Gypsies, Tramps and Thugs

Would-be murder weapon: Fred Ensminger's pickup.

 "This guy ...  just tried to run my husband over!" exclaimed Arkansas  resident Cindy Nelson in a frantic  911 call on July 21. "Oh, my God -- he's shooting at us! Oh, my God!"

A few minutes later, Fred Ensminger -- the deranged assailant -- placed a 911 call of his own.

"This is Diamondhead 1106," Ensminger told the suddenly swamped dispatcher. I have been shot and I need medical at my front gate ASAP."

Ensminger is a recidivist criminal. Thanks to the fact that practically any bipedal simian with a pulse can become a police officer in Arkansas, Ensminger -- who just barely meets those criteria -- is employed by the Police Department of Diamondhead Arkansas, a gated community located south of Hot Springs.

A few minutes before Cindy Nelson told the 911 dispatcher that a "guy with a badge" was trying to murder her husband, she had passed Ensminger's pickup truck, which  was parked by the side of the road.

 

As Nelson started to go around the truck, Ensminger -- whose penchant for abusive behavior was notorious in Diamondhead -- pulled out in front of her. According to an eyewitness, Ensminger "stopped suddenly," causing Nelson to slam on her brakes to avoid a collision.

According to the witness, Ensminger climbed out of his pickup truck and began to harangue Nelson. She reacted by pulling around him and proceeding down the road. An infuriated Ensminger followed in close pursuit.

 With Ensinger's pickup truck looming in her rear-view, Nelson called her husband, Jerry Chambliss, and told him that she was being followed. She had no idea at this point that her stalker was an off-duty police officer.

After Nelson entered the gated community, Chambliss went into the driveway "with my arms up, palms out, hollering stop, stop, stop, what are you doing?" he later told investigators.

Ensminger gunned the pickup forward, striking Chambliss and knocking him down. He then compounded that act of attempted vehicular homicide by grabbing his 40 caliber Glock and firing several rounds into the garage. At some point Ensminger punctuated his acts of attempted criminal homicide by flashing his state-issued costume jewelry.

Chambliss raced into the house and retrieved a loaded 9mm handgun and returned fire, striking Ensminger in the shoulder and forcing the assailant to withdraw.

After Ensminger called for backup, Nelson made a second 911 call requesting a police officer. When the dispatcher replied that an officer was already on the premises, Nelson suggested that it might be worthwhile to send someone other than the person who had just perforated her home with gunfire.

"She [the dispatcher] kept telling me, `He's not the shooter-- he's a cop,'" Cindy Nelson related in an interview with Pro Libertate.  "I kept trying to convince her that's what was happening -- that this cop just opened fire on our home. They never did send anyone to help us, even though they did send people after he [Ensminger] called 911."

After the police arrived, Nelson continues, "they had us on the ground in handcuffs for thirty minutes. They also spent six hours searching our house -- with our consent, I guess. After that they didn't even take my husband with them; they just said `We'll call you if we need to ask some more questions.'"

Note well that right from the beginning it was clear that Chambliss had acted legally, and that Ensminger, the assailant, had committed a criminal offense. Despite this, the official stance of the Diamondhead Police Department was that Chambliss was a "suspect," and that Ensminger had fallen heroically in the line of duty.

The shootout between Ensinger and Chambliss was originally described by the Diamondhead Police and the local media as growing out of a "domestic dispute." Chief Pat Mahoney and Garland County Deputy Judy Daniel told Little Rock's Fox 16 News that they were concerned about their injured comrade, who had been stricken in the line of duty as he was "investigating" a purported episode of domestic violence.

That official lie is indigestibly rich in irony, given the fact that Ensminger -- a "gypsy cop" who has been repeatedly fired and punished for disciplinary infractions and criminal acts -- was himself arrested on a domestic violence charge in 2006. The victim in that assault, which took place in front of the police station in Alexander, Arkansas, was a female police officer.

"We are very happy that the officer is OK and extremely glad that the suspect is in custody," stated Deputy Daniel shortly after that heroic defender of public order tried to murder Jerry Chambliss. "It just makes it easier on everybody, the other officers, his family."

