Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Without "Qualified Immunity," Would Cops Be So Quick to Kill?





(See a small but significant correction below.)

The story had a familiar beginning, but took an unexpected detour en route to an unanticipated conclusion. 

Dante Price, a young black man, was trying to visit his girlfriend and infant son at the Summit Square apartment complex in Dayton, Ohio. Price was confronted by two uniformed, armed officers who told him had been banned from the property as a trespasser. 

As the encounter grew heated, the officers drew their guns and ordered Price from his car. After the driver refused to comply, one of the officers contacted the Dayton PD to request backup; on the recording, his partner can be heard screaming at Price, “Get out of the car, now!” Instead of exiting his vehicle and prostrating himself at the feet of the officers, Price hit the gas and attempted to flee.


The officers unloaded seventeen shots at Price, three of which struck him. The 25-year-old plowed his Cadillac into a parked car. He was dead before the paramedics arrived.

“We got a guy trying to assault us with his vehicle,” one of the officers reported to Dayton PD headquarters immediately after the shooting. “We had to fire at him. He charged us.”

Within a few hours, an internal investigation conducted by veteran police officer Ivan G. Burke concluded that the shooting of the unarmed motorist was “justified.” By disobeying orders and attempting to flee, Price had caused the officers to “fear for their lives” and the shooting was therefore an act of self-defense.

So far, so familiar. However, at this point the story diverges sharply from the standard narrative.

Rather than dismissing the matter and lecturing Price’s grieving relatives about the need to “respect the process,” the Dayton PD made investigating the shooting a priority. The crime scene was carefully scrutinized, and investigators interviewed dozens of witnesses. Evidence was turned over to Montgomery County DA Mat Heck, who presented it to a grand jury.

Four months after the March 2012 shooting, the panel handed down murder and abduction indictments against the two officers, 32-year-old Christopher E. Tarbert and 24-year-old Justin R. Wissinger. Last week, Tarbert and Wissinger, who had been threatened with life imprisonment, were sentenced to four years of incarceration as a result of a plea bargain agreement.

The incident in which Dante Price was killed bears an uncanny resemblance to the shooting death of Danielle Willard by police in West Valley City, Utah in November 2012. In both cases, the victim was confronted by armed officers, refused orders to exit the vehicle, and was shot while trying to flee. Shaun Cowley, the former West Valley City Police Detective who killed Willard, claimed that he acted in self-defense.

Salt Lake County DA Sim Gill, in an almost unprecedented act of principle, indicted Cowley for manslaughter. That prompted nearly the entire “criminal justice” system in Utah to rally behind Cowley.

Former federal Judge Paul Cassell, who volunteered his services as defense counsel for Cowley, complained that “a guilty verdict in this case will jeopardize the safety of the community by making police officers fearful of defending themselves against criminals who are threatening deadly force.” Casell insisted that the simple act of charging Cowley endangered that most precious of all imaginable things, “officer safety.”

Utah Third District Judge L.A. Dever agreed, dismissing the charge in an October pre-trial hearing. Despite the overwhelming evidence that neither Cowley nor his partner was in the path of the vehicle at the time the fatal shots were fired, Judge Dever accepted the defendant’s claim that he “reasonably believed” the non-compliant driver posed a potential threat.
 
Officers Tarbert and Wissinger offered the same defense regarding their decision to shoot Price, but it availed them nothing. Rather than being exonerated immediately, the officers faced a long and expensive legal ordeal. While they were awaiting resolution of their case, another lethal force incident involving an unarmed black man took place at a retail store that had probably been frequented by the late Dante Price.

Last September, John Crawford, III was fatally shot by police at a Wal-Mart in Beavercreek – about seventeen miles from the apartment complex where Price was killed. At the time, Crawford was holding in one hand a BB rifle he intended to purchase, and carried a cell phone in the other. Sgt. David Darkow and Officer Sean Williams, who responded to a thoroughly inaccurate report via a panic-stricken 911 call shot Crawford within seconds of their arrival at the store.


In this case, rather than investigating the actions of the officers, the Dayton-area Beavercreek PD strove to find some way to blame the victim for the shooting. Tasha Thomas, the Crawford’s traumatized girlfriend, was detained andinterrogated for over an hour and a half by Beavercreek Detective Rodney Curd, who did everything he could to manipulate her into saying that Crawford was carrying an actual firearm. To that end Curd followed standard police procedure by lying to Thomas and threatening her with criminal charges unless she supplied him with the story he wanted.


“I want to be very clear, OK?” Curd told the sobbing woman. “That man got a weapon at some point, I understand, OK? That man produced that weapon. That man had the weapon when you picked him up. He had it in your car or something. You understand that we’re investigating a serious incident. You lie to me, and you might be on your way to jail, so I want to be very clear about that.”

Curd also pretended that Thomas, who was weeping and in shock, appeared to be on drugs.

The detective succeeded in extorting consent for a search of Thomas’s car and cellphone. During the entire ordeal the terrified woman hadn’t been informed that Crawford was dead. Curd withheld that news until after he had concluded the interrogation – and then disclosed it to her in what amounted to a final act of gratuitous, dishonest sadism: “Unfortunately John has passed away as a result of this. What happened there isn’t a good thing and as a result of his actions he is gone.” (Emphasis added.)

