Joe Arpaio recall in trouble
Just 12 days after anti-Joe Arpaio forces announced that they had collected an impressive 120,000 signatures in the campaign to recall Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the campaign has taken a nosedive.
Lilia Alvarez, campaign manager of the Arpaio recall, confirmed the campaign is out of money and can no longer pay petition circulators. Instead, Respect Arizona will rely on volunteers to get to the promised land of 335,317 valid signatures by May 30.
Alvarez remains optimistic that it can be done.
“Money isn’t really the answer,” she said. “It’s whether people are hungry for change or not.”
Others, however, say the lack of cash is a major setback. One Democratic strategist says “recall fatique” has set in among donors and young Arizonans who campaigned against him last year and now have moved on to Phoenix City Council races.
“Joe Arpaio is passé and so is any effort to get him out of office,” said Democratic strategist Mario Diaz.
Randy Parraz, an Arpaio recall backer who launched the successful recall of ex-Senate President Russell Pearce, predicted the group can get there with volunteers. He said the Pearce recall got 5,700 signatures from paid circulators but 12,000 from volunteers.
The Arpaio recall campaign needs at least 450,000 signatures in order to ensure success. Assuming the campaign had 120,000 valid signatures 12 days ago, it needs about 26,000 more where they came from every week until the end of May.
Arpaio’s campaign manager, Chad Willems, wouldn’t speculate on what Monday’s announcement means for the recall effort, saying it could be “another one of Randy Parraz’s fundraising stunts.”
“If they are forced to go to an all-volunteer effort I’ll have to reserve judgment on that as well,” he said in an e-mail. “The recall crowd does have plenty of volunteers and plenty of funding sources outside the legal channels of ‘Respect Arizona’.”
My take: no money = no recall.
I’ve never heard of a petition campaign of this magnitude that didn’t rely heavily on paid circulators.
The interesting question, of course, is this: why haven’t the big-name Democrats, the unions and other Arpaio opponents backed this effort to oust the sheriff?
Report: MCSO overbilled Scottsdale for jail housing
By Julian Osorio The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Mar 19, 2013 7:32 PM
A report conducted by Scottsdale’s City Auditor revealed the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office overbilled the city by about $160,000 for detention costs over the past 18 months.
Scottsdale pays MCSO for the use of its facilities for any inmate held past the city’s maximum holding period of 48 hours.
According to the audit, MCSO billed the city of Scottsdale the incorrect jail housing rate for 284 detainees accused of a second offense DUI or other felony convictions, totaling more than $143,000.
The sheriff’s office incorrectly charged Scottsdale $15,000 for inmates with felony charges that are not billable to the city, the audit said. In 10 cases, Scottsdale was billed for detainees not in the city’s court records, costing them about $1,800.
Scottsdale is only likely to recover $29,200 of the overbilled amount due to MCSO procedures that allow only refunds for errors made within the last 90 days, according to the audit.
The report concluded the MCSO 90-day review process deadline is not efficient due to the lengthy process to review MCSO Jail invoices.
The audit said that in January 2013, invoices from October 2012 still were being reviewed but the city usually pays MCSO invoices within 10 days, even if the review process is not completed.
The audit recommended the city identify responsible parties at MCSO and at minimum negotiate extending the time limit departments have to request refunds when billing errors are identified.
“Our department will work with the court and city auditor’s office to help implement the best systems and controls that are deemed necessary to curb any inconsistencies in the accounting of jail housing costs,” said Sgt. Mark Clark, spokesman for the city of Scottsdale.
A meeting with Scottsdale Police officials and court technology personnel to discuss further solutions was scheduled this month.
“As the work continues we will continue to work within the system we have in place to assure the bills are audited and inconsistencies are corrected, “ Clark said.
Officials for Maricopa County did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.
In the last couple months DNA testing caused the 300th person framed for murder by the police to be released from death row.
The Phoenix Police also framed Ray Krone for murder. Ray Krone's claim to fame was that he was the 100th person released from death row when DNA testing proved he was framed for murder.
The 4 kids from Tucson, Mike McGraw, Leo Bruce, Mark Nunez and Dante Parker, where also framed by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office for the Wat Promkunaram Buddhist temple murders on August 10, 1991 by Sheriff Tom Agnos who was replaced by Sheriff Joe.
Johnathan Doody who was probably one of the "real" murders in the Promkunaram Buddhist temple even had his conviction thrown out because the cops coerced a confession out of him after he took the 5th.
Last but not least "The 9 Step Reid Method" is responsible for most of these false confessions.
When it because socially unacceptable for cops to beat people the sh*t out of people with rubber hoses to get confessions "The 9 Step Reid Method" became popular.
"The 9 Step Reid Method" pretty much replaced beating people with "real" rubber hoses to beating them with "psychological" rubber hoses.
"The 9 Step Reid Method" is very effective at getting confessions. So effective it routinely gets innocent people to confess to crimes they didn't commit.
Police left prison door ajar
The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Mar 20, 2013 7:11 PM
Debra Milke can see daylight. After two decades on death row, she’s likely to get a new trial. For this, thank the police.
Milke was convicted of arranging the 1989 execution-style murder of her 3-year-old son. A jury convicted her, in part, on the strength of a verbal confession that now-retired Phoenix police Detective Armando Saldate said he had obtained from her.
The confession wasn’t taped. No one else witnessed it. That alone raises questions.
But the jury in 1989 wasn’t allowed to hear even more troubling facts: Saldate had a history of lying and obtaining the most unlikely confessions, including from a man drifting in and out of consciousness in a hospital room.
In four court cases, confessions or indictments were tossed because Saldate misled juries and judges. In another four cases, confessions were suppressed or convictions tossed because Saldate violated suspects’ constitutional rights.
And now, there is Milke, granted a new trial by a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel because the jury didn’t hear about Saldate’s record.
Saldate’s superiors knew his history. They recorded it in his personnel file. But it appears they did little to correct his behavior, to guard against further abuses, to protect justice. If they had, he would not have been in an interrogation room alone with Milke or any other suspect.
Police must police themselves as vigorously as they do all other citizens. When they fail in that duty, justice suffers.
Activist files lawsuit to halt Arpaio recall
By Ronald J. Hansen The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Mar 21, 2013 10:09 PM
A nationally known conservative legal activist filed suit Thursday to end the recall petition against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, saying it violates the state’s constitution.
Larry Klayman, a lawyer who helped bedevil the Clinton administration in the 1990s through his group Judicial Watch, called the current recall effort against Arpaio an ongoing criminal activity. Klayman’s suit seeks court orders to shut the recall down and return the money donors raised to support it.
Chiefly, the suit takes aim at how quickly the recall started: only days after Arpaio began his sixth term. Klayman said the Arizona Constitution requires recalls to wait at least six months into a new term, and a state law that suggests otherwise is legally invalid.
“It’s not only unconstitutional,” Klayman said. “It’s an abuse of process.”
The recall is led by a group called Respect Arizona, which maintains that few voters knew how much Arpaio spent on his re-election or that he refused to debate his opponent.
Respect Arizona has ties to a group led by political organizer Randy Parraz, who helped lead the successful 2011 recall of former state Sen. Russell Pearce, then president of the Arizona Senate. Parraz also helped lead the failed effort to defeat Arpaio in the 2012 election.
Klayman’s lawsuit, filed on behalf of a group called Citizens to Protect Fair Election Results, does not involve Respect Arizona and instead seeks steps by state and county election officials to end a recall that he said could cost as much as $5 million.
Lilia Alvarez, campaign manager for Respect Arizona, said the suit is an unsuccessful and premature attempt to intimidate her organization.
“We won’t back down,” she said.
Alvarez declined to say how many signatures Respect Arizona has obtained, but she did say it has taken in more than $300,000 in support of the effort.
Klayman said he had not discussed his case with Arpaio. A spokesman for Secretary of State Ken Bennett said they had not yet received a copy of the suit and could not comment.
I suspect Sheriff Joe orders his cops to stop all the "right people".
Recording Points to Race Factor in Stops by New York Police
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
Published: March 21, 2013 49 Comments
For years, the debate over the New York Police Department’s use of stop-and-frisk tactics has centered on whether officers engage in racial profiling. Now, a recording suggests that, in at least one precinct, a person’s skin color can be a deciding factor in who is stopped.
The recording, played on Thursday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, was of a conversation between a patrol officer and his commanding officer in the 40th Precinct in the South Bronx, a violent command that recorded the highest number of police stops in the Bronx in 2011.
The commanding officer, Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormack, urged the officer to be more active, emphasizing the need to conduct more street stops. “We go out there and we summons people,” Inspector McCormack said. The way to suppress violent crime, he said, was for officers to stop, question and, if necessary, frisk “the right people at the right time, the right location.”
The officer who surreptitiously recorded the conversation last month, Pedro Serrano, began pressing Inspector McCormack about who he meant by the “right people.” The conversation grew heated.
After an exchange about Mott Haven, a particularly crime-prone neighborhood, the inspector suggested that the police needed to conduct street stops of the people creating “the most problems” there.
“The problem was, what, male blacks,” Inspector McCormack said. “And I told you at roll call, and I have no problem telling you this, male blacks 14 to 20, 21.”
The conversation was played on the fourth day of a class-action lawsuit covering several million stop-and-frisk encounters in the city, a police tactic that the Bloomberg administration has embraced, citing its effectiveness in driving down gun violence. But the tactic has proved divisive in many parts of the city and has become a major issue in the mayoral race.
The authority of the police to use stop-and-frisk tactics is not at issue, but how the Police Department conducts these street interactions — and whether it stops blacks and Hispanics in violation of the Constitution — is the matter at hand before the judge in the case, Shira A. Scheindlin.
The question of what commanders mean by “the right people” is central to the trial.
Civil rights lawyers have long maintained that the term “right people” is police code for young black and Hispanic men, who make up an overwhelming share of those stopped. But the police, on the other hand, say that they use this phrase to describe habitual lawbreakers, and that by focusing on the “right people,” they are trying to avoid giving tickets to the construction worker drinking a beer on his way home or the couple strolling through a park that is closed for the night.
Officer Serrano, 43, testified on Thursday that he believed his supervisors used the expression to pressure officers to stop blacks and Hispanics without reasonable suspicion.
He testified that he once told a teenager he had been ordered to issue a ticket that “they should take my name down and if they sue, they could use me as a witness.”
Officer Serrano is the second Bronx police officer to take the witness stand in the trial and assert that police supervisors institute quotas that encourage officers to stop people unlawfully. He said he began taping interactions with supervisors in the station house because “they’re asking me to do something that’s illegal, I believe, and I was worried.”
Officer Serrano, who continues to work in the 40th Precinct, said that as a Hispanic man in the Bronx, he himself had been stopped many times. “It’s not a good feeling,” he testified.
When he went to Inspector McCormack’s office last month to complain about his work evaluation, he immediately came under criticism for having reported only a couple of street stops for all of 2012.
“It seems like you are purposely not doing anything to help prevent the shootings, the robberies and the grand larcenies,” Inspector McCormack said. To conduct so few stops in a year, amid so much crime, he said, was “not fair to the public.”
“I could see in Central Park maybe that would be fine, but this ain’t Central Park,” Inspector McCormack said.
Officer Serrano explained that his interactions with the public did not always rise to stops, as a matter of law, and so he rarely filled out the UF-250 form, which officers are supposed to fill out each time they conduct a stop.
