Category Archives: Don’t be THAT guy

ATF Agent Fails Background Check

Fitchburg, Massachusetts, is a crumbling mill town in the northern end of mid-state Worcester County. The two biggest “employers” in the city are probably Fitchburg State College, a former teachers’ college with university aspirations (where, to be sure, a working- or middle-class student can get a functional education at a reasonable price), and welfare. As in every town with a lot of AFDC/SSDI/Section8 scammery going on, the welfare safey net supports a broad and deep criminal underclass, kept numb on drugs sourced through burglary, auto theft, robbery, prostitution, and various other crimes the MA criminal courts don’t take very seriously.

But since this is Massachusetts, the welfare is seen as an unalloyed good, the drugs seen as not very serious, and the violent crime problem (which isn’t really all that bad, and has been declining, except for youth gang activity tied to immigrant gangs) is blamed on the fact that people in other states still have gun rights that Massachusetts citizens have forfeit.

So, in extreme anti-gun Massachusetts, it made sense to name an ATF Agent to the vacant Police Chief position. The three finalists were all from anti-gun agencies: Chicago PD, NYPD, and ATF. And Mayor Lisa Wong picked the ATF guy, one Scott Heagney, RAIC in ATF’s Rochester, NY office — but couldn’t get him through a background check. D’oh!

Mayor Lisa A. Wong has withdrawn her nomination of U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agent Scott Heagney for the position of police chief.

Ms. Wong made the announcement to city councilors in an email Tuesday afternoon.

“The nomination was subject to the execution of a contract and a background check, both of which have been suspended,” the email said. “At this time, I believe the best course of action for the city to take is to re-advertise the position.”

Earlier Tuesday, City Clerk Anna M. Farrell notified councilors the special meeting scheduled Thursday to confirm Mr. Heagney’s appointment had been canceled.

Ms. Wong would not say why she made the decision.

She said she initially postponed Mr. Heagney’s confirmation because she was not able to complete a background check on him and later “chose not to try.”

via Fitchburg mayor withdraws her nomination for police chief – Worcester Telegram & Gazette – telegram.com.

Another local paper (not linked because the page has Undertone malware on it) indicates that Wong is being very coy about exactly why Heagney was rejected. He had already been offered the job, and had accepted and changed his LinkedIn profile (he has since changed it back).

That’s OK, though, because Heagney is still on the job with ATF in Rochester.

“I think it would be inappropriate for me to comment on a process that I’ve already decided is over and (appropriate) to proceed with moving forward,” Wong said Tuesday night. “It’s a very important position. We have big shoes to fill, so I think I’m going to concentrate on the task at hand.”

She said she was “not at liberty to discuss” what led to her decision.

Earlier Tuesday, following the announcement of the cancellation of the Thursday meetings where Heagney was to meet the full City Council for the first time, Wong had said she was waiting for some background-check information to come from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Heagney works as resident agent-in-charge of the agency’s Rochester, N.Y., field office.

She said that particular background information was not received Tuesday, but it appeared other information had been obtained.

“Background checks are pretty thorough, so we’ve been getting lots and lots of information throughout the day, every day,” Wong said. “At some point, I made a decision to not move forward.”

“The nomination was subject to the execution of a contract and background check, both of which have been suspended,” Wong wrote in a late Tuesday afternoon email to city councilors, employees and the press. “At this time, I believe the best course of action for the city to take is to re-advertise the position.”

It does sound like Wong is a pretty flighty person here. There’s one other clue at the Sentinel and Enterprise (the paper with the malware):

A letter from an anonymous resident of Attleboro, who was very critical of Heagney and his brother, who is Attleboro’s police chief, was sent to Wong, the City Council and the Sentinel & Enterprise. Wong acknowledged receipt of the letter and said it played no part in her decision.

We doubt any city ever took note of an anonymous letter on a police search. However, that did give us a clue to check the northeastshooters.com board for Heagney information. It turns out that Scott Heagney’s brother, the Chief in Attleboro, MA (which is down near the Rhode Island border) is a bitter opponent of civilian gun use, and throws many obstacles in the way of LTC applicants. Of course, one brother may well differ politically and in policy preferences from another.

