weeks. He had an appointment to check himself into custody to serve his 2 year felony sentence, she said.

"Sounds like a civil issue to me," I said. "Consult a family law attorney, and get a property judgement and a custody order." I hung up as fast as I could.
_ _ _

I love women. I think womanhood is admirable, and the best people that I know are women. I love and respect my wife and my mother, among many, many wonderful ladies. I am bringing up two girls who I know will become respectable, great ladies.

But man, did I meet a BUNCH of dingbats, the other day.

Watch This Space

Friends, Romans, Countryman, Gentle Readers:



I know I've been remiss. Here I've got the best and most loyal readership this blog's ever had:

...and I'm lettin' you down on content.

But never fear, Sweet Clean Good Strong Gentle Reader-- I've got Content with a capital K coming up!

I've got snark on shootings.

I've got denials of misogyny.

I've got a rebuild of an old derisive post on dumb pistol marketing ideas.

All this and more!

--Right after I finish my damned Research Methods test.

Stay tuned and remember: Keep Watching The Skies!

The worst month.

August is finally ending.

31 days of hell.

August is the Sunday afternoon of months. While Sunday afternoon is when laundry is done and the dread of the future week's work sets upon you, August is an entire month of anticipation of school for the kids, and buying clothes and supplies for same.

It's the month I register for more grad school classes, and try to find funds and books for same.

It's the month we let the yard go brown, because watering it is just futile.

It's the month we have the last chance to go on vacation, but don't, because it's just too damned hot, and we've got to buy school clothes.

If you get a chance to go fishing in August in Texas, your brand-new fishing license expires on the morning of September 1st.

Unless you've been obsessive about watering, the tomatoes stop bearing in August; it's too hot.

The temperature here in August will always reach triple digits and the highest mark of the year, after a long summer that started in May. In truth, it's the fatigue of the enduring oppression of the heat that beats a person down.

There's no holiday in the month of August. Oh, there might be something that appears on a calender under "X Day," but nobody cares; there're no days off. Go endure. Go do it. Go...

"Why don't you just go screw off?" Family fights seem more likely. And why not? The summer and all our plans for it are gone. Wasted. And now there's no point. And you're part of the problem. "You didn't get off your..."

It's really just too hot to go do anything.

And September is a false hope; it's just as hot, but with thunderstorms and all the starting-ups that you have to deal with. There is no hope of redemption until October.

We'll all do better just to accept it, and rail no more against the awfulness of this most despicable twelfth of a year.

But don't despair; this too shall pass.

Autumn's coming.

"Everything Happens For A Reason."

Mom riffs on this topic some:

"Yes, I do believe everything happens for a reason, but I happen to think some of the reasons are pretty horrible. And some are just cosmic. That one of the factors
of human nature often is to find a silver lining or fix the problem as best as
can be done in no way mitigates the fact (to me) that life has pretty awful
parts to go along with some really wonderful parts. And I don't believe that my
faith will protect me or set an umbrella over me and the ones I love. But I
don't see any reason to be fearful, either."

Go read.

Apparently, the Blogger 'bot fears me,

and thinks that I may be a Spam Blog.

What the heck?!?

Is it because of the uncharacteristically large spike in hits from the Collaboration? (Thanks for coming, folks! More good stuff to hit the site soon-- stay tuned!)

Anyway, they say that it may be two days before I can post...

Wait.

If you're reading this, then I can post anyway, despite the red and yellow strip along the top of the screen...

Edit: The embargo seems to have been lifted. Took about 4 hours.

Collaboration excuses and whining.

It's been done for a coupla days. Just need to clean it up and have AD and Babs peruse it.

Issues:

Today I pick up the biggest truck Budget will rent me. ("Are you sure you don't have anything that requires a commercial license to drive?" I asked.) At about $100/day, my bill will be about $220. Add-ons. Feh.

I'm putting everything remaining in my house into that thing, and dumping half of it into a storage unit, and the other half into a little rent house I'm getting. While it's a nice little house, it's a rent house. Rent houses are the worst of both worlds-- you're paying someone else to live there, you own nothing, and you still have to mow the damned lawn.

The upside is, the landlady's apparently a peach, she's willing to go month-to-month while we look for a house to buy, and the commute to work is about a block and a half.

Closing Friday. Moving all this weekend.

Haven't even begun to think about getting an ISP set up at the new address. Or water. Or electricity. (Note: Do those things.)

Are you seeing where I'm going with this? The whole Blog thing? It's gonna get set aside, a tad.

Sorry 'bout that.