Note how this description of  "everybody" refers exclusively to those employed as agents of government coercion. The "civilian" who used righteous force to repel Ensminger's criminal assault apparently didn't count. Mere Mundanes never do.

"Gypsy Cop" John Frederick Ensminger.

Following surgery to remove the bullet he had received as a consolation prize for finishing second in a shoot-out, Ensminger filed the predictably perjurious official report. 

Like too many others in his profession, Ensminger couples functional illiteracy with an unexpected gift for storytelling. He claimed to have observed Nelson driving erratically, and that she attempted to run him over when he displayed the trinket denoting his supposed authority. 

That claim was demolished by contradictory eyewitness testimony, which established that while Ensminger screamed at Nelson and wagged a finger in her direction, he never flashed his badge.

Ensminger offered a similarly mendacious version of his encounter with Chambliss. In the officer's account, he was confronted by an "angry unknown man" who slammed his hands on the hood of his car telling him to get out of the driveway.

In this depiction, Chambliss shot Ensminger without provocation, and the off-duty cop returned fire in self-defense. Once again, that account couldn't be reconciled with the evidence assembled during an investigation by the Arkansas State Police.

In his official report, state Prosecuting Attorney Steve Oliver concluded that Chambliss "was justified in using deadly physical force in the defense of himself and his wife on July 21, 2010.... Under Arkansas law, Mr. Chambliss was not required to retreat if he was not the original aggressor."

This of necessity means that Fred Ensminger, the "original aggressor," committed multiple acts of criminal assault, and thus be subject to prosecution -- correct?

Well, no.

Oliver ruled that Ensminger displayed "poor judgment in his aggressive pursuit of Ms. Nelson to her residence but he acted with the belief that he was justified under color of law."

This unsupportable, invalid  "belief" appears sufficient to exculpate Ensminger's repeated attempts to murder Jerry Chambliss. Oliver doesn't provide any other explanation for his decision not to file criminal charges of any kind against Ensminger, who not only remains free but (at least as of September 7) is reportedly still employed by the Diamondhead Police Department, even though he is currently enjoying a paid vacation (aka "administrative leave").

"Just because he has a badge he does not have the right to come down and kill citizens," Chambliss complained to Little Rock's Fox affiliate. According to Oliver, that state-issued bauble does indeed confer the authority to commit acts of discretionary murder. Oliver's report clearly suggests that if Ensminger had displayed his chintzy totem of official privilege during the highway confrontation with Cindy Nelson, Chambliss would be facing criminal charges.

"We've never had trouble of any kind with law enforcement before," Cindy Nelson remarked to Pro Libertate. "We're well-known here, and we've always been upstanding citizens. I'm a nurse, and my husband -- who served in the Navy -- has been a Real Estate broker and a candidate for office. My husband suffered severe bruising and other injuries after being run down. We never used to lock our doors, now we have three locks on every door and keep our cars locked at all times."

Chambliss is also undergoing treatment for what appears to be post-traumatic stress disorder. "This guy simply terrorized us," Cindy summarizes. She and her husband have some unfortunate company in Diamondhead.

"We're scared to have him in the community, quite frankly," commented Diamondhead resident Kimberly Gilsinger, whose children were threatened by the officer while swimming in a local lake. 

Hot Springs Officer Joey Williams assaults skateboarder.

In late June, just weeks before Ensminger attempted to murder Jerry Chambliss, Gilsinger and her husband filed a complaint alleging that the officer had threatened to kill her son and five other local boys, the youngest of whom was ten years old. 

Specifically, Ensminger allegedly said that "he would get in the water and drown every one of them if they didn't get out," Gilsinger recalled. The complaint also stated that Ensminger made a vague but unmistakable threat to shoot the kids. 

(Arkansas police seem to attract child predators: Three years ago a tonsured thug named Joey Williams was captured on video choking and otherwise assaulting several young skateboarders on the streets of Hot Springs. His employer, the Hot Springs PD, ruled that his felonious assault was "justified," not that the suspense was unbearable.)

Ray Massey, President of the Diamondhead Property Association, told the Little Rock CBS affiliate that Ensminger "got a verbal reprimand and a warning" after committing what Gilsinger correctly describes as a "felony" by threatening to "harm or kill our children."