At first, Inspector McCormack can be heard lecturing Officer Serrano about how “99 percent of these people in this community are great, hardworking people” who deserve to go about their days in peace. But the citizens, he said, were troubled by crime, and he went on to describe how a woman in her 60s was shot coming out of an elevator at 10 a.m.
The ambiguity in how the phrase “stopping the right people” is used by police commanders, and how it may be interpreted by patrol officers, was evident in the recordings played in court.
Pressed by the officer on what he meant, Inspector McCormack offered examples of people who should not be stopped, like an elderly person violating a parks rule by playing chess. He also cited the stop of a 48-year-old woman who was intercepted on her way to work as she took a shortcut through a park that was closed for the night.
“You think that’s the right people?” Inspector McCormack asked the officer skeptically.
But with Officer Serrano challenging him, the inspector never offered a clear answer.
“So what am I supposed to do?” Officer Serrano asked, after Inspector McCormack used that expression again. “Is it stop every black and Hispanic?”
The exchange continues until the inspector brings the conversation to a close, telling the officer, “You’re very close to having a problem here.”
The inspector continued, “The problem is that you don’t know who to stop and how to stop.”
In a later passage of the recording, which was not played in court, Inspector McCormack seemed to suggest to others there that Officer Serrano was trying to put words in his mouth. “He’s adding on that I wanted him to stop every black and Hispanic.”
Inspector McCormack is expected to be called as a witness in the coming weeks.
Hitler joins gun debate, but history is in dispute
By Adam Geller Associated Press Sat Mar 23, 2013 8:26 AM
When the president of Ohio’s state school board posted her opposition to gun control, she used a powerful symbol to make her point: a picture of Adolf Hitler. When a well-known conservative commentator decried efforts to restrict guns, he argued that if only Jews in Poland had been better armed, many more would have survived the Holocaust.
In the months since the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, some gun rights supporters have repeatedly compared U.S. gun control efforts to Nazi restrictions on firearms, arguing that limiting weapons ownership could leave Americans defenseless against homegrown tyrants.
But some experts say that argument distorts a complex and contrary history. In reality, scholars say, Hitler loosened the tight gun laws that governed Germany after World War I, even as he barred Jews from owning weapons and moved to confiscate them.
Advocates who cite Hitler in the current U.S. debate overlook that Jews in 1930s Germany were a very small population, owned few guns before the Nazis took control, and lived under a dictatorship commanding overwhelming public support and military might, historians say. While it doesn’t fit neatly into the modern-day gun debate, they say, the truth is that for all Hitler’s unquestionably evil acts, his firearms laws likely made no difference in Jews’ very tenuous odds of survival.
“Objectively, it might have made things worse” if the Jews who fought the Nazis in Poland’s 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising had more and better guns, said historian Steve Paulsson, an expert on the period whose Jewish family survived the city’s destruction.
But comparisons between a push by gun control advocates in the U.S. and Hitler have become so common — in online comments and letters to newspaper editors, at gun rights protests and in public forums — they’re often asserted as fact, rather than argument.
“Absolute certainties are a rare thing in this life, but one I think can be collectively agreed upon is the undeniable fact that the Holocaust would have never taken place had the Jewish citizenry of Hitler’s Germany had the right to bear arms and defended themselves with those arms,” former Major League Baseball pitcher John Rocker wrote in an online column in January.
After some gun advocates rallied at New York’s capitol in February carrying signs depicting Gov. Andrew Cuomo as Hitler, National Rifle Association President David Keene said the analogy was appropriate.
“Folks that are cognizant of the history, not just in Germany but elsewhere, look back to that history and say we can’t let that sort of thing happen here,” Keene, who was the lead speaker at the rally, told a radio interviewer March 1.
Those comparisons between gun control now and under Hitler joined numerous other statements, including the one by the Ohio school board president, Debe Terhar, on her personal Facebook page in January and by conservative commentator Andrew Napolitano, writing in The Washington Times.
The comparisons recently prompted the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group, to call on critics of gun control to keep Hitler and the Nazis out of the debate.
The rhetoric “is such an absurdity and so offensive and just undermines any real understanding of what the Holocaust was about,” said Ken Jacobson, the ADL’s deputy national director. “If they do believe it, they’re making no serious examination of what the Nazi regime was about.”
But some gun rights advocates firmly disagree.
“People who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” said Charles Heller, executive director of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, which has long compared U.S. gun control to Nazi tactics. “I guess if you’re pro-Nazi, they are right. But if you’re pro-freedom, we call those people liars.”
Comparing gun control activism to Hitler is not new. In a 1994 book, “Guns, Crime and Freedom,” NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre wrote that “In Germany, firearm registration helped lead to the Holocaust.”
But the history of civilian gun ownership under the Nazis, scholars say, is far more complicated than the rhetoric indicates.
After World War I, Germany signed a peace treaty requiring dismantling of much of its army and limiting weapons import and export. But many of the 1 million soldiers returning home joined armed militias, including a Nazi Party force that saw Communists as the leading threat.
“Technically, they (the militias) were illegal and the guns were illegal, but a lot of government officials didn’t care about right-wingers with guns taking on Communists,” said David Redles, co-author of “Hitler and Nazi Germany: A History,” a popular college text. By 1928, however, officials decided they had to get a handle on the militias and their weapons and passed a law requiring registration of all guns, said Redles, who teaches at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland.
Soon after Hitler was named chancellor in 1933, he used the arson of the Reichstag as an excuse to push through a decree allowing for the arrest of many Communists and the suspension of civil rights including protections from search and seizure. But as the Nazis increasingly targeted Jews and others they considered enemies, they moved in 1938 to loosen gun statutes for the loyal majority, said Bernard Harcourt, a University of Chicago professor of law and political science who has studied gun regulations under Hitler.
The 1938 law is best known for barring Jews from owning weapons, after which the Nazis confiscated guns from Jewish homes. But Harcourt points out that Hitler’s gun law otherwise completely deregulated acquisition of rifles, long guns and ammunition. It exempted many groups from requiring permits. The law lowered the age for legal gun ownership from 20 to 18. And it extended the validity of gun permits from one year to three years.
“To suggest that the targeting of Jews in any of the gun regulations or any of the other regulations is somehow tied to Nazis’ view of guns is entirely misleading,” Harcourt said, “because the Nazis believed in a greater deregulation of firearms. Firearms were viewed, for the good German, were something to which they had rights.”
With the 1938 law, Nazis seized guns from Jewish homes. But few Jews owned guns and they composed just 2 percent of the population in a country that strongly backed Hitler. By the time the law passed, Jews were so marginalized and spread among so many cities, there was no possibility of them putting up meaningful resistance, even with guns, said Robert Gellately, a professor of history at Florida State University and author of “Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany.”
[Of course the Jews fighting a normal war against the Nazi's would have been impossible. But when minorities are oppressed, the never fight a normal war, but instead fight a guerrilla war and only choose to fight in battles they can win. That's what happened in the American Revolution when the Americans fought the British]
U.S. gun rights advocates disagree, pointing to the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising by about 700 armed Jews who were able to fend off a much larger force of German troops for days until retreating to tunnels or fleeing. The Nazis won out by systematically burning the ghetto to the ground, house by house.
“Once the Germans began adopting that strategy there really wasn’t very much that people armed with pistols, or even rifles and machine guns, could do,” said Paulsson, the historian and author of “Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw.”
[Again I disagree, in these situations the Jews would have chosen to fight a guerilla war and only picked to fight battles which they could win.]
Paulsson said it is possible that if Polish Jews had limited their resistance, Nazi troops might not have destroyed the ghetto, allowing more to survive in hiding or escape. When armed Jews shot at mobs or troops at other times in 1930s and 1940s Poland, it incited more vicious counter-attacks, he said.
But to Heller, the gun rights activist, the Warsaw uprising is proof of power in firearms. Giving Jews more guns might not have averted the Holocaust, but it would have given them a fighting chance, enough that perhaps a third of them could have shot their way out of being marched to the concentration camps, he said.
“Could they have fought back? They did (in Warsaw). You know why they (the Nazis) destroyed the ghetto? Because they were afraid of getting shot,” he said. “Now, will it get to that in the U.S.? God, I hope not. Not if (U.S. Attorney General Eric) Holder doesn’t start sending people to kick doors down.”
But Paulsson, whose mother was freed from the Auschwitz concentration camp at the end of the war, dismisses that argument as twisting the facts.
“Ideologues always try to shoehorn history into their own categories and read into the past things that serve their own particular purposes,” he said.
Police in Honduras accused of operating death squads
By Alberto Arce Associated Press Fri Mar 22, 2013 8:38 PM
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras The operation was quick and under the cover of night. Armed, masked men arrived in late-model SUVs, getting through the gate into the small neighborhood of humble homes. Without firing a shot, witnesses said, they took Kevin Samraid Carranza Padilla, 28, known in the gang world as “Teiker,” and his girlfriend, Cindy Yadira Garcia, 19.
The next morning, Jan. 10, Honduras’ major newspaper, El Heraldo, reported that police had captured Carranza, a leader of the 18th Street gang suspected in the shooting death of a police commander months earlier. It also published a photo of a shirtless, tattooed young man lying on the ground, his hands behind his back, his face partially wrapped in blue duct tape, the roll still attached. Carranza’s mother, Blanca Alvarado, recognized him from his tattoos.
The photo was distributed to media by a police prosecutor, according to three sources who didn’t want to be named for security reasons. Soon after, agents at the national criminal investigations office acknowledged that there was a detention order for Carranza, and he had been brought in.
More than two months later, Carranza and Yadira have disappeared, The Associated Press has found. They are not in police custody, there are no criminal proceedings against them, and police now say they know nothing about the case.
“At this point,” said Carranza’s mother, “one can only imagine that they are dead.”
At all levels
Police have long been accused of operating more like assassins than law enforcement officers in Honduras, but few cases ever have been investigated. In the past year, police were alleged to have been involved in the deaths of a prominent Honduran radio journalist and the son of a former police chief — but neither killing has been solved.
Despite millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Honduras aimed at professionalizing the country’s police, accusations persist.
In the past three years, the AP has learned, Honduran prosecutors have received as many as 150 formal complaints about death squad-style killings in the capital of Tegucigalpa, and at least 50 more in the economic hub of San Pedro Sula. The country’s National Autonomous University, citing police reports, has counted 149 civilians killed by police in the past two years, including 25 members of the 18th Street gang.
Even the country’s top police chief has been charged with being complicit.
In 2002, a police internal affairs report accused then-police prison inspector Juan Carlos Bonilla of three extrajudicial killings — and linked him to 11 more deaths and disappearances that it said were part of a police policy of “social cleansing.” He was tried and acquitted on one of the three charges. The head of internal affairs unit who produced the report, Maria Luisa Borjas, was expelled from the department, and the rest of the cases, like most crimes in Honduras, were not investigated.
Last year, Bonilla was chosen to lead the national police force despite unanswered questions about his past.
Surveillance video
AP interviews with family, witnesses and law enforcement officials paint a picture of a case in which two people associated with gangs were taken into police custody and then never heard from again.
After witnesses told Alvarado, 50, that her son had been taken by police, she went to a series of police stations in search of him.
At the National Criminal Investigations Office, she was met by 20 officers, some masked, who openly played with their guns as she asked after her son and his girlfriend.