Scant hours had passed since Crawford – who had done nothing wrong or illegal – had been killed without cause or justification by Dayton-area police, but the official story was already set in granite: Crawford was dead “as a result of his actions,” not those of the privileged killers who had perforated his body with high-velocity rounds.

From the beginning, the Beavercreek PD and its allies in the Dayton-area "justice" system treated John Crawford as a “suspect,” rather than as a victim, solely because he had been killed by fellow police officers. Significantly, that had not been the case in the March 2012 shooting of Dante Price at an apartment complex just a few minutes’ drive away from the Wal-Mart where Crawford was killed. In that earlier case, Price had been identified as the victim, and the officers who shot him were treated as criminal suspects.

This is because Christopher E. Tarbert and Justin R. Wissinger were employed by the private Ranger Security Company, rather than the Beavercreek municipal police department. Ivan Burke, who owns the company, was briefly employed as an officer with two departments in small towns near Dayton, and at the time of the shooting he was an “auxiliary officer” in Clay Township, a village of about 9,000 people with no reported criminal activity.
 
Christopher Tarbert
Yes, Tarbert and Wissinger wore special costumes that included glittering baubles denoting their status as “officers”; they carried guns, and conducted patrols. 

Their physical conditioning, mental acumen, and competence with firearms were certainly up to par with the undemanding standards of most municipal police departments. As their encounter with Price demonstrated they had learned to bark orders at the public, treat non-compliance as a threat to “officer safety,” and recite the expected self-exculpatory phrases after killing someone who had defied them.

In this case, however, the assailants hadn’t been fully invested with the mystical property called “authority.”

“The shooters were employed as private security guards through Ranger Security – they were not police officers,” explained Montgomery County DA Mat Heck. “They did not have any special arrest powers, authority or privileges beyond what a private citizen would have…. [T]hese private security guards had no legal authority to detain or attempt to detain the victim, and had no legal authority to use or threaten to use deadly force in order to make the victim comply with their orders.”

Justin Wissinger
Tarbert and Wissinger were lawfully employed as contract security personnel to guard private property, and turn away uninvited intruders. But they hadn’t been consecrated as members of the State’s punitive priesthood, and without that official unction they weren’t able to transubstantiate aggressive violence into “law enforcement.”

Despite the trappings of their profession, their formal training, and their state-issued licenses, Tarbert and Wissinger were Mundanes, and thus were not endowed with “qualified immunity” that would protect them from accountability for their act of criminal homicide. The blame for the incident was imputed to them, rather than to the unarmed, fleeing victim. They didn’t have standing to insist that Price had died “as a result of his actions,” as the Beavercreek PD claimed in the killing of unarmed John Crawford.

Owing to the fact that police are employed by the class that preys on property, they have no obligation to protect it against crime. Those who want that service have to pay for it out of their own resources, in addition to surrendering the taxes that are used to pay the police. There are at least three times as many private security and investigative specialists than government law enforcement agents in this country. Nearly all of them -- apart from moonlighting police officers -- confront genuine risks on behalf of their customers, and do so without the benefit of "qualified immunity." 

Tarbert at his sentencing hearing.
This means that when they screw up, private peace officers, unlike government-employed police, can be held accountable.

Tarbert and Wissinger were entirely within their rights to demand that Price leave privately owned property where he wasn’t welcome. In doing so they comported themselves as peace officers acting in defense of property rights. Unfortunately they decided to mimic the behavior of law enforcement personnel by attempting to detain Price, trying to humiliate him by ordering him to the ground, and then summarily executing him for disobeying their orders.

As District Attorney Heck observed, because the guards were not state-employed purveyors of violence, they had no “authority” to restrain, demean, threaten, or kill someone who hadn’t committed an act of criminal aggression but simply refused to “comply with their orders.” What neither he nor anyone else can rationally explain is why anybody can claim such authority.



Note: In the original version of this essay I erroneously reported that John Crawford's killers are employed by the Dayton Police Department, rather than the Beavercreek PD. I regret that error, and express thanks to the readers who corrected it.

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Dum spiro, pugno!


34 comments:

Chief Running Mouth said...

Will, I love your style. I wish more people could read what you write.

Anonymous said...

There has been much debate about regarding the ctions of the law enforcement officer's actions,however there has been little debate about the actions of the prosecutors who REFUSE to bring charges against these officers. These prosecutors work every day with these individual. They KNOW each other. Also when they run for public office or judgeships they need the support of the police unions. Until there is honest prosecutors who respect the constitution and repect civil rights these officers will continue their actions. They know full well that ther is no conseqence to pay..

rkshanny said...

That Wissinger looks like a Neanderthal/Cro Magnon copper, and acts like one . . . gun use with NO Rules Of Engagement/Force Continuum restraints, nor brains. He should have become a REAL cop, so he could pull this sociopathic behavior and get away with it with imperial impunity! He's as dumb as he looks!

Gil said...

T'is weird how alien Chris Rock's advice "when a police officer pulls you over keep your hands on the steering wheel say politely 'is there a problem officer?'" is some people. Lo and behold you don't have a right to flee the scene when confronted by a police officer.

William N. Grigg said...

Certainly not! Your liberties abruptly come to an end when the slave catcher barks an order in your direction.

