Furious About Ferguson? Work to Free Shaneen Allen

Whatever we eventually learn about what happened in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, Michael Brown is beyond mortal help. The same is not true of Shaneen Allen, a 27-year-old working mother of two and robbery victim who faces an eleven-year prison term for the supposed offense of carrying a legally licensed firearm. 

Like the late Mr. Brown, Allen – a resident of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania -- is an African-American. She has no criminal record, and her case is untainted by allegations that she had committed a violent crime. 

In planning to take the case to trial this October, Atlantic County Prosecutor Jim McClain is committing what could be construed as a race-specific violation of due process by seeking prison time: As we will shortly see, a white Pennsylvania resident who committed the same “offense” was given a pre-indictment plea deal involving two years of non-supervised probation. McClain’s proposed “deal” for Allen would have included a mandatory three and a half year prison sentence. 

Allen, a medical professional who works two jobs, was victimized by a series of robberies. A concerned relative advised Allen to get a gun to protect herself and her two young children. She purchased a gun, completed a firearms  safety course, and obtained official permission from the State of Pennsylvania to exercise her innate right to self-defense. However, she made the mistake of crossing the Delaware River into a different tax jurisdiction called New Jersey, where the ruling political clique is stingier in granting that supposed privilege, and refuses to recognize firearms licenses that are issued by their counterparts elsewhere in the country. 

After being stopped by a revenue farmer for violating one of New Jersey’s myriad official restrictions on the right to travel, Allen made the tragic mistake of being entirely candid when asked if she had any weapons in her possession. Rather than being handed an extortion note (more commonly called a “traffic ticket”), she was abducted and charged the second-degree felony of “unlawful possession” of the means of self-defense. 

The officer who carried out that abduction told the victim that she was being punished for her honesty. The same admission was made by the judge at her arraignment. Despite the fact that she clearly displayed no criminal intent, DA McClain refused to offer her entry into a diversionary program that would allow her to avoid prison. 

McClain, it should be noted, is no stranger to clemency: He found it in what passes for his heart to allow NFL star Ray Rice, who was also accused of a felony, to enter the diversion program, thereby avoiding prison or even significant professional inconvenience.

Granted, Rice’s alleged offense was nothing as serious as carrying a licensed firearm: He committed the relatively venial infraction of beating a woman into unconsciousness in the elevator of an Atlantic City casino. 

 


Mercy is a gift reserved for the wealthy and powerful, which means that prison is for single black working mothers trying to protect their families, rather than millionaire celebrity entertainers who beat black women to a bloody pulp. 

This guy qualified for "diversion." Shaneen didn't.

McClain, and his allies in the civilian disarmament lobby, might try to pretend that violating New Jersey’s incomparably wise and inspired firearms laws is an offense of such transcendent magnitude that the guilty simply must spend time in prison, even when those violations are committed by otherwise innocent people from out of state.

Assuming that this is the case, why is Shaneen Allen headed for prison, while her fellow Pennsylvania resident Todd Doering was allowed to go home on probation?

During a visit to New Jersey’s Logan Township in July 2010, Todd and his brother had the misfortune of attracting the attention of a group of plainclothes officers involved in a “Cops in Shops” sting operation at a convenience store. 

The purpose of that operation – other than to give the largely idle police force in that tiny town something to do -- was to harvest revenue by cracking down on underage drinking and violations of the city’s open container ordinance. One of the officers spotted Todd’s brother, who was sitting in the passenger seat, crack open a can of Twisted Tea.

“Without telling us what was happening, one of these guys reached into my car and grabbed my brother,” Todd related to Pro Libertate. “Within a few seconds there were police on both sides of my car. It was like they thought I had murdered somebody.” 

As Shaneen Allen would do later, when the intruders demanded identification from Todd he informed them that he was carrying a licensed handgun – in his case, a Glock model 22.
“The weapon was immediately secured for officer safety,” relates the police report. “Todd Doering was then removed from the vehicle and secure with handcuffs” – that is, he was kidnaped and shackled. His abductors “did note that when securing Todd Doering’s drivers [sic] license from his wallet … a Pennsylvania license to carry firearms.” 

While in handcuffs and awaiting transport to jail, Todd “spontaneously uttered that the magazine for the weapon was in the glove box and that he believed that as long as the weapon and the ammunition were kept separate he could legally carry the gun.”

