DarkStar Spouts Off

Dead Cop, Few Care

A cop was killed when a person chose to escape from a crime in progress by running the cop over. The suspected killer was killed while in jail. He was in solitary confinement and under watch. It turns out that he was strangled to death.

The prison guards aren't talking.

It wasn't clear why the correctional officers reportedly declined to answer questions. Sgt. Curtis Knowles, president of the county's correctional officers union, said the union's position is that its members can be interviewed only during work hours and with a union representative or attorney present, unless a criminal investigation is underway.

However, a state police spokesman said the agency considers its efforts a "criminal investigation."

And the police are mad the policeman's death is not getting the attention it deserves.

County police expressed frustration yesterday that the controversy over White's death seemed to be overshadowing the death of Findley, whose funeral is scheduled for tomorrow.

Well, they can thank the person/people who killed the cop-killer suspect.

Here is some attention.

Let Me Understand This

Joe Horn is in his own home, looking at thugs rob HIS NEIGHBOR'S HOME, a home that is empty. He calls 911, tells the dispatcher what is going on, tells the dispatcher that he has a gun, and asks the dispatcher if he should go out there. The dispatcher, A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, tells him no but Joe Horn goes out there anyway.

He kills the thugs and the grand jury refuses to indict.

A Harris County grand jury decided today that Joe Horn should not be charged with a crime for shooting two suspected burglars he confronted outside his neighbor's home in Pasadena last fall.

The decision to clear Horn of wrongdoing came two weeks after the grand jury began considering evidence in the case, including Horn's testimony last week.

Horn, a 62-year-old retiree, became the focus of an intense public debate after the Nov. 14 shootings. Many supporters praised him as a hero for using deadly force to protect property, while others dismissed him as a killer who should have heeded a 911 operator's instructions to stay in his house and wait for police.

Let a Black man defend the life of his son and the man is convicted of a crime.

Ain't this some BULLSHIT!

A Slightly Raised Eye Brow

I'm not saying I have sympathies for those suspected of killing policemen, but this raises an eye brow for me.

A 19-year-old man accused of running down a Prince George's County police officer died yesterday in custody, less than 36 hours after he was charged in connection with the slaying.

Ronnie L. White was pronounced dead at Prince George's Hospital Center about an hour after he was found sitting on the floor of his cell beside his bunk, unresponsive and with no detectable pulse, officials at the county jail said.

White, of the 9100 block of Tumbleweed Run in the Laurel area of Howard County, had been charged with first-degree murder in Friday's death of Cpl. Richard S. Findley, 39. Two men in a pickup police believe was stolen hit Findley as they fled an apartment complex in Laurel. Police say White was the driver. Findley suffered massive head trauma and died a short time later.

Col. Gregory O. Harris, deputy director of operations for the county's Corrections Department, said he could not rule out the possibility that White committed suicide, but he stressed that there were no visible signs of trauma on him. He also said White had passed a medical and psychological evaluation when he entered the Upper Marlboro jail early Saturday and at that time "showed no signs of suicide or depression at all."

[UPDATE!]

It looks like the coronor is going to have to go into federal protective custody. He/she ruled the alleged police killer's death a homicide.

The death of a 19-year-old man who was found unresponsive yesterday in a jail cell less than 36 hours after he was charged with killing a Prince George's County police officer has been ruled a homicide, sources familiar with the investigation said today.

The state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has determined that Ronnie L. White had two broken bones in his neck and that he died from asphyxiation, according to a law enforcement official who was briefed in a telephone conference by the medical examiner's office.

Jail officials have said White was in solitary confinement and was last checked by a guard 15 minutes before he was found on the floor of his cell, not breathing and with no pulse.

Cops can't kill indiscriminately and get away with it. Otherwise there will be a breakdown in trust of the police from the population and this will spiral down into caos.

D.C. Police Say, "Your Papers Please!"

Oh, hell no!

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced a military-style checkpoint yesterday to stop cars this weekend in a Northeast Washington neighborhood inundated by gun violence, saying it will help keep criminals out of the area.

Starting on Saturday, officers will check drivers' identification and ask whether they have a "legitimate purpose" to be in the Trinidad area, such as going to a doctor or church or visiting friends or relatives. If not, the drivers will be turned away.

...

The checkpoint will stop vehicles approaching the 1400 block of Montello Avenue NE, a section of the Trinidad neighborhood that has been plagued with homicides and other violence. Police will search cars if they suspect the presence of guns or drugs, and will arrest people who do not cooperate, under a charge of failure to obey a police officer, officials said.