“You can look for those dogs in the Tablon,” Alvarado said they told her, referring to a lot outside of the city where bodies of the executed are regularly dumped, their faces taped and hands and feet tied.
Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world.
The modus operandi in death squad-style killings does not vary much: masked men in bulletproof vests, traveling in large vehicles with tinted windows and no plates, roam the city in groups of 10, said an official in the Carranza investigation, who also could not be named because of the sensitivity of the case.
A month after Carranza’s disappearance, Honduran media released a surveillance video of a similar case: five young men walking a street at night were stopped and surrounded by masked gunmen with AK-47s who pulled up in a large SUV. The gunmen fired at three men who fled. The remaining two, their hands up in surrender, were made to lie face down on the pavement — and then shot several times in cold blood.
One died instantly. The other is seen still moving after three shots from an assault weapon. He later died at a hospital.
The $5-per-credit hour tuition hike will cost students taking a full time load of 18 hours $90 a semester.
Who needs to pay $90 more a semester to hire police thugs to micromanage your lives???
MCCCD weighs tuition hike to bolster campus security
By Mary Beth Faller The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Mar 22, 2013 10:43 PM
A tuition increase for students of Maricopa Community Colleges would pay for a fundamental change to the district’s security culture, from an uneven patchwork of guards and aides at the many campuses to a full staff of certified, armed officers.
The community-college district’s chief of police is seeking $2 million to hire 23 additional officers, a 50 percent increase in staffing for the district’s Department of Public Safety.
The governing board of the Maricopa County Community College District will vote on a $5-per-credit tuition increase on Tuesday. Students’ costs would increase from $76 per credit hour to $81 per credit hour for 2013-14. If approved, the tuition hike would generate an additional $12.5 million for the district.
Mikel Longman, the district’s chief of police, was hired last year to consolidate the 10 colleges’ public-safety units, which were independent, into one district department.
Staffing varies at the colleges, ranging from three to six officers on the main campuses. Some smaller satellite campuses have an officer, and some don’t. Longman’s plan would add one or two officers to each campus, and GateWay Community College in Phoenix would get four.
Currently, the ratio of certified police officers to students is 1 to 5,108, Longman said. The additional officers would reduce it to 1 to 3,405.
“It’s a basic assumption that when we’re open for business, we’ll have armed police officers,” he said.
Crime on the campuses is fairly low. According to the annual report for 2011, the most recent available, there were no murders, robberies or arsons at any of the colleges. Other districtwide statistics for 2011: four forcible sex assaults, five non-forcible sex assaults, 10 aggravated assaults, 19 burglaries, 21 motor-vehicle thefts, 17 drug arrests, six liquor arrests and two weapons violations.
There were 396 larcenies, which would be incidents such as phone and bike thefts, in 2011, an increase of about a third from two years before. No other crimes showed a notable increase from previous years.
Longman said his officers respond to about 90 percent of campus incidents, with the remainder handled by municipal police. The campuses and branches are in 12 police jurisdictions, and because there is no reporting system, the number, response time and type of incidents the municipal police respond to is unknown.
Earlier this month, the district awarded a $158,000 contract to establish a security records-management system that should be working by this summer.
Longman also wants to reduce reliance on the part-time security aides, who write parking tickets, monitor surveillance cameras and escort people after dark. He said the aides, who make about $9 or $10 an hour, are not reliable in showing up for shifts. There are also about 50 full-time security guards around the district.
“We give our keys to our kingdom to minimum-wage, minimally trained employees, and if something bad happens to our property, it hurts our ability to deliver education,” he told the governing board last month.
Besides requesting their second tuition increase in three years, the community colleges are seeking an increase in the property-tax levy, which would generate an additional $8.1 million. The vote on that will be in May.
The colleges want to add, in addition to police, 32 full-time professors. They also want to update technology and spend $5 million on two ongoing programs to improve efficiency in registration and financial aid and students’ graduation and transfer rates.
Andrew Kuhn, president of the Associated Students of Mesa Community College, said last week that his group is studying the tuition proposal and will likely draft a position before the vote Tuesday.
“The general consensus I’ve taken from most students is that they’re not in favor of it, partly because the last time, when the association was in favor of it, it was under the assumption that it wouldn’t happen for another five years,” he said.
Kuhn, 25, a business major, said the group acknowledges that funding from the state has decreased — from $45 million in 2010 to a projected $8 million for 2013-14.
Barry Vaughn, spokesman for the Maricopa Community Colleges Faculty Association, said his group also has not had time to take a position, but will meet Tuesday afternoon before the vote. He said that, beyond this tuition proposal, the faculty is worried about the spiraling costs of higher education in general.
“It’s going to undermine our ability to prepare the next generation of citizens in this country if we cannot get these rapid increases under control,” said Vaughn, who is a professor of philosophy and religious studies at Mesa Community College.
“Having said that, we are still going to be by far one of the least expensive options for higher education in Arizona, so we are still a bargain, relatively speaking.”
The governing board will meet at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the district office, 2411 W. 14th St., Tempe.
Law-enforcement veterans join Arpaio recall
By Michelle Ye Hee Lee The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Mar 28, 2013 12:14 AM
Several retired Valley law-enforcement officials have joined the recall effort against Sheriff Joe Arpaio, criticizing him for using what they consider scare tactics to raise money to fight the recall.
Respect Arizona is in the process of gathering signature petitions seeking to hold a recall election to oust Arpaio.
The group obtained a letter — signed by Arpaio and paid for by the Elect Sheriff Joe Arpaio campaign — that was e-mailed to conservative supporters urging financial donations to help fight the recall.
In the letter, Arpaio said the Valley’s public safety was at stake in the recall.
Without Arpaio, the letter said, those who would be in danger include single mothers whose children face “a rampant drug culture,” the hypothetical mother of a child killed by a drug dealer whom Arpaio is not able to keep in jail, and small-business owners whose livelihoods are threatened by illegal immigrants who have control over neighborhoods.
Respect Arizona released statements purported to have been provided by retired Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris and retired Phoenix Assistant Police Chief Bill Louis, accusing Arpaio of misleading supporters by taking sole credit for community safety. Former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Paul Charlton and former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard were also quoted in the group’s statements.
“Arizona law enforcement will continue to fight crime and ensure public safety long after Mr. Arpaio leaves office,” Harris said in his statement.
Two other retired law-enforcement officials and former Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon echoed those sentiments in person. During a Wednesday news conference, they called Arpaio’s fundraising letter disingenuous.
“Elected officials come and go, and the state moves on,” Gordon said.
Arpaio’s camp defended the statements in his letter.
Chad Willems, manager for the Elect Sheriff Joe Arpaio campaign, said there “would most certainly be consequences negatively impacting law enforcement” if Arpaio were recalled: Fewer illegal immigrants would be apprehended or turned over for deportation, and citizens would be less safe because crimes associated with illegal immigration could increase.
“If it doesn’t matter who the elected official is, then why do they want to remove Arpaio from office? They want him out of office precisely because of the way he runs his office, specifically as it relates to enforcing illegal immigration laws,” Willems said in an e-mail to The Arizona Republic.
Willems took a swipe at Respect Arizona and its dwindling finances, which the group’s leaders recently confirmed. He blamed the group for misleading the public, the same accusation the group lodged against Arpaio.
“It is ironic that the Respect Arizona petitioners are criticizing the sheriff for seeking financial donations when he has been made to do so to defend himself against the very recall effort they started, an effort that is waning, if not entirely dead,” Willems said in a statement.
So for about every 270 people in Arizona there is one city, county, or state cop or prison guard.
The Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board sets standards for training, recruitment and retention for more than 15,000 sworn peace officers and 9,000 correctional-service officers in the state.
Phoenix police temporarily halt shooting practice, cite rising supply costs
By Cecilia Chan The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Wed Mar 27, 2013 10:26 PM
Phoenix police are temporarily halting discretionary shooting practice because of rising cost and limited supply of ammunition.
Officers will no longer get 100 rounds of .40-caliber and .45-caliber ammunition each month and shoot on their own at the academy’s range, said police spokesman Trent Crump. All other firearms training and certifications will remain.
The Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, which represents 2,500 rank-and-file officers, said some officers struggle with shooting and need the extra practice and many go down to the range and take advantage of the monthly shooting.
“Any time you have a resource, a critical resource that is limited, reduced or taken away it does cause concern,” union Vice President Ken Crane said.
Crane said roughly 308 officers each month last year participated in the optional practice. Some officers participate because they enjoy shooting and others do it to keep up their required shooting skills, he said.
Every year officers must pass a firearms qualification, which includes earning a score of 84 percent with a duty handgun on an approved course.
Crane said some officers might have a hard time passing the certification and thus more might have to take department’s Skill Builder Program, which is mandated for officers who fail their firearms qualification.
“We want officers to maintain their level of efficiency when they are out on the street,” he said.
The department memo sent Monday cited budgetary issues, the increasing cost of ammunition, and the difficulty in getting ammunition in a timely basis for suspending the monthly practice. Crump said the ammunition cost was 20 percent higher.
Crump doesn’t know exactly when the department can resume the target shooting. He attributed the shortage on a back-order.
Crump said the department ordered a bulk shipment of practice rounds in May, which didn’t arrive in January as expected.
“It sounds like fall before we can expect it,” Crump said. “The firearms unit is trying to manage the ammunition we have to make sure we get through all the training, all the mandatory shooting required by AZ Post.”
The Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board sets standards for training, recruitment and retention for more than 15,000 sworn peace officers and 9,000 correctional-service officers in the state.
Crump was unable to say how much money the department spends on practice rounds but that last year it spent $850,000 for all ammunition.
Crump said 1 million to 2 million practice rounds are fired each year.
Practice ammunition is cheaper and of less quality than that used while on duty, Crump said.
“We are being more frugal with the rounds we have because of the shortage,” he said.
F*ck the 4th Amendment, I got a gun and a badge and can do anything I want!!!!
Little-known surveillance tool raises concerns by judges, privacy activists
By Ellen Nakashima, Published: March 27
Federal investigators in Northern California routinely used a sophisticated surveillance system to scoop up data from cellphones and other wireless devices in an effort to track criminal suspects — but failed to detail the practice to judges authorizing the probes.
The practice was disclosed Wednesday in documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California — in a glimpse into a technology that federal agents rarely discuss publicly.
The investigations used a device known as a StingRay, which simulates a cellphone tower and enables agents to collect the serial numbers of individual cellphones and then locate them. Although law enforcement officials can employ StingRays and similar devices to locate suspects, privacy groups and some judges have raised concerns that the technology is so invasive — in some cases effectively penetrating the walls of homes — that its use should require a warrant.
The issues, judges and activists say, are twofold: whether federal agents are informing courts when seeking permission to monitor suspects, and whether they are providing enough evidence to justify the use of a tool that sweeps up data not only from a suspect’s wireless device but also from those of bystanders in the vicinity.
In Northern California, according to the newly disclosed documents, judges expressed concerns about the invasive nature of the technology.
“It has recently come to my attention that many agents are still using [StingRay] technology in the field although the [surveillance] application does not make that explicit,” Miranda Kane, then chief of the criminal division of the Northern California U.S. attorney’s office, said in a May 2011 e-mail obtained by the ACLU.
As a result of that, she wrote, “effective immediately, all . . . applications and proposed orders must be reviewed by your line supervisor before they are submitted to a magistrate judge.”