By what supposed right can a police officer kill someone for fleeing the scene? Even under positivist "law" (see Tennessee v. Garner)a police officer cannot shoot an unarmed fleeing felon simply because the suspect is trying to escape.

If a police officer has the "right" to kill a suspect in that situation, why shouldn't a private security guard (who, unlike a cop, is actually providing a useful service) be allowed to do so as well?

It's worth pointing out that Chris Rock's comedy routine doesn't dispose of the moral or constitutional questions here.

Michael S. Alford said...

It's odd that they shot him as he was leaving, which appears to be what they had ordered him to do. So the lesson is that if you follow their dictates, but don't do it in the proper attitude and spirit, your life may be forfeit.

Gil said...

If one were to play your game and say that "cops are a criminal gang like any other" then suppose your were accosted by a member of a prominent gang member such the Mafia or Yakuza? If you knew that such a gang member could shoot you dead on the spot and the cops wouldn't see a thing then you wouldn't dick around with him. You wouldn't try to flee from him nor try to fight him (even if you succeeded against him you'd have the whole gang out after you) and you certainly wouldn't pretend he was your friend rather you'd simply be as polite as possible and hope he likes you enough to leave you go on your way.

On the other hand, low-level criminals and smartasses dick around with cops because they think they have all sorts of unlimited rights while the cop has none and act surprised when they wrong, really wrong.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Grigg: I live 5 miles from the Beavercreek Walmart where Crawford was shot. My wife had been there shopping earlier in the day. What I heard reported on the news was that Crawford took the BB gun out of the box and was walking around the store with it. Did you come across this info anywhere?

It was reported in the media that Crawford was talking on the cell phone with his Baby Mama (who was not the girlfriend who was waiting out in the car); do you think it is possible that Crawford was so distracted talking on his cell phone that he had no idea he was creating a public panic, and that when he suddenly saw police there pointing assault rifles at him that he didn't understand why?

It was reported in the media that the BB gun Crawford picked up physically looked like an assault rifle. The local CBS affiliate, WHIO, bought one of the BB guns and the day after the shooting was walking up to people with it asking them what it looked like. Nobody answered BB gun. Do you think it is possible that the police, already conditioned to think it was an assault rifle by the 911 call and seeing what resembled an assault rifle hanging off Crawford's shoulder, assumed in that split second that it was an assault rifle?

I never heard it reported that Crawford was there to buy the BB gun. The media reported he was on his way to a family BBQ. Do you have a source for the claim that Crawford was intent on purchasing the BB gun? If so, why did he take it out of the box, as was reported by the media (if that is true)?

Crawford had marijuana in his system when he died. Nothing wrong with that, but MJ can affect your thinking. Crawford had had previous run-ins with the law as reported by local media. Crawford had 2 children out of wedlock with a 3rd on the way. He was going to a family BBQ with a girlfriend who was not the Baby Mama; the girlfriend stayed in the car while Crawford went inside, where he engaged in a convo with his Baby Mama while apparently taking a BB gun that resembled an assault rifle out of the box and proceeded to walk around the store with it while engaged in a convo on his cell phone, completely oblivious to the public panic that he, a black man, was causing in Beavercreek, OH, a predominantly white affluent community. Life is tough; it's tougher if you're stupid. I don't think Crawford deserved to die, though. The police should have not been so quick to shoot.

William N. Grigg said...

If one were to play your game and say that "cops are a criminal gang like any other" then suppose your were accosted by a member of a prominent gang member such the Mafia or Yakuza?

Private criminal syndicates, for the most part, don't claim the "authority" to interfere in the lives of those who haven't chosen to do business with them. The criminal syndicate called the "State" claims ownership of everyone within its claimed jurisdiction. Given a choice, I'd much rather deal with the Mafia than the government.

Interestingly, I've been reading "Vice Cop," Bill McCarthy's memoir of his career with the NYPD "public morals" division (http://www.amazon.com/Vice-Cop-Twenty-Year-Battle-Yorks/dp/0821740253/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420128249&sr=1-4&keywords=NYPD+Vice). One point he unwittingly makes early and often in that book is that organized crime syndicates, particularly old school mafia families, were much better at maintaining peaceful order than the police.

When riots broke out in the late 1960s, for instance, the police would withdraw from turbulent neighborhoods -- just as they recently did in Ferguson -- but the local "Don" or his equivalent would actually restore order within the territory he would control, and usually with much less violence and property damage than the police would have inflicted.

My chances of being "accosted" by a mafioso of any variety -- let alone one from an exotic gang like the Yakuza -- are so remote they couldn't be detected by an X-ray telescope. As Edmund Burke pointed out centuries ago, when a violent person of that variety threatens or abuses me, I can defend myself or seek effective recourse. This isn't true of the ubiquitous emissaries of the criminal syndicate called the State, who -- unlike their immeasurably less dangerous private sector analogues -- will inflict themselves on me without provocation and will not relent until I either submit to them or kill me for resisting (as Eric Garner's family can testify).

William N. Grigg said...

On the other hand, low-level criminals and smartasses dick around with cops because they think they have all sorts of unlimited rights while the cop has none and act surprised when they wrong, really wrong.