This was hardly the first criminal act Ensminger has committed in a career in law enforcement that began seven years ago.

Ensminger was fired little more than a year of being hired by the Shannon Hills Police Department. During that time he managed to shoot a suspect under dubious circumstances (the act was ruled "justified," as nearly all such shootings are) and a property theft charge. During that same busy 14-month span, reports THV-TV, "his record shows an assault case, which included a false statement to the police on Ensminger's part. That case eventually led to his firing."

He then migrated to the Alexander Police Department, where he was arrested on a domestic battery charge after he manhandled his girlfriend -- a fellow police officer named April Tirado -- outside the police station. Ensminger wasn't fired from that position; he was permitted to resign instead. Approximately a year later he was hired by the Diamondhead Police Department.

The Diamondhead PD refuses to release Ensminger's record, claiming that it is exempt from freedom of information laws because it is employed by a private entity, the Diamondhead Property Owners Association. It is more accurate to describe the POA as a "public-private" or corporatist body, since its police department -- as prosecutor Steve Oliver points out -- presumes to exercise coercive "authority" under "color of law," rather than simply protecting property rights pursuant to contract. If Ensminger were a Paul Blart-style private security guard, he would most likely be facing criminal charges.

John Frederick Ensminger, petty criminal and itinerant police officer, should be made the poster child for the problem of "Gypsy Cops" -- corrupt, abusive officers who drift from one agency to another, enjoying both immunity from prosecution and unassailable job security. This problem is particularly acute in Arkansas, where no certification of any kind is required to become a police officer.

To become a licensed practicing cosmetologist in the State of Arkansas, an applicant must pass a state board examination and complete 2,000 hours of specialized training. For an investment of 600 hours an applicant can qualify to work as a manicurist or instructor.

While Arkansas strictly regulates those who cut hair or paint nails in private, voluntary transactions, it imposes no training or licensing standards whatsoever on armed people clothed in government-issued costumes and the supposed authority to inflict lethal violence on others.

Another view of the heroic Joey Williams in action.

"The second night I ever put on a badge and gun I was riding in my own car," recalls Crittenden County Chief Deputy Tommy Martin. At the time, Martin was 21 years old and hadn't spent so much as a minute inside a police academy classroom, notes Jill Monier of Memphis's Fox News affiliate.

"According to Arkansas state law, officers do not have to be certified for up to a year after they're hired," observes Monier. "The Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training says they can get an 8 month extension on top of that. So for almost 2 years, an officer can patrol the streets, by his or herself, and enforce the law without having any kind of training."

Understandably, this system is a boon to  "gypsy" cops. Each time a "gypsy" cop finds a new gig in Arkansas, his 12- to 20-month grace period begins all over again; in this way, officers can be enforcing the "law" for years without receiving certification of any kind.

Ensminger, who couldn't legally cut hair or manicure nails in Arkansas, remains licensed to kill. 

Incidentally ...

... Scott Horton, who hosts the indispensable AntiWar Radio program, was kind enough to invite me on as a guest last Friday.

Once again: Thank you.

I continue to be amazed and humbled by the generosity so many of you have shown to me and my family. Thank you so much! 

Join me each Saturday evening from 8:00-11:00 Mountain Time for Pro Libertate Radio on the Liberty News Radio Network.

Dum spiro, pugno!

License to Prey

 

On the hunt: Serial predator and Police Chief Butterfield.

Early one morning in July 2014, a woman in Myton, Utah was startled awake by an uninvited visitor named Thomas Wayne Butterfield.

“I'm a cop,” Butterfield explained to the intimidated woman when she asked how he had gotten into her bedroom. “They teach us how to do those things.”

When the woman moved into the living room, Butterfield followed her, placing his hand on her leg in a gesture at once proprietary and predatory. The unexpected arrival of the woman's father prevented what likely would have been a sexual assault – and Butterfield's firing as the tiny town's police chief ended a four-month campaign of harassment during which he forced his unwanted attentions on at least four women.

This behavior was not out of what passes for Butterfield's character: During a career that spans nearly two decades and roughly a half-dozen police agencies across Utah, he has routinely preyed upon women. This has led to numerous complaints, criminal charges, and a suspension – yet he remained employable in an occupation that selects for predators and tends to reward their misbehavior.