[I suspect a "line supervisor" will rubber stamp the request with no questions asked, just like judges usually rubber stamp them with no questions asked]
The Justice Department has generally maintained that a warrant based on probable cause is not needed to use a “cell-site simulator” because the government is not employing them to intercept conversations, former officials said. But some judges around the country have disagreed and have insisted investigators first obtain a warrant.
“It’s unsettled territory,” said one U.S. law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the record.
[Unsettled territory my *ss, the Fourth Amendment has been around since the 1700's]
In a statement, Christopher Allen, a spokesman for the FBI, said the bureau advises field offices to “work closely with the relevant U.S. Attorney’s Office to adhere to the legal requirements” of their respective districts.
One of the problems is there is “scant law” addressing the issue of cell-site simulators, said Brian L. Owsley, a federal magistrate judge in the Southern District of Texas, who in June wrote a rare public ruling on the issue. He denied an application to use a StingRay, in large part because he felt the investigating agent failed to explain the technology or how it would be used to gather the target’s cellphone number.
Moreover, the government did not explain what it would do with the numbers and other data “concerning seemingly innocent cell phone users” that were also picked up.
“Neither the special agent nor the assistant United States attorney appeared to understand the technology very well,” Owsley wrote. “At a minimum, they seemed to have some discomfort in trying to explain it.”
[I suspect they didn't WANT to explain it and risk the judge not issuing their search warrant]
At a recent conference on cellphone tracking issues at Yale University, Owsley said he thought that “there are magistrate judges around the country that are getting these requests and not realizing what these requests are,” in some cases perhaps because the agents are not clear about their intent to use the technology.
[Again, I suspect the agents intentionally don't explain the technology, because they don't want to risk a just refusing to rubber stamp the search warrant]
“By withholding information about this technology from courts in applications for electronic surveillance orders, the federal government is essentially seeking to write its own search warrants,” said Linda Lye, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Northern California.
Judges “need the opportunity to require privacy safeguards, such as rules on how to handle the data of innocent people that may be captured by the devices as well,” she said.Lye will be arguing the issue on Thursday in a federal case in Arizona, in support of a defendant charged with tax fraud and identity theft. Daniel Rigmaiden, known as “the Hacker” to acquaintances and federal agents, was tracked in part with the use of a StingRay. He has alleged that investigators did not seek a court’s approval to use the technology.
“The main concern we have in Rigmaiden is the government was not being forthright with the magistrate when it was seeking to use this device,” said Lye, whose organization is one of several that have filed an amicus brief in the case.
The newly disclosed documents suggest that “Rigmaiden was not an isolated case,” she said.
The government said it obtained a warrant to track Rigmaiden, but the ACLU is arguing that the government did not present key information about the surveillance device to the magistrate, rendering the warrant invalid.
Chris Soghoian, the ACLU’s principal technologist, said cell-site simulators are being used by local, state and federal authorities.
“No matter how the StingRay is used — to identify, locate or intercept — they always send signals through the walls of homes,” which should trigger a warrant requirement, Soghoian said. “The signals always penetrate a space protected by the Fourth Amendment.”
I suspect if George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were alive today they would tell us that these FBI tyrants are far worse then King George and that it's people like them that they passed the Second Amendment for.
Can you imagine how people would complain if the FBI demanded the right to open and read our snail mail letters? Well this is far worse and I don't hear any public out cry against the FBI tyrants.
On the other hand I suspect the people in Nazi Germany were just as passive when Hitlers goons turned Nazi Germany into a police state.
FBI Pursuing Real-Time Gmail Spying Powers as “Top Priority” for 2013
By Ryan Gallagher
Posted Tuesday, March 26, 2013, at 4:58 PM
For now, law enforcement has trouble monitoring Gmail communications in real time
Despite the pervasiveness of law enforcement surveillance of digital communication, the FBI still has a difficult time monitoring Gmail, Google Voice, and Dropbox in real time. But that may change soon, because the bureau says it has made gaining more powers to wiretap all forms of Internet conversation and cloud storage a “top priority” this year.
Last week, during a talk for the American Bar Association in Washington, D.C., FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann discussed some of the pressing surveillance and national security issues facing the bureau. He gave a few updates on the FBI’s efforts to address what it calls the “going dark” problem—how the rise in popularity of email and social networks has stifled its ability to monitor communications as they are being transmitted. It’s no secret that under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the feds can easily obtain archive copies of emails. When it comes to spying on emails or Gchat in real time, however, it’s a different story.
That’s because a 1994 surveillance law called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act only allows the government to force Internet providers and phone companies to install surveillance equipment within their networks. But it doesn’t cover email, cloud services, or online chat providers like Skype. Weissmann said that the FBI wants the power to mandate real-time surveillance of everything from Dropbox and online games (“the chat feature in Scrabble”) to Gmail and Google Voice. “Those communications are being used for criminal conversations,” he said.
While it is true that CALEA can only be used to compel Internet and phone providers to build in surveillance capabilities into their networks, the feds do have some existing powers to request surveillance of other services. Authorities can use a “Title III” order under the “Wiretap Act” to ask email and online chat providers furnish the government with “technical assistance necessary to accomplish the interception.” However, the FBI claims this is not sufficient because mandating that providers help with “technical assistance” is not the same thing as forcing them to “effectuate” a wiretap. In 2011, then-FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni—Weissmann’s predecessor—stated that Title III orders did not provide the bureau with an "effective lever" to "encourage providers" to set up live surveillance quickly and efficiently. In other words, the FBI believes it doesn’t have enough power under current legislation to strong-arm companies into providing real-time wiretaps of communications.
Because Gmail is sent between a user’s computer and Google’s servers using SSL encryption, for instance, the FBI can’t intercept it as it is flowing across networks and relies on the company to provide it with access. Google spokesman Chris Gaither hinted that it is already possible for the company to set up live surveillance under some circumstances. “CALEA doesn't apply to Gmail but an order under the Wiretap Act may,” Gaither told me in an email. “At some point we may expand our transparency report to cover this topic in more depth, but until then I'm not able to provide additional information.”
Either way, the FBI is not happy with the current arrangement and is on a crusade for more surveillance authority. According to Weissmann, the bureau is working with “members of intelligence community” to craft a proposal for new Internet spy powers as “a top priority this year.” Citing security concerns, he declined to reveal any specifics. “It's a very hard thing to talk about publicly,” he said, though acknowledged that “it's something that there should be a public debate about.”
Deputy chief dropped from MCSO legal battle
By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Sun Mar 31, 2013 10:03 PM
The long legal battle between some of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s former top aides and the Sheriff’s Office appears closer to resolution after a Maricopa County Superior Court judge dismissed several defendants in a broad civil suit brought by the former aides.
Judge Arthur Anderson’s ruling last week granting sheriff’s Deputy Chief Frank Munnell’s motion for summary judgment also removes a central figure from the legal proceedings tied to the downfall of former sheriff’s Chief Deputy David Hendershott, Capt. Joel Fox and Deputy Chief Larry Black.
In 2010, Munnell delivered a 63-page memo to Arpaio that included detailed allegations of misconduct, intimidation and retaliation by Hendershott, Arpaio’s longtime second-in-command. The memo also accused Black and Fox of conspiring with Hendershott, particularly on a political-action committee that ran ads attacking Arpaio’s opponent in the 2008 election.
Munnell’s memo prompted Arpaio to ask Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu to conduct an internal investigation into the allegations, for which Babeu hired Phoenix private investigator Keith Sobraske.
The investigation found more than 50 alleged instances of misconduct, with many relating to Hendershott’s handing of the sheriff’s anti-corruption squad that launched investigations into county politicians. Those probes were later discredited. The inquiry also found that Black threatened Munnell and improperly tried to intervene in internal investigations, and that Fox lied to investigators about those involved in the 2008 PAC.
Arpaio fired all three. Fox continues to challenge his dismissal in Superior Court.
The deposed commanders filed a suit last spring accusing Arpaio, Babeu, Sobraske, Munnell and the Pinal and Maricopa county governments of negligence, defamation and infliction of emotional distress, among other allegations.
Jack MacIntyre, a deputy chief in Arpaio’s office, said that last week’s dismissal was welcome news but that the legal action was hardly a concern to anyone who tried to read it.
“It’s really very, very much a stillborn ... lawsuit in that it was written so poorly — and consisted of histrionic narrative that no one should be held to account — to have to puzzle out what the plaintiffs meant and who they were targeting,” MacIntyre said. “(The dismissal) makes a lot of the people that were named in those harebrained lawsuits and claims, even if they weren’t named as a party, relieved.”
The memo and subsequent investigation led to the stunning fall of Hendershott, who had overseen the day-to-day operations of the Sheriff’s Office for more than a decade. The commander also played an instrumental role both in Arpaio’s campaign activities and the politically fueled investigations that brought scrutiny from the U.S. Justice Department.
Those investigations accused county politicians and judges of corruption, and some led to indictments that were all later dismissed. Many of those targeted in the investigations have since filed civil-rights claims against the Sheriff’s Office. Eight of those lawsuits have been settled at a cost of more than $3 million.
The political-corruption inquiry also led to the disbarment of former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, who lost a race for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office amid the unraveling of many of the political-corruption cases spearheaded by Hendershott.
But the critical memo that Munnell delivered in 2010 hardly touched on those politically-fueled topics, and instead focused on a litany of alleged misdeeds Hendershott committed while he led Arpaio’s office. Those included his involvement with the PAC in 2008.
The committee, known as the Sheriff’s Command Association, collected more than $100,000 from donors and sheriff’s officials and gave the money to the Arizona Republican Party. The party used the money for ads targeting Arpaio’s opponent. Fox initially said he alone was involved with the organization but later relented when faced with a $315,000 fine.
Munnell claimed in his memo that Hendershott helped launch the committee and that Hendershott asked Munnell and other employees to donate to the organization through automatic withdrawals from their paychecks.
Munnell said his impression was that the money would go toward “usual campaign expenses,” including signs and mailers. It wasn’t until Fox came under investigation for his role in SCA that Munnell learned of the committee’s true intentions to run attack ads against Arpaio’s opponent. It was then that he also learned Fox was refusing to cooperate with investigators. No one was charged with any violations related to the committee’s work.
Munnell filed a motion for summary judgment to get out of the deposed trio’s suit, based on the fact that he was never properly served. Ed Moriarity, an attorney who represented Thomas, Hendershott and others, never responded to the motion, and Anderson granted the request Wednesday, ending upheaval that plagued the Sheriff’s Office for five years.
Moriarity, Fox and Hendershott did not respond to requests for comment.
Black could not be located for comment, but in a 2011 letter to Arpaio following his dismissal, the longtime sheriff’s employee denied the allegations in Munnell’s memo and said the process was tainted by the way he was portrayed in the media.
“There is no question in my mind that the ‘Munnell Memo’ was inflammatory and full of statements not based on evidence or personal observation and published in a variety of media outlets prior to even one interview conducted,” Black wrote. “It will always be a question in my mind as to how much this advance information tainted the outcome of this investigation.”
Munnell, after learning that the suit was dismissed, said the claim by Hendershott, Black and Fox was baseless from the beginning.
And of course without their guns the people of Connecticut won't be able to
do much about it.
Conn. governor signs sweeping new gun bill into law
Tribune newspapers and wire reports
11:44 a.m. CDT, April 4, 2013
Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy today signed a tough new gun law that, among several key provisions, restricts sales of the sort of high-capacity ammunition clips that a gunman used to massacre 26 people in minutes in a December attack on a school.