Note to the reader: we normally try to link all quotes, but if a page has Undertone or other intrusive malware on it, we won’t.

LAPD should have fired these guys for marksmanship alone

LAPD Firearms Instructors on the Job. 103 shots, 2 hits, on a person that was not a legitimate target. FAIL.

Remember the Chris Dorner case, where one cop going rogue drove just about every other cop in Southern California rogue? Remember the two incidents of terrified cops blazing away at “suspects” who in no wise resembled Dorner, in vehicles that differed from Dorner’s in make, model, body style, and color, as well as plate number? Remember the multiple magdumps (103 rounds total) by LAPD into the Tacoma with two Filipinas (one middle-aged, one older) delivering newspapers?

Yeah, well, while LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said some bad things about those cops, he didn’t think they were bad enough to actually discipline. The 8 cops that burned that truck down in a textbook case of contagious fire are still on the streets, still armed, and still a menace. Website The Wire notes different treatment for these attempted-murderers and an LAPD cop who merely emailed pictures of some celebrity we never heard of. Guess who got fired, the ones who shot the citizen with their duty guns, or the one who shot a celebrity with her camera phone?

The decision to fire Reyes was made by a disciplinary panel and police chief Charlie Beck in 2012 after a three year investigation into the leak. Enough evidence was found to fire Reyes, but not bring criminal charges against her. Reyes maintained that she did not sell the photo to TMZ, though admitted that it was one of the photos she took that made it to the site.

Meanwhile, the eight LAPD officers who shot 103 bullets into a pick-up truck they believed was being driven by a suspected cop killer were disciplined with additional training. They could have been suspended or even fired, but police chief Charlie Beck — the same man who decided Reyes should be fired — decided that their actions did not warrant such harsh punishment.

Wait, additional training is discipline? That’s the tailpipe emission of a male bovine, LAPD.

Just to be clear: those actions were shooting a truck that was a different make, model and color than the one they were looking for and was driven by two Hispanic women delivering newspapers rather than the one black man with a vendetta against cops. And shooting it 103 times, hitting one of the women twice. The city gave the women $4.2 million and new truck.

It was not just a different make, model and color (and, don’t forget, plate, every cop had Dorner’s plate), it wasn’t even close. The other guy, the surfer whose truck was also destroyed by another SoCal department’s blind and rapid fire, was in an even more radically different vehicle. (He was also rammed by those bozos).

“I sympathize with the officers, but I have a very high standard for the application of deadly force, and the shooting did not meet that standard,” Beck said at the time.

It didn’t meet the standard, Charlie says, but it didn’t fall far enough below that standard to warrant disciplining the cops involved. WTFO? What would it take for a cop to get fired, go full Dorner? Massacre Beck’s family? Oh wait, we do know the answer to that: leak images of a minor celebrity.

So: leaking photos of a famous person who was the victim of a horrific assault is conduct that “places people at risk of injury and the government at risk of incurring liability” and merits dismissal. Shooting two unarmed but not famous women and exposing the city to a $4 million settlement won’t even get you suspended.

What Reyes did was very wrong. Instead of serving and protecting the public, Reyes exposed an abused woman’s injuries to the entire world. She should have been fired for it. But I don’t see how it was worse than what those eight officers did.

via LAPD: Shooting Photos of Rihanna Is Worse Than Shooting Innocent People – The Wire.

This is one truck the LAPD turned into a truck-shaped colander. Two innocents inside were wounded by the grossly negligent officers.

This is the truck the LAPD turned into a truck-shaped colander. Two innocents inside were wounded by the grossly negligent officers.