By volunteering that information, Todd merely allowed his captors to multiply their excuses for imprisoning him: He was charged with both “possession of a handgun without a permit” and “possession of hollow nose bullets” in the separate magazine. 

Todd’s brother was cited for having an “open container of alcohol” and released. A short time later, Todd related to me, the charge against his brother was dismissed “because of a lack of probable cause.” This should have meant the collateral dismissal of Todd’s felony firearms charges. However, by that time he had been blackmailed into accepting a plea agreement – albeit for a deal much better than the one that would later be extended to Shaneen Allen.

In October 2010, the Gloucester County DA offered Todd two years of non-reporting probation and relatively modest fines, including a $25 monthly fee he paid for the privilege of reporting to a probation officer.

It bears repeating that DA McClain wouldn’t so much as entertain the possibility of granting probation to Shaneen Allen.

“For most of 2011, the probation officer would visit me here, and he made it clear it was just a formality,” Todd recounted to me from his home in Landsdale, Pennsylvania. “He finally said, `Look, you don’t belong on probation; this shouldn’t have been done to you.’” In March 2012 Todd was granted early discharge from probation. But he remains unjustly tainted as a convicted felon.

“My attorney and I have filled out all the paperwork to request a pardon, which includes ten letters of endorsement and recommendation,” he explains. “It’s been sitting on Governor Christie’s desk.”

Currently working as a welder and recently married, Todd’s employment circumstances are stable. This is fortunate, given that his felony conviction – although patently unjust – would make it exceptionally difficult to find another good job, even if the ravaged economy were producing them. Until and unless he receives a pardon, Todd cannot legally own firearms, either for recreation or self-defense.

“My family spent a lot of time outdoors when I was growing up, and now I can’t even own a shotgun,” he laments. “I’m not permitted to buy any kind of firearm, or be in possession of one – despite the fact that I followed all of the rules and never did anything to harm anybody else.”


Todd is commendably outraged over the treatment inflicted on Shaneen Allen, and concerned about the prospect of her going to prison – leaving her kids without their mother.

“I’ve been trying to contact her attorney, and tell him about my case, which has to be considered a precedent,” Todd explained to me. “My attorney advised me not to go to the media, but what is being done to that poor lady is unconscionable. I’m trying to undo the damage that was done to me, but at least I’m not spending years in prison. They want to take this woman away from her children for doing something that no reasonable person would consider a crime.” 

“When law and morality contradict each other,” wrote Frederic Bastiat, “the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.” Shaneen Allen has never broken the law in any sense; the edict that she ignorantly violated has no moral validity. Her case offers infuriating, albeit redundant, proof of the maxim that the only thing governments “make” are criminals out of innocent people, and corpses out of living human beings. 

Since the eruption of Ferguson, Missouri, it has become commonplace for people to say that the revelation of the contemporary police state in all its malignant glory has wrought a measure of redemption out of the violent death of Michael Brown. While not minimizing in any way the necessity of learning why Brown was killed, those who are consumed with a laudable zeal for justice should direct at least some of their energy into the effort to prevent the unwarranted imprisonment of Shaneen Allen. 

 A legal defense fund has been established on behalf of Shaneen Allen. 

Go here to listen to, or download, my most recent Freedom Zealot Podcast.

Please follow me on Twitter. 

Dum spiro, pugno!

Making Murder "Reasonable": How the Ferguson PD Will Whitewash the Killing of Michael E. Brown (UPDATE, August 15)

NOTE: In addition to the postscript at the bottom of the page, look for additional updates in the blog section of www.LewRockwell.com.

Edward Garner was unarmed when he was shot in the back of the head by Memphis Police Officer Elton Hymon. At the time, the short, slightly built teenager was scaling a fence attempting to flee. Hymon knew the suspect was unarmed, and that the only threat he posed was one of escape. When Garner’s lifeless body was searched later, all that was found was ten dollars he had stolen from a nearby house.

At the time, Tennessee state law dictated that a police officer confronting a resisting or fleeing suspect “may use all the necessary means to effect the arrest” even when the suspect didn’t pose a threat to others. Garner’s father filed a federal civil rights suit against the Memphis PD that took eleven years to reach the US Supreme Court, which ruled that even where there is “probable cause to seize a suspect, an officer may not always do so by killing him. The use of deadly force to prevent the escape of all felony suspects, whatever the circumstances, is constitutionally unreasonable.” 