Salt Lake City NBC affiliate KSL reports that two days prior to Butterfield's July 2014 invasion of the unnamed woman's bedroom, the victim had called the police seeking “help getting her car, purse and other personal items back from her estranged husband.” After Butterfield arrived, the woman testified during a July 30 pre-trial hearing, the officer held her against her will for about two hours, driving her in his patrol car and making clumsy sexual overtures and ignoring her repeated pleas to be released.

“He asked me if I ever thought about having sex with a cop,” the woman related in the courtroom. Acting on the assumption that the victim's reluctance reflected concerns about confidentiality, rather than her chromosome-level revulsion, Chief Butterfield assured her that “My car is like Vegas: What happens here, stays here.”

Trapped in the custody of an armed stranger with a state-issued license to use lethal force, the woman was concerned about not only her bodily integrity, but her physical survival – and she knew that his account of the incident would be considered definitive because of his position.

“With him being in authority, he could make things a lot worse for me because he's a cop,” she observed during her testimony.

Although she escaped that encounter, Butterfield – displaying a heedless, clueless ardor reminiscent of the libidinous cartoon character Pepe LePew – materialized in her bedroom two days later.

Other women have provided sworn testimony of similar treatment by Myton's only full-time law enforcement officer.

“I told him that I wasn't interested in any sort of sexual relationship,” a second woman testified during a May 11 hearing. Rather than accepting the rebuff, Butterfield plied the victim with unsolicited personal disclosures, telling her that he and his wife hadn't been intimate for several years and that he “needed a cool kind of friend that wouldn't cause drama in his life.”

“I've told a lot of people that,” Butterfield admitted when asked about the claim that he had complained to women about intimacy issues with his wife. He described those comments as “facetious” while grudgingly conceding that such comments “may have been in poor taste.” His misconduct wasn't limited to breaches of etiquette.

Despite the utter absence of any hint of reciprocal interest, Butterfield called the woman repeatedly and showed up at her home without an invitation, announcing his intention to “finish the conversation” about sex – which, given that the “conversation” was one-sided and involuntary, left the woman understandably alarmed and frightened.

Remarkably, the Myton woman who found Butterfield standing in her bedroom was not the first to have that experience – nor the first to be told that breaking into the home of a would-be victim is part of his skill set as a police officer.

Holli Stewart told the Deseret News that after breaking up with Butterfield in 1999, she found him sitting on the edge of his bed. When she asked how he had gotten in, Butterfield replied: “Holli, I'm a cop. They teach us how to do that. I can get in anywhere.”

At the time, Butterfield was employed as an officer with the police department in Lehi, Utah. He was charged with criminal trespass, a class B misdemeanor. A plea bargain reduced that charge to an infraction in exchange for a no contest plea. His peace officer certification was suspended for a year by the Utah Peace Officer Standards and Training Council (POST).

In an interesting contrast, last year the POST Council imposed a two-year suspension on former police cadet Shawnn Hartley for “not disclosing a prior use of marijuana in a timely manner." Under the institutional priorities of the Utah POST Council, which haven't changed appreciably over the past decade and a half, a lack of candor about marijuana use is a graver offense than using the skill-set of a police officer to engage in sexually predatory behavior.

Butterfield's brief suspension, and his criminal record, did no lasting injury to his law enforcement career. In 2000 he found employment with police departments in Spring City and Roosevelt, eventually being hired as a deputy with the Duschene County Sheriff's Office.

In 2010, Butterfield resigned from the Duschene County Sheriff's Office during an internal affairs inquiry into alleged misconduct involving another woman. He was re-hired by the Roosevelt PD, but was fired in April 2013 after two women filed complaints claiming that he had acted inappropriately toward them.

Despite his severely tainted record and “gypsy cop” status, Butterfield was hired by Myton when the political clique in charge of the town of 604 people unaccountably decided that although the town has one stop sign and no measurable criminal activity, it needed a police department.

“We scraped together every cent we could to get a department together,” Myton Mayor Kathleen Cooper lamented to the Salt Lake Tribute. Perhaps as an economy measure, the city government didn't invest in a background check. Butterfield was hired in July 2014. By September, sexual misconduct allegations had begun to accumulate.