The first thing we need to do is to slay the idea that a police officer has "rights" during an encounter with a citizen. If police are "public servants," they have no rights -- they have obligations to the public. Every right is an assertion of ownership, after all; if a cop has the "right" to detain, assault, or kill someone who is doing no injury to another, then he is, as I pointed out above, claiming ownership of the citizen in question -- that is, he's acting as a slave-catcher.

From that perspective, it makes sense to refer to every citizen in such an encounter as a "low-level" criminal, since -- as Harvey Silverglate documents -- each of us, merely by minding our own business, commits three felonies a day. (Being a "smartass" -- that is, doing nothing but offending a police officer -- is the un-articulated but often capital offense called "contempt of cop").

The reason encounters of this kind frequently end in violence and tragedy is not because police are exercising their "rights," but rather because they are privileged, officially licensed gangsters -- which is precisely the point demonstrated in the contrasting lethal force incidents described in the article above.

I note that Gil pointedly refrains from answering my question: "If a police officer has the `right' to kill a suspect in that situation, why shouldn't a private security guard (who, unlike a cop, is actually providing a useful service) be allowed to do so as well?"

Gil said...

Yeah, uh huh. Sure enough this site and sites like it defend low-level criminals and smartasses for their actions as if to say low-level crimes weren't meant to be enforced. Every time a provocative title appears ("Innocent man shot dead by cops for no reason") it ends up being nowhere near that one-sided (mans acted very dubiously even dangerously to the point he gave a cop a window of opportunity to shoot).

I presuming in your world a PDA officer couldn't do a thing to a criminal suspect who didn't want to be arrested. I presume in you Libertarian view the time window for doing something about a crime is small and after a certain period the crook can't face any consequences short of shaming.

William N. Grigg said...

Gil, if you aspire to being anything other than an undistinguished troll, you really should presume less, and try to think a little bit more.

First of all, there is a question pending: If a police officer has the "right" to shoot a fleeing unarmed suspect, shouldn't a private security guard -- or other private citizen -- be permitted to do so, as well? Right now private citizens are prosecuted and punished for that act, but police are not (except in vanishingly rare cases).

You've had two opportunities to answer that question, and you won't be permitted to comment further until you do.

I [sic] presuming in your world a PDA officer couldn't do a thing to a criminal suspect who didn't want to be arrested.

If the suspect has committed a crime -- an aggressive act that injured another person -- he should be arrested. If he resists, and is convicted of the underlying offense, then his sentence can be enhanced to reflect that fact. But the act of resistance itself wouldn't be treated as a criminal offense: After all, we'd expect criminals not to submit peaceably to arrest, and innocent people have no reason to.

I presume in you Libertarian view the time window for doing something about a crime is small and after a certain period the crook can't face any consequences short of shaming.

The objective of a justice system should be restitution to the victim, not inflicting punishment for the purpose of paying a supposed "debt" to an abstraction called "society." Our current system ignores the question of restitution entirely, and fills prisons with "low-level criminals" whose actions inflict no injury on anyone other than themselves.

One important facet of restitution would involve individual accountability for police, prosecutors, and judges who inflict punishment on innocent people, either through culpable negligence or deliberate malice.

In cases wherein police and prosecutors knowingly imprison an innocent man, for example, they would be forced to serve the same sentence they inflicted on the victim, once the latter is exonerated.

I've discussed this principle at length:

http://kiwi6.com/artists/FreedomZealot/freedom-zealot-podcast-october-18-2014

Gil said...

The police have certain privileges? And? So too do soldiers. Actually soldiers have more privilege since they don't require anything that resembles self-defence before they act. The law says a police officer can shoot at a fleeing suspect because he is deemed dangerous and risks endangering others? The law does allow people to kill others if they're defending someone else's life from a criminal hence you can legally shoot someone in the back if the situation is still dangerous enough.

A case in which police need not have special privilege was that kid who was brandishing a realistic toy firearm in public. Had he threatened to shoot someone and the citizen pulled out his own gun and shot that kid dead only to find that kid was playing a game with technically fake gun then I failed to see why that citizen should be charged with anything.

Once again some here find Chris Rock's advice on not getting their ass kicked by the police alien. Obey the law? No way I decide what I do! Use common sense? Nah I do what I want! Avoid people with criminal lifestyles? No way they're the coolest! Associate with people who don't come across as criminal? That's racist I hang out with whomever I want!

William N. Grigg said...

The police have certain privileges? And? So too do soldiers.

The first and most important way that you're wrong is by treating the police as a military entity.

The putative purpose of law enforcement is to protect the rights of the public, including individuals suspected of a crime.

Furthermore, the Law of Land Warfare is emphatically clear on the fact that civilians, not soldiers, are the most privileged people within a theater of war.

One measure of the depth of our present predicament is found in the fact that the rules of engagement governing American military personnel abroad are actually more restrictive than those applying to domestic law enforcement.

The law says a police officer can shoot at a fleeing suspect because he is deemed dangerous and risks endangering others? The law does allow people to kill others if they're defending someone else's life from a criminal hence you can legally shoot someone in the back if the situation is still dangerous enough.

As the Ranger Security case above demonstrates, you are entirely wrong about the existing law regarding a non-police officer using deadly force against a fleeing, unarmed criminal suspect. That case is hardly the only recent one of its kind.