We’re with the writer of The Wire (whoever that is) on this. But… “one more thing,” to quote that great native Californian, Steve Jobs. Where do these bozos learn to shoot like this? Look at the picture with this post, that’s the victims’ vehicle. And note:

The 8 cops who engaged this truck never had a clear target due to the tinted backlight. That didn’t deter them.
Despite that, if you’re shooting at people in a truck, you know pretty much where they are. Most of the hits seem to be concentrated at the center mass of the tailgate, and so would have missed the occupants. (As it turns out, this is a good thing, but those eight cops swore that each made an individual, personal decision to fire in response to a clear threat. Obviously, that was “testilying,” something else LAPD apparently encourages. But most of the shots are not within two feet of where the occupants were).
And most of the 103 shots fired at the two little ladies in the truck did not even hit the truck. Think about that for a minute. These guys’ shooting sucks so bad they can’t hit a target that’s 6 feet 3 inches wide by 5 feet 6 inches high, from less than 100 feet away, with half their shots. Some of them were firing from less than 20 feet away at the doors of the cruiser, and then closed in on the vehicle to functional contact range, and still missed. The truck.

After a year, Beck admitted that the spray-and-pray cops never had eyes on target, but one started shooting at a sound; and that the other 7 of them irresponsibly collapsed into contagious fire after a single shot; and concluded (as has everyone who’s reviewed this abominable performance) that they were in the wrong:

The women inside were delivering newspapers and when one threw a newspaper that hit the ground at a house, an officer thought that sound was a gunshot and opened fire, with seven other officers at the scene joining in, Beck said.

“This incident has been found to be out of policy for all officers involved,” Beck said.

But he elected not to discipline them. That really says it all.

Their biggest failing, of course, was the lack of judgment and discipline that produced the gunfire in the first place. (Judgment will get you in a lot more trouble than marksmanship will, unless you have The Badge of Impunity like these clowns). But consider that their marksmanship — 2 wounds out of 103 rounds fired, neither in the target’s x-ring (thank God), about 1.94% accuracy.

Whoever signed these guys off as safe to go armed is guilty of instructional malpractice.

Remember Shannon Richardson?

From the where-are-they-now file: Shannon Richardson, aka Guess aka Rogers. She was the anti-gun actress who used a fake pro-gun letter from her estranged husband to try to frame the guy for sending ricin — a deadly poison — through the mail to President Obama and then-Mayor Bloomberg. This would have been a really stupid thing for someone who didn’t like Obama to do (if you want to really hurt the President, vote for Senators from the other party), and it was an incredibly stupid thing for someone like Shannon who did like Obama to do — because it took the FBI almost less time than it takes to write this sentence to figure out who really sent the letters. Then they went and talked to Shannon, and she did the rest.

With an ironclad case before her, and looking at life in the slammer, she took the best plea-bargain she could get.

Once the case turned out not to have a mouth-breathing Texas gun nut angle, the US press dropped it so fast that it might have been holy water or something. But foreigners, who lack that certain Acela Corridor insight into what is and what isn’t news, still keep reporting. ‘Way back in December, 2013:

Richardson appeared in a federal court in Texarkana, Texas, on Tuesday, pleading guilty to possessing and producing a biological toxin, which could have carried a sentence of life in prison.

Under the plea deal with federal prosecutors, she faces a maximum of 18 years. She will be formally sentenced at a later date.

via BBC News – Actress Shannon Richardson pleads guilty in ricin case.

Rifle. Check. Swimsuit. Check. Bat Guano Crazy Chick. Double check!

For a case to go from arrest to plea deal in less than eight months usually indicates a suspect who was nailed dead to rights and is negotiating under the burden of overwhelming evidence.

In December, her attorney was still hinting that the framed estranged hubby was the real doer:

Richardson’s lawyer Tonda Curry said she was eager to “admit her role in ordering the components to make the ricin, her role in the letters that contained the ricin, and to tell the government who else was involved in those offenses”.

She didn’t admit “her role” in the crime, she admitted the crime. Of course, what is a lawyer but a professional in the world of spin? Curry has already moved on to other clients, as this one will have no repeat business for her until approximately 2032 at best.

An interesting detail exposed by the Richardson case is that the Post Office scans and retains the front and back of all mail. Ron Nixon in the New York Times last year:

In a criminal complaint filed June 7 in Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the F.B.I. said a postal investigator tracing the ricin letters was able to narrow the search to Shannon Guess Richardson, an actress in New Boston, Tex., by examining information from the front and back images of 60 pieces of mail scanned immediately before and after the tainted letters sent to Mr. Obama and Mr. Bloomberg showing return addresses near her home. Ms. Richardson had originally accused her husband of mailing the letters, but investigators determined that he was at work during the time they were mailed.