“People are innocent until proven guilty,” Mayor Cooper said with respect to the “mind-numbing” charges against Butterfield. “At this point, we stand behind our chief, and we'll defend him until we find out otherwise.” The mayor's determination to defend the chief evaporated shortly after the September 16, 2014 interview with the Tribune: Butterfield was fired by the city and surrendered his peace officer certification. 

 

She doesn't do due diligence: Myton Mayor Kathleen Cooper

8th District Judge Samuel Chiara found sufficient evidence to bind Butterfield over for trial on two counts of stalking, one count of illegal detention, and one count of criminal trespassing. The trial is set for early December. If Butterfield possessed even a particle of humility, or even the slightest capacity for contrition, he could have ended his legal travails on absurdly generous terms.

Originally charged with three misdemeanor counts of stalking, criminal trespass, and unlawful detention, Butterfield was offered a deal in March that would have dismissed everything but a single charge of stalking. He rejected this offer – which was incomprehensibly lenient, given his history – because the single stalking charge would have applied to three women. Butterfield apparently hopes that jurors will perceive him to be a flawed but decent police officer traduced by disreputable women.

“Most of the victims have had problems with law enforcement in the past, have had some kind of history," Duchesne County sheriff's detective Monty Nay testified during an Oct. 14 hearing for one of those civil stalking cases. When Butterfield was confronted with the allegations, Detective Nay recalled, he threatened to file criminal charges and pursue civil action against the accusers.

During the same hearing, one of the women – who had a pending drug possession case -- explained that whenever her dogs bark in the middle of the night, she finds herself wondering, “is it him? I'm scared.”


Her concern about the possibility of retaliatory violence by a state-licensed predator was entirely reasonable. After all, Butterfield was a cop; he had been taught how to do such things.
                                             

Dum spiro, pugno!

Mundane Lives Don't Matter, So Don't Try to Exercise Your Rights (UPDATED October 4)

See update below.
 
In every encounter between a police officer and a citizen, only one life matters to the former – and it isn’t the latter. 

“Follow the commands of a police officer or risk dying,” snarled Major Travis Yates of the Tulsa Police Department in a recent essay for Law Officer. Requiring police officers to respect the rights of the citizens they detain, or to practice de-escalation when citizens assert their rights, would be tantamount to asking that “police stop being police” – that is, commissioned ministers of violence acting on behalf of the divine State.

Whenever a police officer inflicts himself on a citizen, every consideration is made for officer safety, despite the fact that the citizen is the one facing an immediate, known risk of lethal violence. A Mundane who acts upon specific police instruction to take minimal precautions for his own safety runs the additional risk of a ruinous and unjustified arrest – or a life-threatening assault by one of his privileged overseers in a state-issued costume. 

Claire and Daniel McIsaac (l. to r.)

Idaho Falls resident Daniel McIsaac was stopped for speeding shortly after midnight on April 16 on an isolated stretch of Highway 26, near milepost 177 and Marley Road. This is a section of south-central Idaho where several recent confrontations have occurred between motorists and police impersonators. 

Unfortunately for McIsaac and his wife Claire, the armed stranger who detained them was Lincoln County Sheriff’s Deputy Scott Denning. A police impersonator is immeasurably less dangerous than someone claiming to be invested with the mystical property called “authority” that supposedly allows him to use aggressive violence against someone who doesn’t submit to him. 

The encounter began badly, with Denning flinging four commands into McIssac’s face before identifying himself as an officer, or showing any credentials. No, a uniform and chintzy piece of costume jewelry didn’t qualify, and neither did the running lights on Denning’s vehicle. “Authentic” insignia don’t legitimately confer special rights or privileges on those who carry them, of course. However, it is useful for the victim of a roadside detention to know if the person who has stopped him can summon others in the event the victim decides to end the encounter on his own terms. 