Additionally, the "law" on this subject does not grant the kind of discretion you describe, although customary police policies and procedures still do.

A case in which police need not have special privilege was that kid who was brandishing a realistic toy firearm in public. Had he threatened to shoot someone and the citizen pulled out his own gun and shot that kid dead only to find that kid was playing a game with technically fake gun then I failed to see why that citizen should be charged with anything.

Ohio is an open carry state. If it is not illegal to carry a real gun, it is hardly a crime to be seen in possession of what you describe as a "technically fake gun," either at a Wal Mart or in a public park.

In the case of Tamir Rice, the citizen who called 911 actually told the police that the "gun" appeared to be a toy, but this didn't register with the officer who murdered the 12-year-old -- a guy who had already been cashiered from one department for being unsuited, by both skill-set and temperament, to handle firearms. If the caller had behaved as that officer did -- that is, shooting the kid on sight -- he would have been prosecuted for that act.

Once again some here find Chris Rock's advice on not getting their ass kicked by the police alien.

And, once again, we see the childish insistence on pretending that police are authorized by law (as opposed to actual practice) to dispense ass-kickings at their discretion.

Obey the law? No way I decide what I do! Use common sense? Nah I do what I want! Avoid people with criminal lifestyles? No way they're the coolest! Associate with people who don't come across as criminal? That's racist I hang out with whomever I want!

There is one -- and only one -- cohort of people who consistently behave in the fashion you describe; they are called "the police." They claim exemption from laws both grave and petty, routinely display the signifiers of gang identity, and are indulged in their use of casual violence against people who have done no harm to others -- including incidents in which their conduct is not morally justifiable.

I should likewise point out that only a witless clod who is a stranger to the concept of irony would miss the point that Chris Rock's comedy routine was obviously intended as a criticism not only of people who foolishly commit illegal acts, but of the reflexive criminal violence of the police themselves.

kirk said...

the treatment of cowley vs the treatment of tarbert/wissinger reveal why PRIVATE peace officer entities, competing for contracts,
is the model that should be adopted for the future.

the alternative is the elite controlled occupation force that now masquerades as 'protecting and serving' while murdering with impunity and being rewarded for such.

as an aside, "gil" also regularly writes negative comments on at least one other libertarian site i regularly access.

Chris Mallory said...

"Obey the law? No way I decide what I do!"

I am proudly, not a "law abiding citizen".

I don't cause harm other people either by fraud or force. I don't lie to other people. (the same cannot be said even by the "good" cops")

But I do not consider the edicts of a group of men of such suspect morals and low character that they became government employees to be the guide of my life.
If I am not hurting anyone else, then it makes no difference what the laws are, I will do what I choose.

John Ellis said...

As the educated upper half of society hoards all the wealth, as they use poverty as a tool to enslave the laboring-class lower half, no possibility is there for the law or government to correct such a systemic corruption in society.

So, as wealth is the property we own above what is needed to have a quality life, is not the only solution for everyone to willingly give up all such excessive wealth?

William N. Grigg said...

Former Idaho State Representative Mark Patterson sends the following multi-part comment:

A number of things fall into place from the story and the postings.

The Qualified Immunity noted for government employees should only be for civil immunity when they are acting lawfully. However that idea has been trashed by the the supreme court allowing cops to violate the Forth Amendment Rights of American Citizens if the cop is not educated on the Rights of all US citizens under the Constitution. No kidding!

This in itself is another puzzle piece of the slippery slope that will lead to what was seen in recent history of the last century, the 20th century. Where all this police state agenda such as seeing Americans who believe in God, are against abortion, are Christians and citizens who have sound questions of government's doings and actions. These are the people who are viewed as threats to American by government more so than soldiers of radical Islam who make threats to murder innocent Americans by the millions.

The government sees honest Americans as the greatest threat of all. Clearly this is a step by step to government conduct the world has witnessed from a number of different governments during the last century. Where such governments murdered hundreds of millions its own citizens. This is where America is headed and oddly many question what where the German people thinking when Hitler came to power, duh!
Its true, cops today are clearly far more violent than cops were years ago, by intent.

Cops today are without question, a violent gang. Honest Americans by far and large freak out when they see a cop when they are out and about. Yet when these same people see a few gang bangers in a low ride or scary black leather bikers in traffic with then, they fear none. But cops bring fear because many people get it, cops are violent as well as liars and for the most part criminals.

William N. Grigg said...

Part two of Rep. Mark Patterson's comment:

Cops frame many innocent people because they are framable. They over charge them with many crimes to force them to take a deal, which the county's government lawyers are their partners. This gives the cops, positive points which moves them up the ladder.

Why do they do this? Because all government employees work for the golden egg of retirement. To get more out of the retirement scam the taxpayers pay for, the government employees need to make more money. By scamming the system and sending innocent people to jail/prison this gives them more rank and or job promotions which increase their pay. Retirement is based on their pay by a percent of that pay.

This gets even better. All government employees by far and large work for the same agenda, the retirement prize. So they too must move up the ladder but if they wait for folks above them to retire, moving up in pay my never happen. So government employees must increase government by creating new regulations, new fee's, increase taxes and laws in expanding government which brings in new government employees that fall under them. In effect government has become nothing more than a multi level marketing, MLM scam.