Next time you get a “we’re sorry” envelope with shredded bits of mail in it (or the PO’s other specialty, an envelope from which the check has been extracted), remember that these bums can’t deliver the mail on time, they can’t even deliver the mail a good part of the time, but they can act as a surveillance arm of FBICIADEANSAATFetc.

We’ve got along for a while without the Pony Express. We can probably survive without the junk mail contagion vector.

But that was rather a long digression. Back to everybody’s favorite actress-turned-convict:

She could be sentenced to as long as 18 years but 15 years (5 years on each count) is most likely, and a judge could make the sentences concurrent, releasing Richardson onto the street as early as 2019.

We’re expecting the actual sentencing any day. A check with the BOP’s inmate locator shows they have’t got her — yet. But they’re making a nice cell ready even as you read this.

There are a few things for certain: even as used-up as she looks now, she’ll look worse then, which is kind of career-limiting for an actress. And she’ll still be bat guano crazy. And some guy will still be attracted to her, maybe even becoming Husband #4. And he will come to regret it.

For your reviewing pleasure, the original June, 2013 indictment: Shannon-Richardson-ricin-indictment.pdf

Curse of the Killer Kitty

Eloi. Clueless, witless, harmless, helpless Eloi. They walk among us. In this case, and entire family got treed by a cat. We’ve covered what we see as police overreaction to dogs with dripping contempt here before, but in this case the police were the only thing between a family’s bold patriarch and ten kilograms of hissing death, to wit, their house cat. Albeit not just any cat, it was ~~the most vicious moggy in all Portlandia~~ a cat with a “known history of violence.”

It’s a cat, for Christ’s sake, not a Hells Angels chapter.

How in the name of Niffelheim does a cat get tagged with “a history of violence,” anyway?

Is dope legal in Oregon, or just really widely used?

A rampaging, 22-pound Oregon house cat with a “history of violence” attacked a baby and trapped a family and their dog in a bedroom at their Portland home before being captured by police, authorities said on Monday.

The Sunday evening incident began when the cat, a black-and-white Himalayan, scratched a 7-month-old baby in the face, according to Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sergeant Pete Simpson.

The baby’s father kicked the cat in the backside, which sent it into a rage, and the parents and baby, along with their dog, retreated into a bedroom as the father called police, Simpson said.

Meanwhile, the cat blocked the bedroom doorway and could be heard on the 911 call screeching loudly, Simpson said.

“He said that the cat has a history of violence,” Simpson said, referring to the father speaking to the 911 operator.

via House cat in Oregon attacks baby, traps family in bedroom – Yahoo News.

Earth to Portland: there are cats on this planet that are apex predators, but they dwell in Africa and Asia. Rule of thumb: no wee beastie you can throw can kill you, unless it’s venomous. You would be hard pressed to find a human slain by an example of felix catus, with the admitted exception of unborn infants whose mothers acquire a toxoplasma gonii infection.

Yes, a cat’s claws and teeth can sting. That’s not pain, mate. It’s literally just a scratch. Mind you, you need to take care to irrigate the wound, and watch for infection. The average moggy’s digital microbiome is rich in all kinds of unfriendly microorganisms; claws are almost engineered to incubate small-scale badness.

But dear sweet Jesus in heaven, if we were the guy who had to call the police because his cat backed him into a corner, we’d slink off to the ruins of Great Zimbabwe or some such place, and never show our faces in the civilized world again.

Note that the cops had no difficulty (or at least, no difficulty they couldn’t overcome) in stuffing this supposedly Satanic cat into a cat carrier. (It really should have been youtubed; as anyone who’s ever done it knows, stuffing a cat that would rather not be stuffed, is a lesson in the muscularity and incredibly flexible spinal column of Felix Catus). It can be frustrating for the would-be cat-jammer, and uproariously mirthful for all onlookers, but in the end, persistence always gets the cat in the bag, and we’ve never known anyone to need a transfusion.