Lawmakers in the state's Democratic-controlled House approved the measure, which supporters described as one of the toughest such laws in the United States, early on Thursday morning. The Senate approved the measure hours earlier.
The House debate stretched past midnight, with opponents of the law arguing that it infringed on the rights to gun ownership protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and that efforts to prevent attacks such as the Newtown, Conn., school shooting should focus on providing better mental-health services.
Connecticut's law passed hours after Maryland's House of Delegates on Wednesday approved their own gun law, which also limits magazine size and requires that gun buyers be fingerprinted.
The Connecticut law also requires background checks for private gun sales, expands the number of guns covered by the state's assault-weapons ban and establishes a $15 million fund to help schools improve security infrastructure.
It bans specifically the sale of ammunition clips that hold 10 bullets or more and requires owners of such clips to register them by January 1, 2014. After that date, owning an unregistered high-capacity clip will become a felony offense.
The legislation was proposed after the Dec. 14 slayings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which a gunman used clips that held 30 bullets to fire off 154 rounds in less than five minutes.
"The content of this legislation speaks for itself as really the strongest gun control legislation in the country," House Speaker Brendan Sharkey, a 50-year-old Hamden Democrat, said in a statehouse interview. "The details of this package, when reviewed by other states, will be a terrific blueprint for how to do this in a comprehensive way."
Newtown school massacre
Passage came more than three months after gunman Adam Lanza, 20, stormed into the Newtown school and mowed down students and teachers, reviving debate over gun control. Connecticut joins New York and Colorado in tightening firearms limits in the wake of the tragedy. Maryland’s House of Delegates passed a similar measure yesterday.
In Washington, congressional action on the issue has been stymied by opposition from the National Rifle Association, the nation’s biggest gun-rights lobby. President Barack Obama went to Colorado yesterday to praise that state’s new restrictions, and plans to visit Connecticut next week to pressure Congress
"Colorado is proving a model of what's possible," Obama said in Denver. "It's now been just over 100 days since the murder of 20 innocent children and six brave educators in Newtown, Connecticut, an event that shocked this country."
Lanza carried 10 30-round magazines into Sandy Hook, court documents show. He reloaded six times and fired 154 bullets from his Bushmaster AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle in less than five minutes, according to the documents. The measure approved yesterday bans sales of the weapon and similar models.
Lanza's victims front and center in debate
This week, some parents of Lanza's victims handed out pictures of their children to lawmakers who met April 1 to review the limits proposed in an accord hammered out by legislative leaders. Family members sought an outright ban on possession of high-capacity magazines, rather than the registration requirement that’s part of the final measure.
During one of the most emotional moments of the six-hour Senate debate yesterday, John McKinney, the Republican leader who represents Newtown, explained why he pins a green ribbon and a guardian angel on his lapel.
"I try to put it on my jacket every day to remember those that we've lost because I stand here, I stand here as their voice," McKinney, 49, said. He then read the names of each of the Sandy Hook victims, his voice wavering a times. Six of the 14 Republicans in the chamber voted for the measure.
Before the voting began, activists on opposite sides of the issue sparred verbally in the Capitol’s hallways.
A poll released on Thursday found that 91 percent of U.S. voters support regulations requiring all gun buyers to undergo background checks. However, 48 percent of all respondents and 53 percent of those owning guns said those checks could lead to the government's confiscating legally owned weapons.
That Quinnipiac University poll of 1,711 registered voters was conducted from March 26 to April 1 and had a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points.
Vote makes 'everyone in this room a criminal'
"I don’t want 30-round magazines that can wipe out our children," said Dan Garrett, 53, of Hamden, speaking to a group of men wearing Connecticut Citizens Defense League stickers. Greg Kozeman, 44, of New Britain said improving mental-health access is a better solution than tighter gun limits.
Earlier, gun-rights advocates filled statehouse lobbies.
"The vote on this bill will make everyone in this room a criminal," said Warren Stevens, 58, a Plantsville gun owner. He wouldn’t say what type of guns he owns or how many.
“It is no business of the state what I own,” he said. "Their authority does not extend into my house."
Connecticut, with a long history of weapons production, is still home to six gunmakers. The companies include Sturm Ruger & Co., Connecticut Shotgun Manufacturing Co., Colt Defense LLC, Stag Arms, Charter Arms, O.F. Mossberg & Sons Inc., and Ammunition Storage Components LLC, which makes 30-round magazines. Some have threatened to leave if the new limits pass.
The industry employs about 7,300 people in the state and contributed $119 million in tax revenue in 2011, according to the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade group. Charter Arms calls the region “the cradle of the American firearms industry.”
Reuters and Bloomberg
Is that why Patrick Bearup received a death sentence and the other guys didn't????
Less Culpable, but With Longer Sentences
Joshua Lott for The New York Times
By FERNANDA SANTOS
Published: April 5, 2013
PHOENIX — Members of a white supremacy group descended on a home here 11 years ago to scare a man into paying back the $200 his roommate had accused him of stealing. The attack ended in the man’s death.
Jeremy Johnson. Mr. Johnson, Ms. Nelson and Mr. Gaines killed a man in Phoenix, but brokered plea deals and were able to avoid trials. They could all be out of prison by 2028.
Three of the four people who were eventually arrested brokered plea deals, avoiding a trial. The roommate, Jessica Nelson, 37, who instigated the beating, and a skinhead recruit named Jeremy Johnson, 30, who pummeled the man, Mark Mathes, with a baseball bat, could be out of prison in four years. Sean Gaines, who shot Mr. Mathes as he was thrown naked from a car onto a county road, is scheduled for release in 2028, at the age of 47.
Only one of the perpetrators, a young man who by all accounts was not directly involved in the killing, received the death penalty. Patrick Bearup, 36, who helped dispose of Mr. Mathes’s body and severed one of its fingers to retrieve a ring, was convicted of kidnapping and first-degree murder.
Such cases, in which a defendant with lesser culpability draws the harshest sentence, are not uncommon in Arizona, and elsewhere around the country. Of the six inmates executed in this state last year, four were equally or less culpable than co-defendants implicated in the same crimes, according to Dale A. Baich, the supervisor of the capital habeas unit in the federal public defender’s office, which handles appeals of capital cases in federal court. (Prison records show that three of those four co-defendants have been released.)
In many of the 32 other states that carry the death penalty, similar stories unfold as prosecutors, when deciding whom to charge, weigh the cost of mounting a capital trial, which can reach $1 million, against the likelihood of a conviction.
In 2011 in Ohio, Gov. John R. Kasich, using his clemency powers, commuted to life in prison the death sentence of a man convicted of killing two people. The governor, a Republican, said it was unclear if he had been the one to actually commit the murders. Another Ohio inmate, John Getsy, was executed in 2009 for killing the mother of his intended target in a murder-for-hire plot, despite a clemency recommendation by the state parole board, which said that other participants in the crime, including its architect, had not been sentenced to die. (The governor at the time, Ted Strickland, a Democrat, overruled the board.)
Mr. Bearup’s case was one of 135 pending capital cases in Maricopa County in 2006, more than the combined number of cases in the next three jurisdictions at the top of the list: Los Angeles County and Clark County, Nev., each with 36; and Harris County, Tex., with 17.
“In an ideal world, the prosecution would have ironclad proof against all the co-defendants to be able to pick the worst for the death penalty, but we have an inequitable system, a bargaining system,” said Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, which tracks the number of executions across the country.
“If you give the prosecution some help,” Mr. Dieter said of defendants in such cases, “you’ll get something out of it.”
In 1972, the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to invalidate all death penalty laws in the country because they had been too arbitrarily applied. One of the concurring justices, Potter Stewart, wrote that the Constitution could not “permit this unique penalty to be so wantonly and freakishly imposed.” States moved to rewrite their statutes, narrowing their definition of first-degree murder or the number of aggravating factors used to define a capital crime. The idea was to make sure the death penalty would be reserved for the worst of the worst.
In an interview, the Maricopa County attorney, Bill Montgomery, who was elected in 2010, said his prosecutors, who handle most death penalty cases in the state, abide by a guiding principle: “Is this a case where the death penalty would be a just punishment in light of how we’ve handled similar cases,” based on the “brutality of the particular case in question?”
It is not a “side-by-side” comparison, he said, but a decision based on whether the evidence can prove a capital crime and whether the death penalty is supported. (His office currently has 68 pending capital cases.)
Defense lawyers have long argued that the state’s statute leaves too much of the decision in prosecutors’ hands.
In a motion filed before the state’s Superior Court last month, Susan L. Corey and Garrett Simpson, public defenders in Maricopa County, which accounts for 63 percent of the inmates on Arizona’s death row, said the problem was that the law was too broad.
They pored over more than 200 first-degree murder cases from 2010 and 2011 to check if the aggravating factors — the state has 14, up from 6 in 1973 — separated the most egregious from the rest. What they found was that virtually every one could have been tried as a capital murder.
“The point I’m trying to make is, it can’t be random,” Ms. Corey said.
Sometimes, money determines whether a defendant’s life is on the line. Last year, Greg McPhillips, the deputy attorney in Mohave County, in northwestern Arizona, said in a motion that because of a “budgetary crisis,” the county could not afford to try more than one death penalty case at a time. He gave up on seeking the death penalty against a man facing charges of first-degree murder, child abuse and sexual assault in the 2010 death of his infant son, choosing instead to pursue a capital case against a man accused of killing a teenage girl and injuring her mother.
“Do people who commit equally heinous crimes get the same results? The answer is unquestionably no,” said Christopher Dupont, a lawyer in Phoenix who has served as a consultant in death penalty cases in several states, including California and Nevada. “It’s a total mystery who is going to face the death penalty and who is not.”
Mr. Bearup’s case was dogged by challenges from the start: an inexperienced lawyer, an implausible defense of not being there for the attack and a decision to represent himself at sentencing and offer no mitigating evidence which jurors could weigh against the death penalty.
Last summer, he filed a motion to waive all legal challenges to his sentence. Judge Warren J. Granville, who had presided over Mr. Bearup’s trial, ordered a doctor to assess his competency. The doctor’s diagnosis of bipolar disorder was challenged by the prosecutor. A hearing is scheduled for May 10.
Judge Granville, as the statute requires, had reviewed the legality of Mr. Bearup’s sentence, which he affirmed, though not before rebuking Andrew Thomas, the former county prosecutor, for pursuing a capital case against a man who “even under the state’s theory, did not cause the physical death” of Mr. Mathes. (Mr. Thomas was disbarred last year, over malicious criminal and civil charges brought against political opponents.) “Justice,” Judge Granville wrote, “was not done for Mr. Bearup.”
From death row, Mr. Bearup has been studying to become a pastor, a course he is set to finish as a motion challenging his conviction is due, in June. It is his last chance at challenging his conviction in the state courts.
Maybe that's why Republican Bob Thorpe said he wanted to provide Democratic and Republican members safety options.
Arizona lawmaker cancels bulletproof vest demo
By Bob Christie Associated Press Mon Apr 8, 2013 1:38 PM
PHOENIX — An Arizona lawmaker invited a bulletproof vest retailer to do a demonstration at the state Capitol but canceled the event on Monday after a legislative lawyer advised him that making a sales pitch to lawmakers on state property was improper.