The more new government employees that come in under the current government employees the more they are going to make, MLM and nothing but an MLM scam. And it gets even better yet. The American people have watched their jobs go overseas as hung numbers of American manufacturing in example, have left America. The reason is not wages of the employees, no sir. Its costly regulations, fee's and taxes to employ and pay for all the new government employees in the MLM scam.

William N. Grigg said...

Here's the third and final segment of Rep. Mark Patterson's comment:

Clearly the cops are just more visible in the MLM scam being run on the American people. But they are also the most violent and dangerous. 95 percent of all government employees could not make the money and the extras in their government jobs in the private sector. And they know this, very well. They do not want to be in the private sector unless they are all ready collecting the golden retirement from government employment.

Keep in mind, advocating and promoting limited government is a death wish in our world today. The Founders had it correct when they wanted a limited government. They knew mankind was made up of sinners and the sinners would be flocking to government to scam the sheep. Work for salvation because its going to be all you, your family and friends have in the big picture.

Anonymous said...

As a government employee I agree and disagree with the representatives statements. I agree that it is easy for such employees as I to be lazy and unimaginative. That is its bane (also weakness since lots of incompetence is there also!) . I have seen many examples of wasteful spending without a care about who is paying for it. For worrying about the lack of funding increases when most Americans have had a decrease in income.

OTOH most of us do not get direct renumeration from taxes, fees etc, So I doubt employees are making new fees to feather their own nest. They will make them to close budgets though hence the ubiquitous speed cameras. But most of us do not spend our time daydreaming of new fees and taxes.

Learning

John Ellis said...

Will Grigg
"Work for salvation because its going to be all you… have in the big picture.

True, for the purpose of this life is to reach the ultimate conclusion of the illusion that there is no such thing as good, that all is evil and that to maximize pleasure is what our unalienable right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is all about.

For mental darkness, a liar's pretense of good hiding his intent to be enriched upon our misery, this is what enables evil to enslave and destroy us. So, is there really such a thing as good or righteous laws that establish what is harmless and good?

Or is good nothing more then the highest form of evil? What with those who have the greatest knowledge of good being the greatest liars as they have the greatest ability to hid an evil intent. What with a God who claims to be the substance and essence of good having an infinite knowledge of good and if He was in fact a liar, then surely to obey his laws of good would make us pure evil doing nothing but evil.

For good is to be harmless, to do only what would enrich others and preserve life. On the other hand, evil is anything that if carried to it's ultimate conclusion would cause the ultimate destruction of all life.

For example, wealth is evil as wealth is the property we own above what is needed to have a quality life. For the only way to keep wealth in this world is to be willing to kill to protect wealth, which you could do only if you thought wealth was more valuable then people. For by all that is right and just, anyone with an intent to kill to protect wealth has murder in his heart and forfeits any hope of salvation. For salvation means to be saved from all harm, a thing that can be accomplished only by a pacifist, for in Matthew 5:37 it is written,

"Do not use force to overcome evil. If they strike you on the right cheek turn to them the other."

Gil said...

:Remember the good ol' days when cops treated the public with a certain degree of respect?" Those who say that are romancing about how the cops treated the law-abiding folks of the day. However back half a century or so ago people who lived the shadier side of town where a life of petty crime was the norm they too would have problems with the police. Some here want to commit low-level crimes don't want them enforced yet act when they are enforced.

William N. Grigg said...

Unless you're a Betazed, and I'm fairly confident such beings do not exist, you really shouldn't claim to know the unspoken motivations of other people.

Where the subject of "low-level crimes" is concerned, Gil, you are a serial offender, just like everybody else. Owing to the criminalization of routine, harmless behavior, each of us in his or her daily life commits multiple "crimes" every day.

Given your zeal for strict and comprehensive enforcement of the "law," and stern punishment for all "low-level criminals," you have a duty to surrender yourself to the authorities immediately.

John Ellis said...

Be a cop --- Safer and cleaner then laboring-class work

Actually, most any work involving machines is more dangerous then being a cop, airline pilots for example are four times more likely to suffer injury then do cops.

But, doing laboring-class work, repetitious drudgery invariably around machinery, from the standpoint of safety and dirt contamination, surely this has to be the pits. For over 20 years I worked in the timber logging industry, which is 10 times more dangerous then law enforcement. For two years I did sandblasting, standing high-up on makeshift scaffolding, a work so dusty, unhealthy and dangerous I could not even find a rating for it.

Whereas, law enforcement is all of the educated middle-class and as they spend 95% of their time policing laboring men, the most passive and non-violent men on earth, surely you most likely will never see so much as a soiled shirt on a cop, nor a band-aid stuck to a cop.

Gil said...

Nope. I find that very hard to believe. It's interesting to note that the 1 star reviewers pointed out the "3 felonies a days" was just a attention grabber and not true.

Nonetheless it shows the flaw in the Libertarian credo "do what you want until you harm someone" - who defines the "harm" then? A common thread prison counsellors have is that they have to try to make prisoner realise their actions are wrong regardless of whether they think it should be. Surprise, surprise if the prisoner doesn't understand what he did was wrong regardless of the severity of the crime. For even violent offenders they felt they were never doing something harmful and in some ways thought it was self-defence.