Denning demanded that McIsaac extinguish his cigarette, and they briefly argued as to whether the deputy’s “authority” extends to that detail. If the deputy were actually a servant, rather than someone claiming to exercise proprietary control over a citizen, he wouldn’t enjoy the privilege of telling the citizen to extinguish a cigarette while sitting in his own vehicle. Patrol officers are taught to pretend that they smell marijuana or alcohol during a traffic stop, and the demand that a driver snuff his cigarette is often a prelude to reciting that pretext for a vehicle search. (As the late Sandra Bland learned, that demand can also be an overture to an unlawful arrest that can have fatal consequences.)

Doing as he was told: Daniel calls 911.

After Denning demanded that McIsaac exit the vehicle with his papers at the ready, the driver quite sensibly asked the deputy to provide him with his precinct number.

“For what?” Denning impatiently snapped. 

“I’m going to call them report this,” McIsaac explained

“You go right ahead,” the deputy dismissively replied.

At this point in the conversation, Deputy Denning explicitly instructed McIsaac to confirm that he was dealing with a law enforcement officer, rather than an impersonator. From that point forward, McIsaac was complying with an officer’s instructions, and doing so with commendable composure in the face of Denning’s entirely needless escalation.

As McIsaac attempted to call the LCSO, Denning called for backup, and then growled: “Sir, comply with what I’m telling you or I’m going to arrest you.” 

“There’s nobody else on the road – this is dangerous!” McIsaac correctly observed.

“No, it’s not,” Denning replied – meaning, of course, it wasn’t dangerous to the only person who mattered to him in the encounter. 

“There’s nobody else on the road,” the driver pointed out. “How do I know you’re a cop? Show me your identification.”

“I don’t have to show you my identification,” Denning lied. “You can see I’m in full uniform and a marked unit” – a claim that has been made, within recent months, by police impersonators in that same section of Idaho. 

“I’m calling 911 right now,” McIssac informed Denning. 

“OK,” the deputy responded – for the second time explicitly authorizing McIsaac to take minimal precautions for his own safety. 

McIsaac dialed 911 and requested another unit “because, you know, it can be very dangerous, with people impersonating cops, and stuff,” he told the operator. “He’s getting very, very aggressive…. I want to wait for another officer, because I am very uncomfortable.”

“Dispatch – have ‘em step it up,” Denning grunted into his lapel radio, which as it happens was the same course of action McIsaac was pursuing. 

After finishing his 911 call, McIsaac emerged from the vehicle, and was arrested for “obstructing and delaying an officer.” The entire encounter had lasted five minutes and thirty-three seconds. 

“Just so you know,” McIssac said after being cuffed and stuffed, “I wasn’t really trying to be rude. I hear lots of stories of people getting pulled over – you’ve probably heard those, too – I was told to call and make sure it’ safe….”

“You’re obstructing my duties,” his kidnapper insisted.

Actually, McIsaac was seeking to assure his own safety, and that of his wife, which he has every right to do. Exercising that right, however, is an act falling within the ever-expanding definition of the un-legislated, but sternly punished, offense called “contempt of cop.”

“I’ve been told in the past that if you’re pulled over on a deserted highway, to double-check,” McIsaac patiently elaborated.

“So – do you know many people who are out running around in full uniform in fully-marked patrol units that are impersonating police officers?” Denning sneer-gloated. 

The answer to that question, the deputy most likely knew, was “yes.”
 

Verify, then comply: ISP Lt. Weadick.

Within very recent memory, there have been at least three incidents in which drivers in south-central Idaho have been stopped and harassed by an armed police impersonator (a fact that has been pointed out by Meridian police accountability activist Matthew Townsend.) Those incidents all took place within easy driving distance of the dark, isolated stretch of Highway 26 where McIsaac was waylaid by a state-licensed highway predator. One of the incidents involved  a physical assault by the impersonator, who may not have had government-issued credentials but certainly behaved as if he were an authentic cop. There have been similar incidents elsewhere in the state. 

Police agencies across the country have consistently told the public that if there is any doubt as to the identity of the person conducting a traffic stop, drivers should proceed to a populated, well-lit stretch of road, or at least call 911 to verify that the highwayman has been given an official license to harass his betters.

If the driver is concerned about the identity of the armed stranger, especially if “the person won’t identify themselves [sic] … call 911,” Idaho State Police Lt. Chris Weadick told television viewers in Idaho Falls on January 16, 2015. “Talk to a dispatcher and try to get to the bottom of who’s out there talking to you.”