Freshman Republican Rep. Bob Thorpe called his idea a “rookie mistake” and said he instead plans to provide contact information for the retailer to fellow members of the Arizona House and Senate.
“In the future, before I set something like this up I’ll certainly go out and I’ll talk to some folks that have been around longer than me and just make sure that I’m not doing something that might look like it was inappropriate,” he said.
Thorpe said he wanted to provide Democratic and Republican members safety options in light of the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011 and the recent fatal shooting of a Texas prosecutor and his wife. He sent the email to all House and Senate members last Thursday inviting them to visit the Capitol basement on Wednesday to be fitted for a vest if they wanted to buy one.
“In the wake of Tucson shooting, I have been researching body armor in order to inform our members about the costs and options for those wishing to purchase a vest for their personal use, for example, at town halls, parades and other public events,” the email said.
Thorpe was criticized by Democratic state Rep. Ruben Gallego, a former Marine who served in the Iraq war
“We’re here to be in the public, and it’s not our job to be paranoid all the time thinking that someone is out to get us,” Gallego told abc15.com. “I think the best defense is actually to have a good, well-trained police force and some good gun laws.”
Thorpe said he’s not suggesting that lawmakers come to work armed, as some have done in recent years. He just said he believed fellow legislators might feel safer in some situations with body armor.
Thorpe said he understands that some might criticize the move, especially since the Legislature has rejected every effort to tighten gun laws in Arizona in recent years. But he said his view is that mental health issues are behind most violent events, like Giffords’ shooting.
“I support people owning guns and doing that lawfully, but we’ve got some wackos out there,” he said.
Thorpe said he’s supporting a stalled effort in the state Legislature to appropriate $250,000 to expand a program to train teachers, first-responders and others to recognize people having a mental health crisis and intervene. Giffords’ attacker, Jared Lee Loughner, suffered from mental illness.
While rejecting gun control measures, he said he’s open to more action on keeping the mentally ill from obtaining guns.
“I’m very interested in trying to pass some piece of legislation which would cause our government officials, whether its teachers or law enforcement, to keep track of people where’s there’s red flags being raised,” he said. “And that certainly didn’t happen with Loughner.”
Arizona Legislature invited to … a body armor party?
In the wake of Newtown, the state of Connecticut on Thursday enacted what some are calling the strongest gun laws in the nation, including limits on the size of magazines, a ban on armor piercing bullets and universal background checks.
“Democrats and Republicans were able to come to an agreement on a strong, comprehensive bill,” Senate President Don Williams, a Democrat, said as the bill awaited a final vote. “That is a message that should resound in 49 other states, and in Washington, D.C., and the message is we can get it done here and they should get it done in their respective states and nationally in Congress.”
Meanwhile, in the state of Arizona, a legislator on Thursday offered a response to our own massacre.
“In the wake of Tucson shooting, I have been researching body armor in order to inform our members about the costs and options for those wishing to purchase a vest for their person use, for example, at town halls, parades and other public events,” Rep. Bob Thorpe wrote, in an e-mail to fellow legislators. “These vests have prices ranging from about $600-$800 and options that include their weight and comfort, bullet stopping ability and colors.”
You’ve heard of Tupperware parties? Thorpe, a Flagstaff Republican, has invited members of the Arizona Legislature to a body armor party. Next Wednesday, a representative of AZ Tactical will be on hand in basement of the Arizona House to extol the virtues of various vests and take orders.
“Mr. (Mike) Arthur is offering the same discounted prices to our members as he provides to members of law enforcement …,” Thorpe wrote.
“These vests are rated for a five year life but it is my opinion that legislators could wear them much longer because the five year life assumes almost daily law enforcement use. Prior to placing an order, you will be measured for the proper size vest.”
Next up: Uzi sales in the Senate. Which, by the way, earlier week strafed proposals to expand background checks, limit the size of magazines and bar those convicted of domestic violence from possessing guns.
The Senate also rejected a bid to require basic firearms-safety training in order to carry a concealed weapon.
Thus, the need, I suppose, for legislative body armor — to protect our leaders from the public.
If only there were a way to protect the public from our leaders…
And perhaps limit knife sales to knives with blades under 2 inches in length with dull blades. Society will be a safer place if people can only have dull butter knives, and only cops and government rulers are allowed to have sharp steak and other assault knives.
I'm just joking, but I wouldn't be surprised if some phoney
baloney Arizona Libertarians I know try to say I actually believe that rubbish.
Student charged in Texas college stabbing attack
Associated Press Wed Apr 10, 2013 7:54 AM
CYPRESS, Texas — A 20-year-old man from suburban Houston has been charged in a stabbing spree at a Texas community college that injured at least 14 people.
Sheriff’s officials say Dylan Quick is charged with three counts of aggravated assault in the Tuesday attack at Lone Star Community College in Cypress. The city is about 20 miles from Houston.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office says in a statement that Quick used a “razor-type knife” to cut his victims, and pieces of the blade were found at the scene.
The sheriff’s office says Quick told investigators he’d had fantasies about stabbing people to death since he was in elementary school.
Investigators also say Quick indicated he’d been planning the attack for some time.
The only good news about this article is that the crooks at the Arizona State Legislator seem to realize that they are crooks and need to protect themselves from the people they pretend to serve while they rob us blind.
Last if Rep. Bob Thorpe really is a "Tea Party" members who wants to protect us from the other government crooks, why is he trying to help protect his fellow crooks???
I suspect Rep. Bob Thorpe isn't really a "freedom fighter" and just ran on the "Tea Party" platform because it would help him get elected.
Posted on April 9, 2013 3:30 pm by Laurie Roberts
Rep. Bob Thorpe looking for protection — and not just from bullets
In the wake of Sandy Hook, the state of Connecticut last Thursday enacted some of the strongest gun laws in the country, including limits on the size of magazines, a ban on armor piercing bullets and universal background checks.
Meanwhile, in the state of Arizona, a legislator on Thursday offered a response to our own massacre.
“In the wake of Tucson shooting, I have been researching body armor in order to inform our members about the costs and options for those wishing to purchase a vest for their personal use, for example, at town halls, parades and other public events,” Rep. Bob Thorpe, wrote, in an e-mail to fellow legislators. “These vests have prices ranging from about $600-$800, and options that include their weight and comfort, bullet stopping ability and colors.”
You’ve heard of Tupperware parties? Thorpe invited the Arizona Legislature to a body armor party. On Wednesday, a salesman from Arizona Tactical was supposed to be on hand in the House basement to offer discounts and take orders on the latest in tactical fashion.
Alas, legislative lawyers put the kibosh on Thorpe’s sale-a-thon. It’s seems you’re not supposed to use the state Capitol to sell bulletproof vests. Or anything else.
Now Thorpe is apparently steamed that his “internal” e-mail invite – the one sent out on his public e-mail account — wound up in the hands of the media.
“I’d love to know who leaked my email to the press, because I want to present them with a ‘Members Only’ jacket, as a reminder that some things, like my internal e-mail invitation, are intended for members only,” the Flagstaff Republican wrote in an e-mail on Tuesday.
Like his first e-mail, this one made it to my inbox within 15 minutes of his sending it.
Thorpe is a freshman legislator who made headlines earlier this year for his bill to require students to sign a loyalty oath before they could graduate from school — a bill he withdrew once somebody explained to him that it was blatantly unconstitutional. He’s a Tea Party guy who ran on a platform of protecting the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law.
Including, presumably, the law that says the Arizona Legislature is a public body – not the Augusta National Golf Club. And the one that says e-mail sent out on a government account is government business.
Or put another way: the public’s business.
Thorpe didn’t return my call to discuss public records and body armor and such. Pity, as I would have liked to ask him if that Members Only jacket would be outfitted in Kevlar.
In his Tuesday e-mail, Thorpe takes a shot at Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego — whom he suspects of “leaking” his e-mail – and notes that he arranged to have the body armor salesman come to the Capitol after a Democratic legislator told him she’d requested a police presence at a recent town hall meeting.
“She was concerned about her personal safety,” he wrote. “By the way, I sent out my e-mail invitation to all the House and Senate legislators, both Democrats and Republicans, because of my concern for the safety of all our members.”
Given his concern for safety, Thorpe might want to take up the cause for banning the sort of ammunition that would blast right through those bulletproof vests he’s hawking.
Sadly, his Senate colleagues rejected a ban on armor piercing bullets last week, along with a ban on high-capacity magazines and a call for universal background checks.
The irony wasn’t lost on Democrats.
“There are just so many other things that we should be working on and not just focused on our own personal safety but the personal safety of the public and for the children in our schools,” said Gallego, D-Phoenix.
“It’s is sad to see that we are almost at the 100th day of our session and yet we have not had a comprehensive discussion on gun violence for our constituents of Arizona,” Sen. Anna Tovar, D-Tolleson, told me.
For his part, Thorpe has provided his fellow legislators with the name and number for his body armor salesman. “His store is about a 10-minute drive from the Capitol and he’d like to try and arrange a time where perhaps 5 (or more) legislators can come in at a time for a joint briefing in one of their classrooms,” he wrote.
No doubt, Thorpe’s pal will have plenty of takers.
In addition to strafing other gun bills last week, the state Senate also rejected a bid to require basic firearms-safety training before you can carry around a concealed weapon.
Thus, the need, I suppose, for legislative body armor — to protect our leaders from the public.
Now, if only there was a way to protect the public from our leaders…
And of course as long as the mayor and city council of New York allows this illegal activity there ain't jack sh*t we can do to stop it.
Of course that is why the Founders gave us the Second Amendment. So when our government masters refuse to obey the law, the people have a means to force them to obey the law.
Of course in New York State the people's right to own guns has pretty much been flushed down the toilet by these same tyrants who allow the police to terrorize us.
And of course this isn't limited to New York State or New York City, it is happens all over the USA.
An Assurance of Constitutional Safeguards
Faiza Patel
April 9, 2013
New York City has become safer over the last decade. Yet relations between the police and minority communities have become ever more strained.
Much of the tension stems from the N.Y.P.D.’s stop and frisk policy, which disproportionately targets black and Latino men. Muslim communities are troubled by the NYPD’s intelligence operation, which collects information about their daily lives that often seems to have no link to terrorism or crime.
Oversight of N.Y.P.D. activities like stop and frisk and the surveillance of Muslims shouldn't require decades of litigation.
An inspector-general could help the police ease these concerns and hew closer to constitutional requirements in their efforts to keep the city safe.
Crucial constitutional protections — like the requirement of equal treatment and the need for reasonable suspicion before searching someone — have been codified into specific rules for the N.Y.P.D. But we have little assurance that they are followed.
As part of the 2003 settlement of the first stop and frisk lawsuit, Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly issued an order forbidding the N.Y.P.D. from relying on race, color, ethnicity or national origin as the determinative factor in undertaking action. Yet since these rules were adopted, the stop and frisk program has grown 450 percent, with nearly five million people — 81 percent of whom are minorities — stopped, questioned and searched.
These numbers have led many to ask whether the police are following the racial profiling ban. An inspector general would be ideally situated to audit the records of stop and frisk encounters for compliance.
Similarly, the N.Y.P.D.’s surveillance of Muslim communities has raised questions about police fidelity to the prohibition on religion-based targeting and to a 1985 consent decree that restrains their monitoring of First Amendment activities. Documents recently filed in this case show that the N.Y.P.D. has informants or undercover officers in at least 30 area mosques. Interested citizens cannot delve into police files to evaluate whether the widespread use of informants was justified or a reflection of biases. But an inspector general can do just that.