William N. Grigg said...

Nope. I find that very hard to believe.

That's because your in denial, just like all of the other incorrigible offenders you mention toward the end of your comment. Like any other habitual criminal, you refuse to admit the seriousness of the offenses you commit. Or at least that's what we should believe, or pretend to, if we accept your premises.

It's interesting to note that the 1 star reviewers pointed out the "3 felonies a days" was just a attention grabber and not true.

So you find something compelling in the fact that 100 percent of the people who disagree with Silverglate's book don't consider it to be worthwhile? Here's an idea: Why don't you read it and assess it on its merits, which is what any honest person would do? Since you're the kind of person who prefers to live within the comforting shelter of unexamined prejudices, I fully expect that you won't do so.

Nonetheless it shows the flaw in the Libertarian credo "do what you want until you harm someone" - who defines the "harm" then?

Harm is a proven injury to an individual's person or property; it can be the result of a crime, or of a tort. Libertarians and most anarchists agree that in disputes of that kind an adversarial fact-finding procedure is necessary and appropriate. We do not agree with the idea that a disembodied abstraction called "society" or the "state" has standing in such matters.

If you were sincerely interested in studying non-statist approaches to criminal justice I would recommend chapters five and six of William C. Woolridge's classic "Uncle Sam the Monopoly Man."

A common thread prison counsellors have is that they have to try to make prisoner realise their actions are wrong regardless of whether they think it should be. Surprise, surprise if the prisoner doesn't understand what he did was wrong regardless of the severity of the crime.For even violent offenders they felt they were never doing something harmful and in some ways thought it was self-defence.

Yes, I understand such frustrations: Police officers who murder or otherwise abuse innocent people display exactly the same sociopathic intransigence. The difference is that the latter are protected and promoted when they commit crimes of that kind: "He was resisting arrest! He committed `Contempt of cop'! He made a furtive gesture, he bladed his body, I was in fear for my life, it was `excited delirium'...."

rkshanny said...

Looks like Gil is under the thrall of his captors . . . Stockholm Syndrome. "Public skools" and the sycophantic media got him right where they want him. Reading his posts reminds of a couple quotes: 1. Samuel Adams--"If ye love wealth better than liberty,
the tranquility of servitude
better than the animating contest of freedom,
go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or your arms.
Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
May your chains set lightly upon you,
and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." 2. "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Funny . . . I remember a little ole cop-aggrandizing granny a while back being victimized by her jackbooted "protectors" during a "legal" home invasion for enforcement of the "lesser-crime" of pot, which was never found. She was on camera afterwards lamenting the fact that she had always been a "law-abiding" badge-polisher, and how she always thot that her servicial stormtroopers only victimized "criminals". She had an imprint of a waffle-sole on the side of her neck! I laughed out loud . . . at 70+ years old, it's long overdue for the blinders to start fraying!! I also recall an incident of official "protect & serve" in the name of "lesser crimes" that occurred in Roosevelt, Utah, after a game, where a local uniformed "lesser-crime"-enforcer didn't feel deferred to with quite the grub-like submission he wanted as he herded the attendees out of the stadium, so he indiscriminately began willy-nilly pepper-spraying all of the 2-legged cattle in his proximity, even small children and babies carried by their parents. This sociopathic loon came under fire, but the thing that astounded me most was that several of his worshipful sycophants actually publicly apologized for his Nazi-like behavior, exclaiming that he was "only doing his job"!! How sad it is when the american spirit has been replaced with belly-crawling subjects who, in the face of such arbitrary police-state lunacy, can still explain it away!!

Gil said...

Oh dear it seems the notion of "harm" is rather arbitrary. So "harm" has to be proven in some sort of private equivalent of a court? Where the arbitrators get their definition of "harm" then? From religion? Culture? Family? Etc.? Honour killings are deemed a form of self-defence by the perpetrators in certain cultures and as such would be deemed "harmless" by a arbitrator of the same culture if such a system existed.

After all, you clearly assert cops murder and abuse innocence people. I hear about such stories that at first make me angry if true only to find it's not so clear cut as the Libertarian would make out. Hence you see great deal of blatant "harm" whereas depending anything from "harm" that the courts have to decide upon to acting within the powers they have.

Anonymous said...

The key to unlock the cage we all find ourselves in at this time is the judiciary. This branch of government was created, in part, to protect the people from the ambitions and excesses of the other branches of government. Nearly all important issues are ultimately determined in a courtroom. Citizens no longer have direct access to grand juries and find that their complaints are first filtered through the political office of the district attorney who will routinely refuse to prosecute anyone who is politically connected. Litigants are routinely denied standing or due process in the courts to frustrate those who seek justice from the state.
In Marbury v. Madison the supreme court ruled that an unconstitutional statute is void “ab initio” or from it’s inception. It reasonably follows that one of the first issues before any court should be the constitutionality of the law involved. Judges swear an oath to support and defend the constitution, within which is found your right to due process of law. Why is it that a denial of due process, the very definition of a void judgement, per Black’s 6th, never renders any judgement void or results in prosecution of the judge for perjury of his oath?
Judges are the gatekeepers of society. We depend upon them for redress and remedy. They have failed. In order to obtain remedy we must take back our courts by holding judges accountable.
“Jail For Judges” is a concept which creates an external review board to hear complaints of judges actions and negligence and to sanction judges up to and including imprisonment. When judges must choose between according due process to litigants and going to jail for failure to do so, that is when people will receive due process and not a minute before. When “Jail For Judges” becomes law in any single jurisdiction, i.e. any state of the union, a person need only move to that state long enough to establish residency in order to qualify to petition the court for vacation of a facially void judgement, which is the court record of a case which demonstrates a denial of due process.
People must qualify ballot initiatives to institute “Jail For Judges” and re-institute direct access for the public to grand juries to facilitate indictments against govt. actors who commit crimes. In this way the system may be used to purify itself and to return our country to a constitutionally restrained republic. http://ga.jail4judges.org/GA_initiative.html

William N. Grigg said...