(In our experience, it can be helpful with a willful cat to make it crystal clear to him who’s boss. Your mileage may vary).

But seriously, had this complainant no manhood? Twenty years from now, retired cops will still crack each up just beginning the story, “Remember the guy who was cornered by his cat?”

“I got plans today, I didn’t want to get shot.”

Michael Smith came this close (Maxwell Smart finger sign) to getting shot Tuesday morning, when a tree-cutting crew stomped noisily on to his property in Norridgewock, Maine.

Smith, who works nights, got half-dressed, came out and told them to take off so he could go back to sleep. They took off, but one of them saw a Beretta stuffed into his belt, and called police, saying they’d been threatened by a man with a gun.

The Maine State Police responded cautiously. They surrounded the place with AR-armed troopers, and sent a couple of brave county deputies to the door to talk the man with the gun out. A tired Smith put his pants on again and came out:

No harm, no foul. The police made no attempt to “disarm” Smith of his tattooed-on half gun. For what it’s worth, he says he’s never had trouble over his tat before, but then, he’s never come out shirtless and told a work crew to F off before. (They were trimming trees along utility lines, something normally done in the fall in New England).

Information and David Leaming photo from this very thoroughly reported story at the Morning Sentinel, which appears to be an online coalition of Maine coastal newspapers. Writer Rachel Ohm notes that most Maine “man with a gun” standoffs end without violence, even when the man really has a three-dimensional gun. One example she quotes, from Christmas Eve 2012, involved a small-town police chief who snapped and fired at the cops who surrounded his house. He was taken into custody with no one injured; he isn’t police chief any more. Most of the calls that end in violence appear to be mentally ill or substance-abusing people who are committing “suicide by cop.”

We’ve never gotten the whole tattoo thing. A friend’s daughter got the insignia of her branch of service tattooed in the tramp-stamp position, about a foot wide, to celebrate being commissioned in the Army. (One wonders how it fits, now she’s a stay at home mom. Fortunately, her husband is commissioned in the same branch). Our old unit had one guy try out, who had two .45s tattooed in a matching pair where Smith’s Beretta was… we almost binned him at the selection board for the tattoos alone. (His, incidentally, had full five-inch slides, as he proudly showed us; we seem to recall he failed to complete qualification for other reasons). Our inability to comprehend the inky generation is probably, indeed, a generational thing; in our day, tattoos of any kind were disqualifying for some special operations assignments.

All’s well that ends well, and the cops got a call-out without anyone being harmed, on a sunny if cold late-winter day. (More like extended-winter, grumble grumble). Smith, who does not have an extensive criminal record, was picked up once before, and made a joke of his gun then:

The tattoo of the life-size handgun is positioned on Smith’s body to look as if the barrel of the gun is tucked into the waist of his pants. He said he doesn’t regret getting it, even though this isn’t the first time the tattoo has been the focus of police attention.

He was arrested on a warrant for an unpaid fine once, and the officer asked if he had any weapons.

“I said, ‘Yeah, I got this gun on me all the time. It’s tattooed on,’” Smith said.

No word, though, on whether Smith got back to sleep. But Central Maine Power will add him to their list of customers to whom they give a courtesy call before trimming trees.

When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will…

You’ll see why we didn’t finish the sentence in the title. And why there’s no picture with this post. Remember yesterday, when we were complaining that the statewide Gun Free Zone that is California was full of depravity, because someone was spearing cats with field-point target arrows? Well, today it’s worse: somebody’s spearing a dog, and he’s not using arrows.

Twice in recent months, the dog’s owner heard his pet shriek during the night in the backyard in the 1900 block of Summerland Avenue. He suspected she was reacting to a prowler. The owner then installed video equipment and was horrified Nov. 10 when he discovered what was on video from earlier that morning. He watched as a man fed the dog something, causing the animal to relax, and sexually assaulted her.

via Mother of San Pedro man accused of sex with dog says she’s sorry.

True, this is an old case (from November). But hey, it lets us bag on SoCal when it’s mid-March here and still in the single digits (F) at night.