The lawyers challenging these practices know the difficulty of ensuring that police comply with rules and have asked for court-appointed police monitors to do so. We should not have to wait for decades of litigation to obtain oversight of N.Y.P.D. activities.
On these and other police operations, an inspector general would serve as front-end protection against illegality. Periodic reports from the inspector general would increase much-needed, impartial public information about police practices, helping elected officials perform their own oversight duties.
And, while an inspector general’s recommendations are not binding, the experience of the F.B.I. and the Los Angeles police, among others, shows that they can be highly influential in shaping lawful and effective law enforcement practices.
As the nation’s premier police department, the N.Y.P.D. should embrace the best practices developed by its peers and commit to working unreservedly with an inspector general to create an even better police force.
Quan flubs crime stat, again
Post has been updated as of 5:50 p.m.
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan has gained a reputation for citing crime statistics that don’t always add up or making statements to the press she later says were taken out of context.
It’s happened again.
In an interview with KCBS radio broadcast on Monday, Oakland’s mayor said the following:
For the last 2 months, violence in Oakland has been way down. It seems to come in these spurts. So like for six weeks there had been no murders east of High Street in East Oakland.
Problem is, there have been seven homicides east of High Street over the past six weeks, according to Shine in Peace, an online journalism project launching soon that’s tracking shootings and homicides in Oakland and noticed Quan’s statement.
“There’s no six-week period in 2013 where there were no homicides east of High Street,” said Susie Cagle, the project director.
Cagle said the homicides over the past six weeks included the following:
Sean Maher, Quan’s spokesman, said the quote to KCBS was taken out of context in two important ways. Quan was only talking about gang-related homicides because she was discussing the effectiveness of Ceasefire, an anti-gang prevention program, Maher said.
Secondly, the mayor was talking about a specific period of time, Feb. 22 through Mar. 30. During that period, only the Mar. 2 double homicide killing Forde and Garcia occurred east of High Street in East Oakland — the target area of the gang-prevention efforts, Maher said. Police have said that homicide was not gang-related, he said.
Maher acknowledged that the period of time Quan referred to was only five weeks.
“Unfortunately, the KCBS report cuts their interview in a way that can be misleading,” said Maher. “Obviously, the mayor is aware of the recent spate of homicides that began on Easter Sunday.”
Cagle said her project’s data corroborates what Maher said. But she noted that there were five homicides east of High Street on Mar. 31 through Apr. 4. She said that hardly conveys success in reducing homicides.
“It seems like an odd thing to even be publicizing,” she said.
I discovered that the FBI, Homeland Security, TSA, DEA, BATF, Secret Service,
or some other Federal agency is spying on me after I installed
Google Analytics
on my website.
Every day I get one or two hits from an IP address in the Washington, DC
suburb of Shady Side, Maryland which I suspect is a headquarters for some
Federal government site that spies on Americans.
I should say the city and the IP address changes over time, but it is pretty
obvious that somebody in the Federal government is spying on me.
For those of you who wish to use
Google Analytics
to see if the government is spying on you it is free and
this
link will tell you how to install the software.
To get
Google Analytics working on your web site
all you have to do is create a free account with them and then put the following lines of
code on each of your web pages.
Google will give you the following code, which you will have to cut and paste on to your
web pages. The account number which has been replaced with "*************" will be
replaced with your account number.
Volunteer to help recall Sheriff Joe!!!!!
Volunteer to help recall Sheriff Joe!!!!!
MCSO overbilled Scottsdale $160,000 for jail housing
Source
Police left prison door ajar in Debra Milke case
The article doesn't mention it but the police framing people for murder happens a lot.
Activist files lawsuit to halt Arpaio recall
Some times life sucks. So please don't blame me for this lousy news. I didn't file the lawsuit, I'm just posting an article about it.
NY cops ordered to stop and frisk "the right people"???
This article seems to say "the right people" is cop slang for Blacks and Mexicans!!
Hitler joins gun debate, but history is in dispute
I am not sure what is true. There is a lot of stuff out that that says
Hitler loosening gun control in Nazi German is just a bunch of
mythology created by people that love Hitler.
Honduras police operating death squads???
Hmmm... America the great land of freedom and democracy is financing the armed police thugs:
Despite millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Honduras aimed at professionalizing the country’s police ...
Source
A jobs program for MCCCD cops - Sounds like it!!!
Yes, this article sure sounds like they want to create a jobs program for Maricopa Community Colleges Police Officers.
Law-enforcement veterans join Arpaio recall
Source
One local cop for every 270 people in Arizona???
From this article it sounds like there are a total of about 24,000 city, county, and state cops in Arizona. That doesn't include Federal cops.
Are the DEA and FBI listening to your cell phone calls????
Little-known surveillance tool raises concerns by judges, privacy activists
FBI Pursuing Real-Time Gmail Spying Powers
FBI tyrants want to flush 4th Amendment down the toilet.
More on the crooks that work for Sheriff Joe???
Deputy chief dropped from MCSO legal battle
Conn. governor signs sweeping new gun bill into law
I am sure King George, Hitler, Stalin and Mao are smiling in the graves and
know that Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy will be a great dictator just
like they were.
Less Culpable, but With Longer Sentences
This New York Times article doesn't mention that Patrick Bearup is also the son of a man who ran against Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Bulletproof vests for elected officials???
Hmmm, I wonder, do the crooks at the Arizona Legislature think us serfs are tired of them robbing us blind and micromanaging our lives. Like their attempts to flush Prop 203 down the toilet?
Bulletproof vests for elected officials???
Source
Background checks on knife purchases????
Time to require background checks on knife purchases????
Rep. Bob Thorpe tries to protect his fellow crooks from us serfs???
I think I already posted the original version of this article. This version seems a bit longer and makes the legislative critters at the Arizona State Capital look more like the crooks and tyrants they are.
Constitutional Safeguards??? Don't make me laugh!!!!!
F*ck the Constitution, the police are going to commit whatever crimes they want to commit.
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan is a liar who will say anything to get elected!!!
Like most politicians Oakland Mayor Jean Quan is a liar who will say anything to get elected!!!
The IRS is monitoring your Facebook and Twitter accounts???
According to this
article
the IRS is monitoring your Facebook and Twitter accounts???
|
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var _gaq = _gaq || [];
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</script> |
Last but not least you don't need to understand any of this computer mumbo jumbo to use Google Analytics.
Just cut and paste the code Google gives you and you will be on your way to seeing the government thugs that are spying on you.
Once you create the Google account you can visit the Google Analytics site and get reports on who is visiting your websites on an hour by hour basis.
I suspect if enough people start doing this Uncle Sam's goons will cut a deal with Google Analytics and order them not to tell you when Uncle Sam's goons visit your website.
BP murdered 16 year old Jose Rodriguez????
Border Patrol murdered 16 year old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez????New details in Mexico teenager's death by Border Patrol
By Bob Ortega The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Apr 11, 2013 12:18 AM
A new witness and new evidence seem to bolster the case that a Mexican teen shot to death by the Border Patrol in October in Nogales, Sonora, was walking down the street at the time he was killed — not, as the Border Patrol has maintained, throwing rocks over the fence at agents.
The new information also suggests that more than one agent may have opened fire on Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, 16. That information arrived as the family of the youth held a march on Wednesday in Nogales to protest what they called the FBI and Border Patrol’s “veil of silence” about the killing.
Both the bureau and the patrol have declined to comment on the boy’s death, citing an ongoing FBI investigation. They have declined to identify the agent or agents involved and have declined to release a surveillance video of the incident, shot by cameras mounted above the border fence.
Agents, along with Nogales, Ariz., police, were chasing two men they believed were fleeing back to Mexico after climbing over the fence to the U.S. side with drugs. The agents said rocks began flying over the fence at them as they tried to arrest the men climbing back over the fence.
The new witness, Isidro Alvarado, a private security guard, said on the night of Oct. 10, he was walking about 20 feet behind Elena Rodriguez down Calle Internacional, which runs parallel to the border fence, when two other youths suddenly ran past them. Then, he said, he heard gunshots from two separate places by the fence and saw Elena Rodriguez fall.
Alvarado said his brother, a Nogales police officer, persuaded him to come forward and speak to the Sonora Attorney General’s Office. Alvarado’s statements were first reported by Nogales radio station XENY. He also spoke at a news conference Wednesday in Nogales, Sonora.
Luis Parra, a Nogales, Ariz., attorney representing the Elena Rodriguez family, said he recently interviewed Alvarado and then confirmed with an attorney from the Sonora Attorney General’s Office that the first call to Nogales police reporting the shooting, immediately after it happened, came from Alvarado’s cellphone.
“But what has made the family even more distraught,” he said, “are the indications that two agents were involved in the shooting and that he (Elena Rodriguez) had to have been lying on the ground when five bullets penetrated his back.”
In a forensic scene-analysis report, investigators for the Sonora Attorney General’s Office concluded that at least five shots into Elena Rodriguez’s back must have hit him while he was lying on the sidewalk. This jibes with findings in an autopsy, previously reported by The Arizona Republic, that all but one of the bullets that hit the boy entered from behind and most at an angle suggesting he was prone when hit.
In their forensic report, investigators also describe how they climbed the story-and-a-half-high bluff on which the border fence sits and looked through the fence as Border Patrol agents and Nogales, Ariz., police conducted their investigation on the U.S. side of the fence.
They describe an area next to the fence, cordoned off with police tape, where they counted 11 shell casings, and another taped-off area, about 28 feet away, where they could see three more casings. This seems to suggest, Parra said, that agents fired from two different spots along the fence.
A Sonora ballistics report, meanwhile, describes the nine bullets recovered by Mexican police — six from the boy’s body, and three from the street — as hollow-point, .40-caliber slugs fired from one or more polygonal-rifled guns.
Michael Haag, a forensic scientist and ballistics expert based in Albuquerque, reviewed the report. He said this is a relatively uncommon type of rifling, a type used in the Heckler & Koch P2000 handgun, among others.
That is the standard-issue Border Patrol sidearm, a spokesman confirmed.
The ballistics report said polygonal rifling, which leaves a much smoother barrel than conventional rifling, makes it harder to distinguish whether all the bullets were fired by the same gun or different guns.
“Because it leaves no good marks on the bullets, it’s very rare by forensic science to identify the bullets back to a specific gun,” Haag agreed. He added, “You can ID it sometimes, so it should be attempted.”
He also noted that each Border Patrol agent should have told the FBI whether he or she fired shots that night.
The Sonora ballistics report identified the bullets as Starfire hollow points, but Haag said the poor-quality photocopies of the bullets show cannelures — a ring that runs around the circumference of the bullet — that are not found on Starfire rounds but are consistent with the similar Federal Premium HST .40-caliber rounds.
Those are standard-issue ammunition for the H&K P2000 handgun, a Border Patrol spokesman confirmed.
The Department of Homeland Security expects shortly to complete a review of the Border Patrol’s use-of-force policy, which allows agents to fire at rock-throwers, Secretary Janet Napolitano said in an interview with The Republic last week.
There have been eight incidents in the past three years in which agents have shot and killed alleged rock-throwers, among 20 deaths caused by agents since the beginning of 2010. In all but three of those cases, the FBI investigations remain open and the Border Patrol and the DHS have declined to release any information, including the names of the agents involved.