While the Tennessee v. Garner ruling effectively repealed what was called the “Any-Felony Rule” regarding deadly force, and apparently contributed to a reduction in police homicides, it didn’t create an objective or uniform standard for police conduct. As one scholarly examination of the ruling and its impact summarized, “the creation or modification of laws has never effectively modified police behavior.” Officers still enjoy broad discretion regarding the use of deadly force, as long as they can contrive some way to describe their decisions as the course of action a “reasonable officer” would follow in the circumstances as he perceived them. 

What this means is that any use of deadly force is “reasonable” if the subjective perceptions of the officer lead him to believe he is threatened, and courts have traditionally been disinclined to “second-guess” those actions. This arrangement, in which the latitude enjoyed by police in using deadly force is defined by the timidity and dishonesty of the officer, is called the "objective reasonableness” standard. 

The shooting of Edward Garner happened almost exactly forty years before last Saturday’s execution-style killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Like Garner, Brown was a teenager fleeing from a police officer. In the more recent case, however, there was no evidence that the fugitive had actually committed a criminal offense, and no reason to believe that he had done anything to merit the attention of the officer who killed him. 

Officer Hymon was responding to a report that a prowler was in the neighborhood long after sunset, and on the available evidence it’s clear that Garner had committed a burglary. By way of contrast, the still-unidentified officer who shot Michael Brown accosted the victim and his friend, Dorian Johnson, on an uncluttered street in a quiet neighborhood on a previously uneventful Saturday afternoon.  

Neither of the young men was doing anything suspicious to justify a police “contact,” so the officer synthesized one out of the ether: According to Johnson, as the cop drove by he bellowed at the pedestrians to “get the f**k on the sidewalk.”  

Johnson, displaying immeasurably more civility than the armed functionary supposedly there to protect and serve him, politely explained that he was only a few hundred feet from his home. He recalls that the officer took offense, slammed on his brakes, threw his vehicle into reverse — nearly hitting the pedestrians -- and growled, “What’d you say?” 

According to Johnson’s account, the cop began to exit his vehicle, but his door slammed into Brown. At roughly the same time, the uniformed assailant grabbed the terrified 18-year-old by his neck. As Brown tried to escape, Johnson testifies, the officer repeatedly sneered, “I’m gonna shoot you.” 

A moment later, the first of several gunshots was heard. Brown, who may have been grazed by the round, turned to flee, and Johnson quickly joined him. The officer fired a second shot at the fleeing victims, hitting Brown, who fell to the ground with his hands in the air, pleading: “I don’t have a gun — stop shooting!” The assailant fired several more shots, killing the unarmed teenager outside an apartment complex. His body was left about 35 feet from the vehicle, surrounded by empty casings from the officer’s gun. Brown was unarmed.

The narrative peddled by St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Bermar, interestingly, confirms critical elements of Johnson’s testimony, while eliding over critical and uncontested details. Bermar described the event as an “encounter” between the officer and “two individuals in the street. 

In fact, one of those individuals … allegedly pushed the police officer back into the car where he physically assaulted the police officer. It is our understanding at this point in the investigation that within the police car there was a struggle over the officer’s weapon. There was at least one shot fired within the car, After that officer … came back out of the car, he exited his vehicle, and there was a shooting that occurred where the officer in fact shot the suspect, and … they were fatal injuries.” 

The Chief did not explain how an “encounter” escalated to a situation in which Brown supposedly “pushed the police officer back into the car.” This omission is intended to convey the impression that an 18-year-old black male simply attacked an unassuming police officer out of irrepressible malice.

Johnson’s version, on the other hand, depicts a police officer trolling for trouble. That characterization is facially credible, owing to what is known about the institutional character of law enforcement. Additionally, that testimony – unlike the shooter’s account -- was offered first-hand, in public, by a witness who is not afraid to be known by both his name and his face.

Furthermore, Johnson’s claim that the officer was forced back into his seat after slamming the driver’s side door into Brown would explain how he was “pushed … back into the car” without being shoved into the vehicle by the victim. Johnson’s claim that the officer threatened to shoot Brown would both explain why a “struggle” over the gun would have occurred, and justify any action the victim took to defend himself. There is no dispute that Brown was unarmed and attempting to surrender when he was fatally shot.