OH, HELL NO!!! The emphasis was added because the "failure to obey a police officer" is a straight up, bullish, HUMBLE charge!

I'm EXTREMELY BUSY but more later...

[ Update ]

I understand that when things get out of hand, the police have to clamp down to try to regain an appearance of order, but this is too much. Why not implement and/or increase foot patrols? Why not use overtime to have police in the area more? Why not working with people in the area to gain confidence so they can tell you what's happening?

This is so wrong.

Justice Requires This Necessary Evil

I have written that I think the handling of the FLDS children by Texas authorities was a grave injustice. I think that if they are forcing young girls to marry and then have sex, they should be charged with abuse, tried, and if convicted, buried under the jail. Justice requires this necessary evil.

SAN ANGELO, Tex., June 2 -- More than 440 children of an insular West Texas polygamist group began returning to their parents and their homes on Monday after two months in state custody, where they were exposed for the first time to a larger world that included bicycles, pepperoni pizza and news of moon landings.

A lower-court judge ordered the release here on Monday morning, after the Texas Supreme Court's rejection last Thursday of the state's arguments for seizing them in April from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Tex. By late afternoon, child-protection officials said that several dozen of the children were back home.

...

To regain custody, sect members had to promise to take parenting classes and not to abscond with their children. Some families opted to leave the compound to appease state authorities and improve their chances of keeping their children. And the sect must now reintegrate hundreds of children who, in foster care, have been immersed in the life of a typical American child.

But, again, Texas authorities went about this the wrong way, and again I'll write, the citizens of Texas will pay for it.

Oh,here's the way for them to get payback!

While those investigations continue, sparsely populated Schleicher County is wondering what role the polygamist group would play in their community now. The sect's leaders recently asked for a large number of voter-registration forms, but so far none of them have been returned.

Poetic Justice

Stop Snitching' cameraman convicted on drug charges

A federal jury today convicted on drug charges a West Baltimore man who acted as the cameraman for the notorious 'Stop Snitching' DVD, which used threats of violence to intimidate potential witnesses from helping police or testifying in court, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office.

Akiba Matthews, 35, of Baltimore, faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for distributing heroin and a maximum of 10 years in prison for gun possession, prosecutors said. He is scheduled to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on Aug. 7.

Since the video emerged in 2004 -- and a sequel in December 2007 -- law enforcement authorities have waged a campaign to counter the video's underlying theme, which police and prosecutors have said contributed to violence on city streets.

The video has also helped city prosecutors crack down on those who threaten and intimidate witnesses.

Texas Is About To Owe Them A Lot of Money

This started under the pretense of a girl calling "authorities" to say she was being sexually abused.

Court: Texas had no right to seize polygamist-sect children

SAN ANGELO, Texas - In a ruling that could torpedo the case against the West Texas polygamist sect, a state appeals court today said authorities had no right to seize more than 440 children in a raid on the splinter group's compound last month.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.

It was not clear when the children -- now scattered in foster homes across the state -- might be returned to their parents. The ruling gave a lower-court judge 10 days to release the youngsters from custody, but the state could appeal to the Texas Supreme Court and block that.

This case is starting to unravel, as it should. The authorities in this case seemed to have played fast and loose and now they SHOULD be facing serious trouble.

This Was My Concern About Voting ID

This was my major concern about mandating voter identification, and that was the type of identification that would be required to prove who you are. The hospital that held my birth certificate burned down. It took about a year to get an official birth certificate for me. For years, I used my baptismal certificate as a substitute for my birth certificate. Now I have the certificate and a passport, which I plan on always keeping up to date. When my cousin tried to get her mother's, my great aunt's, birth certificate, there was confusion concerning her date of birth. My aunt wasn't sure and the census records had different dates of birth for her. (She was born in the south and our family tree researchers saw this first hand as well as different spellings of the same person's name).

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote.

The measure would allow far more rigorous demands than the voter ID requirement recently upheld by the Supreme Court, in which voters had to prove their identity with a government-issued card.

Sponsors of the amendment — which requires the approval of voters to go into effect, possibly in an August referendum — say it is part of an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from affecting the political process. Critics say the measure could lead to the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of legal residents who would find it difficult to prove their citizenship.