Oh dear it seems the notion of "harm" is rather arbitrary.

Physical injury and loss of property are tangible, not abstract, and can be recognized by people who have not surrendered themselves to obtuseness -- or even to someone like you, for that matter.

So "harm" has to be proven in some sort of private equivalent of a court?

The word "arbitrary" refers to judgment. Most civil disputes in this country are handled through private arbitration, rather than through government-established courts; this has been the case for decades.

One interesting example of this is a case I'm investigating in which an Austin police officer was suspended after an unlawful arrest and assault on a local woman: Claiming that he had suffered a tangible injury, the officer filed for arbitration through the American Arbitration Association, a private entity. This is actually a fairly common procedure for cops who have grievances of that kind, and it illustrates both the legitimacy and the superiority of private dispute settlement mechanisms over the government-imposed alternatives.

Honour killings are deemed a form of self-defence by the perpetrators in certain cultures and as such would be deemed "harmless" by a arbitrator of the same culture if such a system existed.

Once again, I am wearily familiar with the way such mechanisms operate. Granted, "honor killings" by Muslims in this country are all but unheard of, but they are committed weekly, or perhaps daily, by offended members of the Blue Tribe, and almost always ruled "justified" by arbitrators from their culture.

That wouldn't be the case if police weren't invested with "qualified immunity" and protected by a system claiming a monopoly on the administration of justice.

Gil said...

So your definition of "harm" means "what I think it should mean" then? "Well it's 'harm' in my books so why can't others automatically see things my way?" I am reminded how personal reputation is nothing to Libertarian thinkers such as Walter Block whereas it is serious (if not life or death) business in most cultures.

You assume "harm" can only mean "physical injury" as well "property destruction." Most people view offensive and threatening behaviour as harmful hence they believe they don't have to wait until they are actually physically attacked or their private property damaged before they can retaliate. And don't forget you notion is negated as soon as it's done in self-defence. Which is to say physical injury and property damage are not automatically wrong per se and can be valid actions in certain circumstances.

Early on in "The Simpsons" there was an episode in which Mr Burns car hit Bart Simpson and both parties provided a different story to the jury. The Martin vs. Zimmerman case one side saw a case of murder while other saw a case of self-defence showing that real life doesn't automatically default to an obvious "harm" that everyone will agree on.

William N. Grigg said...

So your definition of "harm" means "what I think it should mean" then? "Well it's 'harm' in my books so why can't others automatically see things my way?"

In my comment above I made reference to people who have "surrendered themselves to obtuseness." In your reply you offer a public service, of sorts, by providing a demonstration of what that phrase means.

You assume "harm" can only mean "physical injury" as well "property destruction."

For a crime to exist, harm of that kind must be proven. There are other varieties of harm that constitute civil torts, which is a separate discussion.

Most people view offensive and threatening behaviour as harmful hence they believe they don't have to wait until they are actually physically attacked or their private property damaged before they can retaliate.

Self-defense is a valid response to aggression. Where a proven injury has occurred, restitution should be the objective. Retaliation is never a legitimate response.

...physical injury and property damage are not automatically wrong per se and can be valid actions in certain circumstances.

Those circumstances never include aggression. This is why someone who kills, injures, or destroys the property of another has the moral burden of demonstrating that such action was defensive.

This brings us back to the point of the essay above: Private peace officers can be held accountable when the injury or damage they inflict is not the result of legitimate self-defense; government-employed law enforcement officers cannot. This is one of the most compelling reasons why the latter institution is illegitimate.

Early on in "The Simpsons"....

Like most adults (Jonah Goldberg might be an exception, assuming that he fits in this category), I generally don't seek real-life wisdom from "The Simpsons."

The Martin vs. Zimmerman case one side saw a case of murder while other saw a case of self-defence showing that real life doesn't automatically default to an obvious "harm" that everyone will agree on.

In that case the harm (a dead unarmed teenager) was obvious; the question was whether the individual who inflicted it was acting as the aggressor, or in self-defense. This demonstrates the acknowledged need for such claims to be tested in an adversarial system. Once again, the point of the essay is that those who enforce the laws should -- at the very least -- not be selectively immune to their application.

Unknown said...

Being my daughter was kill nearly two years ago my cops, January 9, 2013, I can find reality to be cruel and certain.
For the truth is, many if not all cannot grasp what the conclusions are from the results of our ignorance. Honor killings is a two edged sword and the payback is a mother. Unless we can break the spell of our delusion the light at the end of the tunnel is going to be a train.