Immediately after the killing, the officer who shot Brown was placed on paid vacation and sheltered within a security cocoon. More importantly, he sought refuge in his supposed rights as defined by the “Garrity rule,” under which he cannot face criminal or civil prosecution on the basis of anything he discloses to police investigators.

Assuming that standard protocols are being followed, the officer is being advised by both his union representative and defense counsel, and his narrative is being tailored to fit the standard adumbrated in the Garner ruling. In fact, the story retailed by Chief Bermar – which could be little more than a carefully cropped version of Johnson’s testimony – is, most likely, very close to the final draft of what will become the Official Version.

It must be understood that “reasonableness” in this context isn’t defined by the discoverable facts of a police shooting, but by the subjective perceptions of a privileged functionary who has been indoctrinated to see the public as an undifferentiated threat, whose primary concern is his personal safety, and who is insulated by “qualified immunity” from the moral and legal consequences of his criminal aggression.

For this reason it is not only possible, but likely, that the Ferguson PD will essentially concede the accuracy of Dorian Johnson’s recollection, while insisting that the conduct described by that witness (and others on the scene) is appropriate under the “reasonable officer” standard. 

It wouldn’t matter how the “encounter” began, or whether the officer was acting on “reasonable suspicion” when he snarled a profane directive at the two inoffensive young men. Once the officer had decided to favor them with his attention, they were subject to his will, and could be detained, abused, or killed at his discretion – and his judgment is not subject to review by sublunary beings not clad in the vestments of the state’s punitive caste.

If (more likely, “when”) this version of events is officially ratified, the department will praise itself for its “professionalism”; the victim’s family will file a lawsuit that will eventually be settled by the city’s insurance carrier; and the long-suffering black residents of Ferguson will resume their lives under what amounts to a low-grade military occupation. 

                    UPDATE: "Any Felony Rule," Velvet Gloves for the Iron Fist

Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson, in a press conference notable for its brevity, identified the officer who shot Michael Brown as Darren Wilson, a six-year veteran of his department. Information distributed to the media included reports suggesting that Brown was a suspect in a strong-arm robbery of a package of cigars at a local convenience store. Still photographs, reportedly of the incident in the local Ferguson Market*, show a large young man resembling Brown involved in what appeared to be an assault on a much smaller individual in the store.

If Brown was a suspect in a crime of that kind, this case would have uncanny similarities to the 1974 incident in which another teenaged suspect, Edward Garner, was fatally shot while attempting to flee from a Memphis police officer following a burglary. As noted previously, that case went before the Supreme Court a decade later, resulting in the 1985 Tennessee v. Garner ruling, in which the Court held that "The use of deadly force to prevent the escape of all felony suspects, whatever the circumstances, is constitutionally unreasonable.” This was a rejection of the "Any Felony Rule" under which officers in many states, including Tennessee, were authorized to use deadly force to stop a fleeing or resisting suspect.

The "Any Felony Rule," it should be pointed out, didn't enjoy universal approval, even in the supposedly barbarous 19th Century. In an 1858 editorial, the New York Times expressed alarm over the promiscuous use of lethal force by officers of the newly created NYPD against fleeing suspects: “The pistols are not used in self-defense, but to stop the men who are running away. They are considered substitutes for swift feet and long arms… [W]e doubt the propriety of employing them for such a purpose. A Policeman has no right to shoot a man for running away from him.”

The paper's editorial board expressed concerns about “the policy of arming our Policemen with revolvers.”  Today, of course, the thoroughly militarized NYPD is, as former Mayor Michael Bloomberg boasted a few years ago, the seventh-largest army in the world.

Disclosure of Officer Wilson's name will increase public pressure for a criminal investigation into the shooting. However, there is still abundant reason to believe that the likely outcome of this matter will be a finding that Wilson -- owing to his perception of the situation -- acted justifiably under the "reasonable officer" standard. This may be complicated somewhat by eyewitness accounts that Brown was surrendering at the time he was fatally shot.