Voting experts say the Missouri amendment represents the next logical step for those who have supported stronger voter ID requirements and the next battleground in how elections are conducted. Similar measures requiring proof of citizenship are being considered in at least 19 state legislatures. Bills in Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma and South Carolina have strong support. But only in Missouri does the requirement have a chance of taking effect before the presidential election.

There should be a grandfather clause for this. I don't know what the range should be, but I bet most native born Americans couldn't prove their citizenship status.

Hat tip: P6

College Drug Bust

I'm late posting about this drug bust, but I'm left to wonder some things.

1. Why doesn't there seem to be more public hand wringing over this? Is it because it's the beginning of the second quarter of dilly season known as the presidential election race?
2. Six fraternities and seventy-five students were involved in the drug bust. Just imagine that happening at an HBCU.
3. By the end of my first weekend at UVa, I found out which fraternities were known as the drug frats. I'll just say that those frats were included in this list.
   

   Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Kappa Psi, Phi Kappa Theta, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Sigma Alpha Mu and Theta Chi fraternities were suspended while the case on their involvement in the drug dealing is heard in court.

   My first year at UVa, I got to see the debauchery known as Easters. This article is WRONG when they state the mud bowl was ended at this time. And there was more than drinking going on. In fact, in 1986 or 1987, there was a drug bust at UVa that caused running back Barry Word to go to jail. But they still just scratched the surface.
4. I wonder what would happen if the police used resources to investigate drug use at major universities and colleges across the United States. Would there then be an outcry for "treatment" vs. "punishment"? Or, would it "just happen" with the current tweekers, i.e. meth users, getting treatment more so than jail time? (Read this, and this).
5. Does it matter that meth users are mainly white?

I Have Another Question

On Sunday's 60 Minutes, they had a segment concerning men in Dallas County, Texas who were wrongfully convicted of crimes, with the prosecutors office actually withholding evidence of innocence of those who were on trial. The segment was moving and VERY disturbing.

But what is more disturbing is how all of the people who, rightly, shouted from the rooftops about Nifong trying to railroad the Duke lacrosse players, NONE OF THEM have said squat about this.

So far, 17 men have been cleared in Dallas - that's more than most states. All were put on trial by prosecutors who worked for the legendary District Attorney Henry Wade. Wade was Dallas' top prosecutor for more than 30 years. He never lost a case he handled personally. But it turns out the record of Wade's office was too good to be true. And now, a new Dallas district attorney is focusing on the Wade legacy - it's a search for innocent men waiting to be exonerated.

Again, why haven't they said a word? And why is it that when I was searching for comments about this, it seems to be the "left leaning" blogs commenting on it the most? At least, they are first in the Google results.

Should I even ask how many people were executed who were not guilty of the crime they committed?

Sean Bell

• Did the police know, before hand, that Bell and some of the people with him at "prior contact with" the police? If not, and I think not, it doesn't matter that some of them had records.
• Fifty shots is a hell of a lot of shots. When a person has to reload and continue to fire, you are damn sure they aren't working on training memory, they are working on straight up fear, and IMO, are not in control.
• The New York police department union was able to negotiate a clause that states in police involved shootings, Internal Affairs is not allowed to interview police involved in the shooting for 3 days, if I remember correctly. That's three days. Imagine suspects being caught but allowed to be together for 3 days before they talk to investigators.
• How is it that the prosecutors in these cases suddenly become incompetent?

The Future: Illegal To Be Poor And Have Kids

This Texas case, that I've written about here and here, is becoming more disturbing. The following three paragraphs (emphasis added), from this Washington Post article, really highlights why I voiced prior concerns.
 

Now comes a legal fight with a twist. The state will argue that the sect's children are at risk at the compound, but not because every one of them has been physically or sexually abused.

Instead, they will say that the culture of the church, which encouraged girls to marry and bear children in their early teens, was a danger to any child immersed in it.

"There was a pervasive belief that children having children was what they were supposed to do," said Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

If they succeed in this, I can see authorities saying children should be taken away from parents who live in projects or crime infested areas, not because of the actions of the parents, but because the parents live in an area which authorities deem has a dysfunctional subculture.

It's bad enough that if D.S. 2.0 does something that makes me tan those hind parts in public, someone who doesn't agree with spanking, can call the cops and start a process that can remove my son from my home. But this is taking things to another level.

Domestic Violence

I may expand this later, or I may not. It all depends on how I feel.