While we had before and after pics of Princess the speared cat, kindly bear with is for having no images (and definitely no x-ray) for this one, please. Just thinking about it makes one call for the brain bleach.

According to Palos Verdes patch.com, police technicians ran a rape kit on the poor dog. And Caceres might not have stopped with dogs: he had applied to work in a mortuary. More brain bleach… stat!

As you can probably imagine, the accused doggie diddler is not taking interview requests, but the Press-Telegram did snag an interview with his mother, who turns out not to be canine after all:

The mother of a young man charged with sexually assaulting a San Pedro family’s 80-pound Akita said Wednesday she has apologized to the dog’s owners, but supports her son as he begins moving through the legal process.

“Our prayers are with our son,” said Lisa Caceres, whose 22-year-old son, Christopher Caceres, remained in custody in county jail Wednesday. “My husband and I had no idea. We already spoke to the people and told them the same thing. He needs help, and we are sorry about what happened.”

His mother, who seems like a decent sort, as appalled as the next person at her son’s behavior, is supporting his criminal defense, but she draws the line at reviewing the evidence:

“I have not seen it. I don’t want to see it,” the mother said.

Don’t blame her; us, neither.

The good news is that, if convicted, the dogs of San Pedro could be safe from buggery by Caceres for the length of his incarceration. His sentence might be as high as nine years’ imprisonment. The bad news is that, in California’s revolving door prisons, no one stays locked up except Charles Manson, and we’re not really sure about him. And further bad news: Caceres is almost certainly not the only sick puppy perpetrating pooch pederasty in the Golden State.

When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have arrows

“Princess,” one of the two slain cats in North Long Beach..

As seems increasingly common, these stories of depravity seem to come from places where guns are already outlawed, or at least, irrationally restricted. Make of that what you will, but this one took place in Southern California, where assault-weapon bans, “bullet buttons,” may-issue-but-not-to-the-likes-of-you pistol permits, and a generous social safety ~~net~~ hammock, have eliminated all causes of crime, and brought us into the new sunlit dawn of the New Soviet Man. Or something.

Except for the one paradise-dweller who didn’t get the word, and spends his days reenacting the Little Big Horn, with neighbors’ cats playing the role of Yellow Hair.

Long Beach Animal Care Services and police officers are searching for the person or people who used arrows to shoot and kill two cats in a matter of a few weeks in North Long Beach.

“This is very concerning especially when you realize there is a pattern,” said Ted Stevens, manager of the Animal Care Services.

Over the weekend, a woman brought her injured cat to Long Beach Animal Hospital with an arrow protruding from its abdomen.

Dr. Carl Palazzolo, treated the cat, but it ultimately died during surgery.

“No one should shoot a pet. Period,” Palazzolo said. “It should be everyone’s concern. It’s cruelty to animal and morally wrong and illegal. It’s that simple.”

This X-Ray shows how Princess was wounded with a field-point arrow. Surgery did not save the animal.

Photographs taken before the cat was taken into surgery Sunday evening showed how deep the the metal-tipped arrow entered the animal’s abdomen.

The cat was taken into surgery where Palazzolo was able to remove the arrow and put the lobe of the animal’s liver back into place, but the cat did not survive the surgery, he said.

via Cats shot, killed with arrow in Long Beach.

The two cats were shot within a block or so of each other in North Long beach, in January and February respectively. There has been a lot of publicity about the case, but the police have made no arrests.

It goes without saying that the person who would do this to an animal is a serious threat to all of the human beings in his life.

Hey, dude, where’s my Glock?

A Glock 22 Gen 4 with a Streamlight lightn attached. (File photo from ar15.com).

A Glock 22 Gen 4 with a Streamlight light attached. (File photo from ar15.com). Missing pistol is similar.

A Tucson cop is asking that question as an important piece of personal equipment turned up missing last week, after he chased a purse-snatcher on foot. The cops bagged the criminal — one Adrian Pride, who’s a career criminal despite being only 18 — after a long and kinetic steeplechase through back yards and over fences and walls. But one of the officers was Glockless as Pride was being read his rights. The Arizona Star:

A Tucson police officer chasing a man in connection with a theft and purse-snatching on the city’s westside discovered that he lost his handgun during the pursuit.