Chief Jackson claims that Wilson was "injured" in the reported struggle with Brown, and that he received treatment at a nearby hospital. No explanation has been provided for the fact that Brown, after being shot at a distance of about 35 feet from Wilson's patrol vehicle, was left face-down in the street and received no medical attention. His lifeless body was eventually carried away in the back of an SUV



Following several nights of protests and counter-insurgency warfare by the Ferguson PD, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon removed the Goon Squad and placed the Highway Patrol in charge of "public safety" in the city. The on-scene commander is Captain Ron Johnson, an African-American who was born and raised in the area.

One "emerging lesson" from Ferguson, apparently, is that after authorities employ the Iron Fist, they should quickly deploy people dressed in velvet gloves. Successful counter-insurgency operations, after all, require an effort to "win the hearts and minds" of the targeted population.
__
*I originally mis-identified the store where the robbery took place. My thanks to a reader for the correction.

Click here to listen to, or download, the most recent Freedom Zealot Podcast.

Please follow me on Twitter.

If you can, please donate to help keep Pro Libertate on-line. Thank you!

Dum spiro, pugno!

Small-Town Praetorianism: Barry Township Rejects Victor Pierce's Authoritarian "Vision"

Victor Pierce bears a resemblance to notorious death-cult leader Jim Jones, which is a tragic accident of nature. He also deeply imbibed the authoritarian Kool-Aid ladled out by the Homeland Security State, and force-fed it to the residents of Barry Township, Michigan, the tiny and unfortunate village where Pierce was employed as Chief of Police.

Like the Rev. Jones, Pierce demanded that everyone within the area of his claimed authority partake of the divinely inspired vision he has received.

“I have preached a vision,” Pierce declares, “and the Lord put me here for a reason.”

To be more specific, Pierce was providentially deposited in Barry Township to steel its torpid citizenry against the day when Jihadists, school shooters, drug lords, and perhaps even killer robots descend upon the village in an outpouring of apocalyptic fury. Sure, this hasn’t happened – but it could happen, in the same sense that a convergence of atmospheric anomalies could cause the skies to rain artichokes. 

Pierce will have to preach his vision in a different part of the vineyard: On August 7, he resigned from his post in response to a peaceful uprising from the ungrateful citizens of the township, which is now looking for another police chief. They would be much better off disbanding the entire department and liquidating its assets, which include combat-grade vehicles provided by the Pentagon.

Like many other police chiefs drawing paychecks in irenic little towns across the nation – Ken Geddes, the stalwart sentinel protecting Preston, Idaho, comes to mind – Pierce liked to pretend that his placid resort town nestles against a slumbering Vesuvius of violence: “We don’t just walk in and say this is Mayberry, so nothing is going to happen in Mayberry. That’s how officers get killed…. I’ve been to a number of officers’ funerals, you don’t know what will happen in the heat of the moment.”

Pierce, who adorned the walls of his office with posters for 1980s-vintage action films like “Lethal Weapon,” “RoboCop,” and “Cobra,” cast himself in the role of the heroic outsider determined to take the risks and make the tough calls necessary to defeat an implacable enemy. Barry Township allowed him to indulge his vibrant fantasy life at taxpayer expense in a risk-free environment.

The township is a “bedroom community” of about 3,700 people where crime is all but unknown and the police department – as far as official reports attest – has never solved a case.   

Yet the BTPD, which has four full-time officers and operates out of a one-room headquarters in nearby Delton, was provided with four armored vehicles (including two APCs) through the Pentagon’s 1033 program. As part of what Pierce calls a “visionary balance for the community,” the chief trained and recruited a “reserve force” of nearly 40 officers, none of whom is a state-certified peace officer (a status regarded as important by people who believe the state can license people to carry out aggressive violence).

Pierce enjoyed thirty years of reasonably stress-free employment with the Battle Creek Police Department before replacing former BTPD Chief Marshall Kik, who met a violent end – by his own hand.

Five years ago, Barry County Sheriff’s deputies found Kik’s lifeless body outside the BTPD station. The deputies, responding to a request from a 911 dispatcher for a welfare check on the chief, discovered that he had killed himself with a self-inflicted gunshot. An investigation by the Barry Township Council discovered that the chief had maintained a secret checking account into which he illegally deposited the proceeds from vehicle inspection fees.

The Hastings Banner, a local weekly that is one of the few newspapers in the country that actively investigates municipal corruption, reports that nearly $130,000 was paid out of that account over the course of three years. All of the checks were signed by Kik, including one for nearly $20,000. The Township Board, while insisting that “the great majority of funds placed in this account were expended for valid police purposes,” admits that “the keeping of such an unauthorized and undisclosed bank account by Police Chief Kik was improper.”