After spending a good part of the day in a courtroom dealing with domestic violence cases, what I can say is, the cycle of domestic violence will continue until women, and men, are willing to stand up and let the process run its course. By this I mean, showing up for court and when they do, not dropping the charges.

"Baby. I'm sorry. We can be a family" works.

And when the women, and men, do follow through, today's court system isn't about getting a dangerous person off of the street, the court system is about "resolving" these cases as efficiently, to the court, as possible, let the woman or man filing the charges be damned.

Yes, I did see abused men.

Fishing For DNA [ UPDATED ]

OK, let me see if I understand this now.

Texas authorities remove children from their parents because of a call by a female who said she was under aged, forced to marry an older man, has a child, and is pregnant again.

Texas authorities raid the compound, gather the children and the mothers, and take them away. Meanwhile, from the last information I read, the female who made the call is still not able to be identified. [ Update ] See below. It was a hoax.

Now, the Texas authorities are taking DNA samples from the children and some adults to determine who are the real parents.

You will have to forgive me for thinking this is a fishing expedition. You will have to forgive me for thinking the authorities now know the telephone call was a hoax. You will have to forgive me for thinking this is the only way Texas authorities can determine if children are being born to under aged females.

If these people are sexually abusing young girls, then I have no problem with authorities arresting them and trying them and locking them under the jail. However, the basis of what caused this doesn't seem valid and people should be wary.

[ UPDATED ]

Now it appears that this was a hoax.

A Colorado woman with a history of making phony reports to police has been named by Texas Rangers as a "person of interest" who could have made the calls to a women's shelter that sparked the FLDS compound raid.

    Police arrested Rozita Estraletta Swinton, 33, at her Colorado Springs apartment Wednesday in connection with a February call to police there in which she pretended to be a young girl being held in a basement, said Colorado Springs police Lt. Skip Arms.

    Investigators also executed an evidentiary search warrant at Swinton's home and seized a number of items that indicated a possible connection between her and calls regarding the FLDS compounds in Colorado City, Ariz.; and Eldorado, Texas, the Texas Rangers said Friday in a press release. The items, which were not identified, will be evaluated and analyzed at various crime labs in Texas.

 

Now, isn't this something. My wife says "we" will be paying these people a lot of money. I'm going to hunt around to see who is upset about this, or because of the possibility of child abuse, people are willing to overlook this abuse of power.

5 - 10 Seconds Is Rape

I really don't know what to say:

According to testimony, the 18-year-old woman had just had sex with another man, and Mr. Baby asked whether he could "hit that" also.

...

Mr. Baby testified that the woman agreed, as long as he would stop when she told him to. The woman testified that Mr. Baby continued for five to 10 seconds after she asked him to stop.

Wow. He stopped 5 - 10 seconds after she told him to stop. I'm thinking it took about 3 seconds to register and then about another 2 - 3 seconds to say, "Huh?" and then the rest of the time to stop.

No means no, but damn. NO man, regardless of marital status, is safe from this.

This Case Is Disturbing

This case is disturbing on a number of levels.

If this is true, then you have a situation where grown men sexually abused young girls under the guise of religion.

If it is true or if it is not true, you have the authorities raiding a location based on a series of telephone calls and they can't locate the person who made the calls. They can't locate the person for whom they made the raid.

I'm troubled. Right now I think the call may not have been from a true victim.

About That Judge Who Gave A "Talking To" To Blacks Only

[UPDATES]

About the judge, Marvin Arrington, who gave a good "talking to" to a group of Blacks in his courtroom...

On Booker Rising, I commented: that it has been done before in the Baltimore area, and that a well known defense attorney had radio ads on local "hip hop" stations lamenting how he is tired of seeing Blacks in the court room. I also mentioned that a well known family run funeral home in the Baltimore area did the same thing. I asked, "What good did it do when the crime rate is still out of control?"

In the Baltimore area, a judge did the same thing. A well known defense attorney did the same thing in radio commercials on hip hop stations in Baltimore. A local funeral home did the same thing in Baltimore. The result?

The same ole same ole.

I understand his frustrations, but just talking won't do it. Only one on one intervention will do it.

This morning on The Tom Joyner Morning Show, the judge was interviewed (audio link here) and he stated that he has a scholarship program for Blacks studying law and that he is in the community working with young Blacks. That makes it a lot different than what Cosby did and, IMO, better. He's actually doing something more than talking.

More later.