Precisely the same advice was given by the Idaho Falls Police Department, with specific reference to police impersonator incidents in the very section of south-central Idaho where McIsaac had his infuriating encounter with the officious Deputy Denning.

In the event a driver is unsure about the identity of the person who has stopped him, “roll up your window, lock your door and call 911 and verify the person is a police officer,” counseled the IFPD. “If you feel your life is in danger, drive away – still maintain the speed limit and obey the rules of the road – to a well-lit, public area and call 911.”

Both the ISP and IFPD clearly encouraged drivers in McIsaac’s position not to comply until they were satisfied that it was safe to do so. Denning himself twice instructed McIsaac to act on that advice—and then arrested him for doing what he had been repeatedly been told, by police, was the appropriate thing. 

McIsaac, who, once again resides in Idaho Falls, has a Master’s Degree and is employed as a counselor at a local rehabilitation facility. He was polite in the exercise of his rights as they had been explained to him by three entities or individuals speaking on behalf of the government. His arrest was thus an act of entrapment by estoppel – a due process violation that occurs when a citizen is charged with a crime for conduct that he had been assured was legal and proper.

Denning on the range.

By arresting McIsaac for exercising his rights, Denning – who is under investigation by the Idaho POST Council for unspecified charges – committed what the Idaho State Code (18-703) defines as an “illegal arrest or seizure.” He conveyed him to the Lincoln County Jail in nearby Shoshone, which was already full, and then to the Jerome County lockup.

Because he had no legal right to incarcerate McIsaac for any length of time, Denning compounded the false arrest with the offense of false imprisonment – defined by the state code (18-2901) as “the unlawful violation of the personal liberty of another.” If he weren’t protected by qualified immunity, Denning would be liable to a one-year prison term and a $5,000 fine.

Although McIsaac has been found guilty of nothing, he and his family have already been punished because he behaved precisely as the police had instructed him. If he is convicted of the "crime" of following well-established citizen safety protocols, McIsaac could be sent to jail for a year.

“I was able, by some miracle, to get $610 from an ATM at 3:30 in the morning to pay Dan’s bail,” his wife Claire told Pro Libertate. The couple has made four 300-mile round trips from Idaho Falls to Shoshone to attend three pre-trial hearings and an abortive trial on July 25.

The trial was postponed during voir dire when it became clear that few, if any, of the potential jurors understood the concept of presumption of innocence. Owing to the stupid intransigence of the prosecutor’s office in pursuing a manifestly invalid criminal case, the McIsaacs will be compelled to make at least one more round-trip: Their trial was originally rescheduled for August 15, and then capriciously pushed back again to October 4.

Claire estimates that the family has already been forced to sink more than a thousand dollars into this legal struggle, which – although she was far too polite to say as much – was inflicted on them because a pathologically self-preoccupied deputy took offense that a Mundane tried to act in the interests of his safety, and that of his wife. After all, in such encounters, only “Blue Lives” really matter. 

                                                    UPDATE, October 4:

A Lincoln County jury acquitted Daniel McIssac after very brief deliberation. Deputy Denning's gratuitous effort to punish a Mundane for the exercise of his rights ended without a fine, additional jail time, or probation -- but it did cost an innocent family more than a thousand dollars and several days that could have been devoted to more productive pursuits.

After getting his tax-fattened ass handed to him in court, the butt-hurt costumed bully tried to salve his ego by inflicting one last increment of misery on his betters.

"We just left the courthouse, and [Denning] followed us," Claire informed me shortly after the trial concluded. "He followed us down the road. He appeared out of nowhere and followed us."

Scotty, if you read this -- and I know you will -- get over it. Man up and deal with the fact that you had every conceivable advantage and got your arrogant, privileged ass kicked. Fairly soon, I suspect, POST will revoke your privileges and compel you either to find honest work -- which would be a novelty in your case -- or take the Gypsy Cop ratline to another jurisdiction. In either case, just choke down your bitter defeat and go the hell away.

Beware, Adams County; a privileged "sociopath" is about to return to patrol duty -- this week's Freedom Zealot Podcast:

Dum spiro, pugno!