The .40-caliber Glock, which fell out of the officer’s holster, was not found Monday, and police are asking the public for help in finding it, said Sgt. Chris Widmer, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.

On Monday at about noon, an officer was flagged down at Safeway, 1551 W. Saint Mary’s Road, regarding what was initially reported as a purse snatching, said Sgt. Chris Widmer, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.

A description of the suspect was broadcasted to responding officers, and one officer located a man matching the description near West Saint Mary’s Road and North Westmoreland Avenue, Widmer said.

The man ran as the officer attempted to make contact with him. Officers chased the man through neighborhood yards, and climbed over several walls before capturing him in the 500 block of North Shawnee Avenue, said Widmer.

Police determined that Adrian Pride, 18, shoplifted an item from Safeway, and as he left the supermarket he grabbed the purse of a woman in front of the store, Widmer said. Pride was booked into the Pima County jail on suspicion of shoplifting and theft. In November, an arrest warrant was issued for Pride in connection to a robbery at the Maui Smoke Shop at 1099 E. Broadway.

After the foot chase Monday, officers searched for the missing police officer’s weapon. Officers immediately retraced the path of the chase, but the weapon was not located. An extensive search lasted throughout the day, Widmer said.

Police are asking the public for help in locating the handgun, which is a Glock 22 Gen4 with an affixed StreamLight tactical light. The serial number is RVS121, Widmer said.

via Tucson police officer loses gun during foot chase.

This is actually a pretty rare thing, for a PD that loses a gun to put the serial number out to the media. The BATFE, which loses between 10 and 20 guns in an average year and has been doing so for many years (their own guns, not the ones they walk to criminal organizations), has never done that; the FBI, which loses guns at about half ATF’s per-agent rate (but is much larger) has never done that; most local PDs never do that. (ATF doesn’t even enter all its lost and stolen guns in NCIC, and their compliance with their own regs on this has been worsening steadily).

About the only worse thing than losing your duty gun is having it turn up in a murder or other violent crime. Many stolen or lost police guns are recovered in less-serious crime investigations, before innocents can be harmed. It’s impossible to prevent some level of weapons loss in a large department or agency, because however well-selected and -trained, the personnel will still be human. In an organization with poor selection, training, or morale, of course, the loss rate is higher than it needs to be.

TSA Mongs Conduct Physical Search for Virtual Goods

Now, this guy is one of thos porcupiney libertoons who does make things hard for himself. For crying out loud, his blog is “The Daily Anarchist,” like he’s Sacco and Vanzetti or something. But he did experience something new-to-us in the endless parade of stupidity from the braindead functionaries of the TSA. They searched his bags, thoroughly and repeatedly, for Bitcoins.

That’s kind of like… we dunno. Searching your bags for hyperlinks. Bitcoins are a virtual digital currency and they have no physical manifestation. Somebody got these mouth-breathing junior G-Men hyped up about Bitcoin without telling them that, well, they’re not actual coins like a quarter or a dime. They’re just an idea.

Then again, maybe it’s better they weren’t told that… they might have cut the top off his skull to look for ideas.

[T]he orange shirt said, “What about Bitcoin?” I was flabbergasted. This was above and beyond any scrutiny I had ever received from the TSA, and a little frightening that they were looking for Bitcoin. I said I didn’t understand the question. He continued, “We saw Bitcoin in your bag and need to check.” I was incredulous, and asked, “Do you have a superior officer because I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.” The blue shirt replied by repeating that they were “managers,” but if I didn’t answer his questions he could call law enforcement and have me taken into custody. I asked, “Aren’t you law enforcement?” and he replied, “No we’re with the TSA.”

I turned back to the orange shirt and asked “What did the Bitcoin look like?” Bill chimed in and told the agent that what he was saying was impossible because Bitcoin is digital and doesn’t have have any physical manifestation. You can’t “see” Bitcoin. The orange shirt said they looked like medallions or tokens. I said I didn’t understand what he was talking about, and he simply repeated, in a child like way, that Bitcoins are like metal tokens. I told him that I didn’t have any tokens.

via The TSA is looking for Bitcoin – Daily Anarchist.