Sharpton Gets Spanked

I had this post as a "featured post" because I thought what Sharpton did was disgusting. He should not have been defending the accused rapists of the Haitian woman who lived in Dunbar Village. Please check out this update. I'll post only a small excerpt.

In the past week, a rapidly-moving viral email campaign was launched, and thousands of concerned black citizens spread the word about a shocking crime against a Black woman and her 12 year old son, in which crimes against nature were committed. (read more details of the crime here)

This email, entitled “Stop Al Sharpton and the NAACP from endangering Black Women,”(source1) (source2) described a stunning betrayal in which the NAACP and Al Sharpton held a press conference and demanded bail consideration for three suspects in custody for the crime.

Again, please go to the link because it provides more background links.

DNA Database

Let me understand this.

If you are arrested as a suspect in a violent crime, your DNA goes into a database. What happens if you are not convicted? What happens if the charges are dropped?

In theory, this is a good tool. HOWEVER, given the Baltimore police RECENT history of locking people up on bogus charges, I don't like this bill at all.

The Baltimore police have arrested and put in jail:

• A teenager, in front of his house, who was talking to his cousin who had just given him a ride home. The boy spent 3 days in jail because he couldn't be arraigned in a timely manner. And after that, the charges were dropped. He has to sue to get his arrest record expunged.
• A meter maid parking violation officer, on duty, in her uniform, while she was ticketing a car.
• A man, on his porch in his back yard, for drinking a beer. He. Was. Drinking. A. Beer. On. His. Own. Property.
• A cart vendor who was moving his vending cart, even though he had all of the proper stickers and permits displayed.

No, I don't like this. I foresee sweeps based on bogus charges to collect DNA samples of everyone in the neighborhood.

Southern Baptist Convention Resolution On Racial Reconciliation

WHEREAS, Since its founding in 1845, the Southern Baptist Convention has been an effective instrument of God in missions, evangelism, and social ministry; and

WHEREAS, The Scriptures teach that Eve is the mother of all living (Genesis 3:20), and that God shows no partiality, but in every nation whoever fears him and works righteousness is accepted by him (Acts 10:34-35), and that God has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth (Acts 17:26); and

WHEREAS, Our relationship to African-Americans has been hindered from the beginning by the role that slavery played in the formation of the Southern Baptist Convention; and

WHEREAS, Many of our Southern Baptist forbears defended the right to own slaves, and either participated in, supported, or acquiesced in the particularly inhumane nature of American slavery; and

WHEREAS, In later years Southern Baptists failed, in many cases, to support, and in some cases opposed, legitimate initiatives to secure the civil rights of African-Americans; and

WHEREAS, Racism has led to discrimination, oppression, injustice, and violence, both in the Civil War and throughout the history of our nation; and

WHEREAS, Racism has divided the body of Christ and Southern Baptists in particular, and separated us from our African-American brothers and sisters; and

WHEREAS, Many of our congregations have intentionally and/or unintentionally excluded African-Americans from worship, membership, and leadership; and

WHEREAS, Racism profoundly distorts our understanding of Christian morality, leading some Southern Baptists to believe that racial prejudice and discrimination are compatible with the Gospel; and

WHEREAS, Jesus performed the ministry of reconciliation to restore sinners to a right relationship with the Heavenly Father, and to establish right relations among all human beings, especially within the family of faith.

Therefore, be it RESOLVED, That we, the messengers to the Sesquicentennial meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, assembled in Atlanta, Georgia, June 20-22, 1995, unwaveringly denounce racism, in all its forms, as deplorable sin; and

Be it further RESOLVED, That we affirm the Bibles teaching that every human life is sacred, and is of equal and immeasurable worth, made in Gods image, regardless of race or ethnicity (Genesis 1:27), and that, with respect to salvation through Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for (we) are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28); and


Be it further RESOLVED, That we lament and repudiate historic acts of evil such as slavery from which we continue to reap a bitter harvest, and we recognize that the racism which yet plagues our culture today is inextricably tied to the past; and

Be it further RESOLVED, That we apologize to all African-Americans for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime; and we genuinely repent of racism of which we have been guilty, whether consciously (Psalm 19:13) or unconsciously (Leviticus 4:27); and

Be it further RESOLVED, That we ask forgiveness from our African-American brothers and sisters, acknowledging that our own healing is at stake; and

Be it further RESOLVED, That we hereby commit ourselves to eradicate racism in all its forms from Southern Baptist life and ministry; and

Be it further RESOLVED, That we commit ourselves to be doers of the Word (James 1:22) by pursuing racial reconciliation in all our relationships, especially with our brothers and sisters in Christ (1 John 2:6), to the end that our light would so shine before others, that they may see (our) good works and glorify (our) Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16); and

Be it finally RESOLVED, That we pledge our commitment to the Great Commission task of making disciples of all people (Matthew 28:19), confessing that in the church God is calling together one people from every tribe and nation (Revelation 5:9), and proclaiming that the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only certain and sufficient ground upon which redeemed persons will stand together in restored family union as joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).