At the time of his suicide, Kik – who had been chief for nearly 30 years – had turned over his administrative responsibilities to another officer named Chris Martin. The official story was that he was on “medical leave,” a claim difficult to sustain in light of subsequent disclosures.

A source with knowledge of secretive dealings between Kik and the Township board told the Banner that the chief had been quietly demoted because he “had not submitted some reports properly.” If the paperwork was not completed and turned in by June 1, 2009, the board would convene a meeting “to discuss disciplinary actions.” Only one of the necessary reports had been completed prior to Kik’s suicide.

The source reported to the Banner that “Kik had left a note for his fellow officers” discussing concerns that the department would be shut down, and that the township would enter into a contract with the Barry County Sheriff’s Office.

“Don’t let the sheriff take over the police department,” Kik reportedly exhorted his colleagues in his suicide note. “He is trying.”

Then-Sheriff Dar Leaf acknowledged that he had offered to provide coverage to Barry Township, as he had others in the county, but denied that he was trying to take over for the BTPD because the village “can’t afford the sheriff’s services.” Nor was it in need of government law enforcement “services” of any kind.

Click to embiggen.

At the time of his death, Kik was the township’s sole full-time police officer. Given the near-absence of crime apart from Kik’s embezzlement scheme, Barry Township not only couldn’t afford a police department, but would have been better off without one. 

Rather than shutting down the BTPD station and discharging the reserve officers, the township hired Pierce in late 2009. Pierce, who at the time was 51, assumed the office of chief in Barry Township practically the same day that he began collecting his pension from Battle Creek.

Many men, upon reaching a certain age, seek to hold “the subtle thief of youth” at bay by undergoing cosmetic surgery. Others buy motorcycles. Some who retain their marketability may have extra-marital affairs. Pierce, whose unevenly – and unconvincingly -- dark coiffure testifies to his vanity, decided to create a fantasy camp for over-aged adolescents who wanted to play the role of costumed badasses. Thus he created a corps of unpaid and untrained “reserve officers” drawn from other cities as distant as Kalamazoo.

This kind of thing is harmless fun, until it isn’t. The fun ended early in the morning on May 10, when two of Pierce’s cosplaying volunteers took part in the gang beating of local businessman Jack Nadwornik, the owner of Tujax Tavern and a member of the county planning commission.

Nadwornik, who was celebrating his 58^th birthday, had just closed his bar and – given that the streets were vacant and nature’s call was compelling – relieved himself in the corner of an empty parking lot next to his business. Within seconds two BTPD vehicles were on the scene, disgorging one full-time officer and two fanboys in full costume. Within a few minutes Nadwornik’s hand was broken, his body was covered with bruises inflicted with a club, and he was facing a felony charge that carries a two-year prison sentence.

The assailants claimed that the victim “resisted” their attack, as he has every right to. The only objective eyewitness to the event insists that the cops – including the two role-playing wannabes – lied about the incident, as cops are trained to. The incident catalyzed what had previously been inchoate concerns over Pierce’s empire-building.

Earlier this year the Michigan State Police was asked to investigate complaints against Pierce and his police force. Their preliminary report concluded that there was no evidence of criminal conduct, and that predictable finding allowed Pierce to claim vindication. Most of his “customers,” however, remain dissatisfied. Many residents have complained about contrived traffic stops that have grown into opportunistic searches – one of which involved thirteen officers (most of whom were reservists), a drug-sniffing dog, and the hours-long detention of a weary woman who was simply trying to get home from work.

At a public meeting earlier this week that was attended by practically everyone in Barry Township, citizens demanding that Pierce be fired submitted a petition containing one thousand signatures. The Town Council has yet to act on that demand. However, the 34-member reserve corps was suspended at the request of the Michigan Township Participating Plan, which insures the PTPD.

Victor Pierce is not the only small-town police chief in Michigan seeking to build an empire with the help of uncertified “reserve officers.”

Earlier this year, reports the Michigan Free Press, the sate Township Participating Plan “canceled its coverage this year for Oakley, a village in Saginaw County, after the police chief there brought in 100 unpaid and uncertified auxiliary officers, some from as far away as metro Detroit, to patrol a town of 290.” Another insurance carrier moved to fill that vacancy, however, which means that there will be no discontinuity in the valuable services its police department provides – which allegedly include retaliating against the employer of a local woman who rejected the unwanted advances of police chief Robert Reznick.