There’s quite a bit more there, including his insistence on the whole opt-out that probably got him labeled as someone to abuse by the normally abusive, stupid and crooked trolls who exact a toll in compliance from anyone unlucky enough to have to travel by commercial aircraft. The Anarchist in question has reached some conclusions:

Here’s what I think happened from their perspective. Obviously, the TSA has been trained, although poorly, to look for Bitcoin. They are apparently now trying to catch money launderers in addition to terrorists, and large tubes of tooth paste. My hoodie is probably what caught their attention, and everything after that received extra attention. When they saw all the metal lapel pins in my bag they probably thought they hit the jackpot on a stockpile of Casascius coins. Whatever training they had it probably included that stock photo of brass tokens everyone uses. My evasiveness only quickened their blood lust, as they imagined a big bust, and possibly a promotion down the security track.

It was an open faced lie when they said they “saw” Bitcoins in my bag. Always remember bureaucrats can legally lie to you, but lying to them, even by mistake is a serious crime they’ll use as leverage to coerce further cooperation. They didn’t inquire about my phone, or my laptop, or my USB drive, which makes me think their Bitcoin training wasn’t very good, or that these particular bureaucrats didn’t pay very close attention. But, if the TSA is going to be looking for Bitcoin, they can use that pretense to search any person, at any time, to any degree. It’s entirely possible that a traveler could be carrying thousands of Casascius coins which are not loaded, and worth little more their value in brass. It’s also possible that a traveler could be carrying one Casascius coin that has been loaded with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin. Technologically speaking the private key to a Bitcoin wallet could be embedded in virtually any object, including the brain of the traveler. It could be argued, in fact I would, that the Bitcoin is already on both sides of the check point, and carrying any kind of physical wallet is no different from carrying a debit card, or a pin number. It would even be possible for a traveler outside the TSA screening area to send any amount of bitcoin directly to a traveler already inside the terminal, and there’s nothing the TSA can do to prevent that.

In the end it’s important for Bitcoin users to be aware of these Stasi tactics being used by the TSA.

He’s wrong about “Stasi tactics.” The Stasi were as cruel, as brutal, and as crooked as the TSA, but they were by no measure as stupid. The people who worked against the Stasi brought their A game. They had to, because the Stasi were pros.

Conversely, no one good, decent, intelligent, moral or ethical has ever worked for the TSA in any capacity whatsoever.

Here’s a thought: if they had cut off the top of that traveler’s head to look for ideas, how could they have recognized one if they saw it?

Massachusetts, Where Peeping Toms are Now Legal

So yesterday there was a decision from the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, or, as everybody who doesn’t have to pretend to respect these asshats (because he practices law in their court) knows them, The Clown School.

In the instant case they had a perv who had spent his entire adult life, essentially, peeping, creeping, and shooting pictures up the skirts of women on the subway.

So… being that this is Massachusetts, they decided…

that the guy had to be acquitted, or actually, the case had to be dismissed.
and he had to be let go.
because there’s nothing wrong with what he was doing.
and so, he can go do it now all he wants.

While this decision has, predictably, drawn some flak, what hasn’t been tied to it as far as we know is the retirement (after the decision was made, but before it was revealed) of the Chief Injustice of the Clown School, one Roderick Ireland. Ireland was an affirmative action hire, put into place with explicit instructions to see that fewer violent felons get incarcerated. Ireland clearly wanted to clear the decks before the press got hold of the court’s unanimous pro-perv ruling.

The Governor likes the soft-on-crime court: “I think the morale in the court system and the sense by litigants that they have been heard and fairly treated is very, very strong right now, and I think that is about Justice Ireland.”

In fact, of the seven members of the court, a majority (4) are Deval Patrick appointees, appointed with a view to soften the state’s already laughably soft punishments for criminals. Criminals and their families are an important Patrick constituency.

Victims, on the other hand, are not.

WeaponsMan

Quiet Professionals, Noisy Machinery