 

Avery Has The Mic

I give Avery the MIC:

I’d probably suffocate if I waited for all the self-styled conservatives who acted like the world was coming to an end, or that the justice system was broken when the Duke lacrosse team was falsely accused of rape to rise to the cause of Alton Logan, a Chicago man who was convicted of a murder he didn’t commit. They might, but I’m not gonna hold my breath. The long and short of the situation, according to the Sun Times, is this:

Read the rest at his spot.

Comments R Me: Cali and Home Schooling

Concerning this bit of news, over at P6's spot I wrote the following comment:

How about this?

When we lock up the parents and teachers and school officials involved in public schools when TayKwan graduates functionally illiterate, then I'll support your point. Until then, Cali is practicing facism.

Yeah, then I'll be down with that ruling.

Why I Support Reparations For Jim Crow Survivors

This is why I support reparations for Jim Crow survivors

A "whites only" sign was still hanging on the precinct house water fountain in 1964 when James Booker joined the suburban College Park police force.

He soon learned it wasn't the only thing off limits to Georgia's new black recruits.

Until 1976, black officers were blocked from joining a state-supported supplemental police retirement fund.

Today, white officers who entered the fund before that year are taking home hundreds of dollars more every month in retirement benefits than their black counterparts.

The now-retired black officers have been lobbying hard to change that, but eight years after they began an effort to amend the state constitution and give them credit for those lost years is stalled in the Legislature.

The Georgia Constitution prohibits the state from extending new benefits to public employees after they have retired.

If lawmakers don't take action in the final weeks of the legislative session, the battle will move to the courthouse this spring, said state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, an Atlanta Democrat and civil rights activist leading the officers' campaign.

"I was hoping we wouldn't have to go this route, but litigation appears to be our only option," Brooks said.

Ronald Hampton, executive director of the National Black Police Association, said he knows of no other state with a similar pension situation. "Only Georgia is shameless enough to still have this out there," Hampton said.

More at the link.

This is a bunch of BULL****!

Unfortunately, I'm Not Surprised

Guard's death called a 'hit' for corrupt officers
Court papers cite account by witness to state police
By Greg Garland | Sun reporter
    February 29, 2008

A witness told state police investigating the stabbing death of a corrections officer at a Jessup prison that corrupt guards involved in contraband smuggling "ordered the hit" on Officer David McGuinn, according to papers filed in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court.

The allegation - the first public suggestion that McGuinn might have been set up by other officers - is contained in a motion filed by defense attorneys for Lamarr Harris, one of two inmates charged with killing McGuinn on July 25, 2006.

The legal motion to produce evidence does not say whether the unidentified witness was a corrections officer, an inmate or someone else. State police homicide investigators interviewed the witness in the weeks after McGuinn was killed.

Frankly, I suspect this is true. This really speaks for itself.

Cops Gone Wild

When there are video tapes of police abusing minorities, and the tapes make it to the news, certain folks go into an automatic mode of defending the police, in spite of the tape. Sometimes they make a good point about the tape not showing all of what happened.

When certain abuses by police are shown on tape, these folks who are strong to stand up to defend the police and say the police are doing tough jobs, go strangely silent.

Four police officers deliberately tipped a quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair on to the floor when he refused to stand up for them.

Surveillance camera footage from the police station in Tampa, Florida, showed deputy sheriff Charlette Marshall-Jones, 44, dumping Brian Sterner out of his chair and searching him on the floor after he was brought in on a warrant for a traffic offence.

Sterner, 32, said that when he was told to stand up in the booking room, Jones became annoyed when he told her that he could not.

Where is the outrage about this from those corners?

I'm the son of former NY cop. I appreciate the work the police do, however, this type of thing can't stand. She is suspended without pay, when to me it is clear she should be fired. Those who saw this and did nothing should also be fired. The work of good police officers is made harder by the actions of police officers like her.