After Aileen Gengler complained to her boss, Dennis Bitterman, about Reznick’s behavior, the tavern owner contacted the chief and asked him to lay off his waitress. According to a lawsuit filed by Bitterman, the chief “exploded in anger” and used his reserve officers to scrutinize the tavern owner’s business.  Bitterman and his wife say that “aggressive” patrols of their establishment have cost them customers.

Four subsequent lawsuits have been filed by the Bitterman family, all of them dealing primarily with refusals by the village council and police department to comply with laws governing open meetings and freedom of information requests. Among the details withheld by the police department were the names of its reserve officers – which means that the reserves are, by strict definition, a secret police force in a flyspeck-sized community with no documented criminal activity.

It was the number and frequency of the lawsuits that led to the decision by the Township Participating Plan to withdraw coverage from Oakley. Scores of Oakley residents have carried out public protests demanding that Resnick be fired. As was the case in Barry Township, the municipal government has ignored the objections of the public it supposedly serves. 

In this case, the chief was given a vote of support by the village council, and his “reserve” program continues to operate – and as is the case elsewhere in the state, the reserve officers are not subject to official oversight by anyone other than their police chief.

Pierce's job seemed secure because of support from the local punitive populist demographic, which is composed primarily of retirement-age Fox News consumers and employees of the government school system.

According to Delton resident Jim Cook, the chief “has basically started a scare campaign within the … church, senior community, and school system…. Using Sandy Hook, al-Qaeda, and `Jesus told you’ as [his] primary campaign…. [He has] convinced a small group of people that without [him] and [his] posse, they will not be able to walk the town without the risk of being raped, kidnaped, molested, or killed.”

The same strategy –preaching civic redemption through the imposition of a garrison state – was used by Chief Todd Stovall in Paragould, Arkansas. In December 2012, Stovall, who had created a large corps of “reserve officers,” announced his intention to place the tiny city under martial law. 

 Although Paragould has a high burglary rate, violent crime is all but non-existent there. But like Victor Pierce, Todd Stovall considers himself a visionary ordained by Providence to head off the apocalypse.

“We’re going to do it to everybody,” the chief insisted. “Criminals don’t like being talked to” by the police.

The same is true of any individual possessing a particle of self-respect, of course.

“The fear is what’s given us the reason to do this,” insisted Stovall as he announced that he was going to deploy officers “in SWAT gear [with] AR-15s around their [sic] neck.” During a town hall meeting at the West View Baptist Church, Stovall explained that “If you’re out walking, we’re going to stop you, ask why you’re out walking, check for your ID…. I’ve got statistical reasons that say I’ve got a lot of crime right now, which gives me probable cause to ask what you’re doing out.” 

 

Stovall swearing in members of his reserve force.

Stovall appears to be the sort of person who has never owned a library card, which is why his understanding of “probable cause” appears limited to a phrase or two he heard while watching television. He has a more comprehensive understanding of the key law enforcement concept, “officer safety,” and an instinctive ability to recognize a public relations disaster. Accordingly, in early 2013 he discontinued a series of town hall meetings that were planned to unveil his martial law program, citing “public safety concerns.”

The only discernible threat to public safety was that posed by Stovall’s little Praetorian Guard, which includes an officer who was held personally liable for assaulting a suspect named Jacob Thomas Earls, and several others who were rebuked by lying in court and falsifying records concerning that crime.  

“My officers didn’t lie,” grunted Stovall when asked why he hadn’t discharged them from his force after their lies had become an indelible – and expensive -- part of the town’s legal history.

Wherever a police department exists, the seeds of a gestapo have been planted. Tiny towns across the country are afflicted with police chiefs who see themselves as heroic men of destiny, and no police department is so small that the Pentagon will turn down its request for battlefield-grade weapons and vehicles – thereby inviting the involvement of the kind of people who will help those malignant seeds blossom. Outraged residents of Barry Township have trimmed away one of the branches; now they need to strike at the root. 

Go here to listen to, or download, my most recent Freedom Zealot podcast.

Please follow me on Twitter. 

Dum spiro, pugno!