Reach the reporter at bob.ortega@arizonarepublic.com
NRA - Worlds largest gun control organization???
Some people like to say that the NRA is the worlds largest gun control organization.
I think this editorial cartoon by Steve Benson on April 11, 2013 gives credibility to that.
In the cartoon NRA leader Wayne LaPierre is picture on TV saying
We think it is reasonable to provide instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere for anyone.Then NRA leader Wayne LaPierre is pictured watching the TV show saying
Who is that idiotic bobblehead.And then to the side Wayne LaPierre wife or girl friend is pictured saying
It's you Wayne, don't you remember.And at the bottom of the cartoon Steve Benson puts a not that says:
Testimony before House Judiciary Committee on Crime, 27, May 1999
Package addressed to Arpaio had explosive materials
Source
Flagstaff police: Package addressed to Arpaio had explosive materials
By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Apr 11, 2013 11:39 PM
A package addressed to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio containing explosive materials was found at a Flagstaff post office on Thursday, according to local and federal authorities.
Investigators believe the package was picked up on Thursday at a rural post office box and arrived at a post office in Flagstaff by late Thursday afternoon, said sheriff’s Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan.
A postal worker believed the package, addressed to the sheriff’s headquarters in downtown Phoenix, looked suspicious, and a test for explosive residue confirmed the package contained black powder, said Tom Mangan, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Flagstaff police responded with federal agents, and an X-ray of the package led explosive teams to detonate the package with a water cannon, Mangan said.
No one was injured, authorities said.
Investigators will now start piecing the device back together, Mangan said.
Flagstaff police declined to comment on the investigation late Thursday.
Flagstaff police are working on the investigation with U.S. postal inspectors, sheriff’s investigators and FBI agents, according to a federal spokesman.
Arpaio has received numerous threats to his life during his 20-year tenure in the office. Some turned out to be hoaxes — like the sculpture of a spider that a bomb squad destroyed outside his Scottsdale home in 1999. But other threats against Arpaio, including a series that took place during the 2012 election cycle, were serious enough to result in arrests.
Sheridan said the device discovered Thursday was the first of the threats that actually contained an explosive.
“We’ve had suspicious packages with powder in them, but they turned out to not be anything,” Sheridan said. “This was one was a real explosive devices. It could have seriously injured someone, had they opened it.”
Lisa Allen, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office, said the agency is constantly taking steps to minimize threats to Arpaio, including delaying the release of information about public appearances and varying his schedule and routine.
Last week Arpaio told The Arizona Republic: “It is very disheartening what’s going on with the elected officials (around the nation), and I hope they catch those perpetrators,” Arpaio said. “We have to take precautions. I don’t expect any (security) increase, but it’s up to them (the security detail). It doesn’t bother me, but you still have to be concerned when you have all these threats.”
Sheriff Joe Arpaio: Explosive device mailed to him
SourceSheriff Joe Arpaio: Explosive device mailed to him nature of business, 1 of many threats
By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, April 12, 8:19 AM
PHOENIX — Authorities are investigating what was reported to be an explosive device addressed to Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America” known for his strict treatment of jail inmates and cracking down on illegal immigration.
The device intercepted in Flagstaff late Thursday was in a package addressed to Arpaio at his downtown Phoenix office, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
It appeared suspicious, so it was X-rayed and the device was detected. A bomb squad team neutralized the explosive, the statement said.
Postal Inspector Patricia Armstrong said investigators were examining debris from the package. “We don’t know if it was an actual device of some sort,” she said.
Armstrong said authorities were alerted by a “very astute” carrier who observed “something suspicious” about the package when the carrier emptied a collection box in the Flagstaff area.
Flagstaff is about 140 miles north of Phoenix.
Armstrong didn’t elaborate, but Tom Mangan, a spokesman in Phoenix for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said initial reports indicated that the package was a box that may have been damaged in transit and leaked gunpowder.
Arpaio said the mailing of an explosive device addressed to him comes with his line of work. He cited the recent killings of a West Virginia sheriff, Colorado’s corrections director and two prosecutors in Texas.
“That’s the nature of the business,” he said. “I’m getting many threats. This isn’t the first time.”
Following the killing of a West Virginia sheriff last week, Arpaio said elected law enforcement officials across the nation seem to be targeted.
Numerous threats against Arpaio, a hero to many conservatives on immigration, prompted the need for a security detail for the lawman also known for dressing jail inmates in pink underwear and making them sleep in tents in the heat of the Arizona desert.
A campaign to recall Arpaio began just weeks after he started his sixth term in January.
Critics contend Arpaio should be ousted because his office failed to adequately investigate more than 400 sex-crimes cases, allegedly racially profiled Latinos in its trademark immigration patrols and has cost the county $25 million in legal settlements over treatment in county jails.
Arpaio has denied that his deputies racially profiled Latinos in traffic patrols targeting illegal immigration. His office has moved to clear up the sex-crime cases and moved to prevent the problem from happening again, he said.
Government rulers all talk, no action on public records.
While the article is about San Jose, California, here in Arizona our public records laws are a joke.Arizona's public records laws, or freedom of information act which is A.R.S 39 §121 requires government bureaucrats and elected officials to answer all requests for public records as quickly as possible. That's the good news.
The bad news is there is no criminal or civil penalties for government bureaucrats and elected officials who refuse to obey the law.
And you can't call the cops to enforce the public records law. The only way you can do that is for YOU to sue the bureaucrat who refused to honor your request for public records.
And the Arizona's public records law doesn't even guarantee that your expenses for suing will be covered. It says "The court MAY award attorney fees and other legal costs"
San Jose fights disclosure of email, text message records
By John Woolfolk
jwoolfolk@mercurynews.com
Posted: 04/12/2013 06:21:01 AM PDT
SAN JOSE -- San Jose drew praise for its progressive approach to open government in the digital age by adopting a policy three years ago making elected officials' personal email and text messages about city business public records subject to disclosure.
But the City Council this week voted unanimously to appeal a judge's ruling last month that effectively applies that policy to the whole city workforce by declaring government employees' communications about public business subject to the California Public Records Act whether on official or private devices.
The case sets up a showdown that will be watched statewide and beyond over what open-government advocates say has become a gaping hole in public records law that was written in the typewriter era and didn't contemplate officials with Gmail, Facebook and iPhones. And they say, bring it on.
"I'm glad the city is appealing the ruling, since it is likely to be affirmed on appeal," said Peter Scheer, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition in San Rafael. "That will force all California cities and counties to treat emails about government business as public records, regardless of the status or ownership of the email accounts or devices. What matters is the substance of the message -- is it about government business or is it purely personal? -- not the technology."
San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, who ran as an open-government champion, had made the same argument in 2010 when he pushed a policy that would require disclosure of messages about city business sent or received by the mayor, council members and their staffs whether they were communicated on personal or city phones and networks. The City Council approved the policy unanimously in March 2010 on a trial basis and, citing no problems since, made it permanent in December.
Scheer said at the time the council adopted the policy that he knew of no other city that had gone so far in updating public records policy to account for modern technology. Most cities have fought efforts to force disclosure of officials' messages on private networks, citing both privacy concerns and practical questions of how a government could search for relevant documents and messages on phones and email networks it doesn't control.
Reed said that such disclosure rules covering private devices and networks can be justified and managed on a small scale involving a few dozen elected officials and their staffs. But he said the council appealed out of concern that applying those rules throughout a city organization of 5,500 full-time employees -- the practical effect of a decision that personal emails are subject to the California Public Records Act -- would be invasive and burdensome.
"It's about the scope of it," Reed said. "I think it's too broad. It sets up practical problems."
The case originated in June 2009 when activist Ted Smith requested voice mails, text messages, and emails sent or received by the mayor and council members related to a downtown redevelopment project in San Jose, whether on official or personal networks and devices. He sued in August that year when the city claimed it lacked authority to access any records on officials' private personal accounts.
Last month, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James P. Kleinberg ruled in Smith's favor, stating that under the city's interpretation of public records law, "a public agency could easily shield information from public disclosure simply by storing it on equipment it does not technically own."
"Regardless of where a record is retained, if it is drafted by a public official," Kleinberg wrote, it "constitutes a 'public record.' "
Scheer said that while the practical and privacy concerns cities have raised are legitimate, they can easily be overcome by requiring public officials to copy messages about public business to their official email where the city can search for and retrieve it.
In the city's petition with the Sixth District Court of Appeal, San Jose argues that the council disclosure policy for private email and phone networks is irrelevant to Smith's case because it was adopted 10 months after his records request and was not retroactive. The city added that "local policies simply do not affect the courts' interpretation of the Public Records Act," and that the council had chosen to limit its policy to affect about 30 city employees.
But San Jose also advanced arguments that seemingly conflict with the policy that the council adopted for itself.
"A council member is not a governmental entity," San Jose's appellate filing stated. "A council member is an individual public official with no authority to act alone on behalf of the city. Consequently, emails and documents found on a council member's personal computer or personal electronic device do not fall within the definition of a public record because any record personally and individually created by a council member is not a documentation of a transaction or activity of the city as a local agency."
Contact John Woolfolk at 408-975-9346. Follow him on Twitter at Twitter.com/johnwoolfolk1.
We need answers in Border Patrol murders???
I agree 100 percent with Linda Valdez on this murder by the Border Patrol.But Linda Valdez is very naive expecting the cops to arrest and jail one of their own buddies for murder. It ain't going to happen.
I have posted 100's of articles on other police crimes and the police routinely do get away with murder and they rarely get more then a slap on the wrist, if that much for their crimes.
The crime I vividly remember happened around November, 2004 when a News 12 helicopter caught some Phoenix Police beating up a Mexican they arrested for hijacking a car. They had the evidence they needed to nail those crooked Phoenix cops on tape, but I believe Rick Romney who was then Maricopa County attorney decided not to press charges. See News 12 video tapes Phoenix Police beating and Assault by police claimed
Yes, the Mexican who hijacked the car was a criminal. But so were the Phoenix Police officers who beat him up for his crime.
And of course we have Sheriff Joe's goons who routinely murder innocent people in his tent city gulag. Yes, Maricopa County has paid millions in out of court settlements for those murders, but I don't think the police criminals that committed the murders have received anything more then a slap on the wrist and a stern warning not to do it again [well except to criminals who deserve it, like the people they murdered - and that's from Sheriff Joe, not me]
Linda Valdez
Posted on April 11, 2013 10:13 am by Linda Valdez
We need answers in Border Patrol killing
The Border Patrol is a fast growing national police force whose power and secrecy should worry civil libertarians.
After six months, the public that funds this national police force doesn’t even know the identity of the agent or agents involved in killing a youth in Nogales, Mexico, with a barrage of bullets fired across the border.
It smacks of cover-up. [Smacks??? It IS a COVER-UP!!!]
Can you imagine the outrage if Mexican police had gunned down an American youth with equal gusto?
Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, 16, was shot numerous times — and as many as 11 bullets hit him from behind.
The Border Patrol alleges he was throwing rocks at them – an activity that the distance and angle of the border fence would have made more futile than threatening.
A witness has come forward, according to reporting by the Republic’s Bob Ortega, to say Elena Rodriguez was not throwing rocks.
Does anybody know for sure?
After six months, does anybody believe the FBI investigation hasn’t found some answers? If that’s the case, somebody send the FBI some coffee. They need to get moving.
Or are they – and Homeland Security — just hoping the whole thing blows over?
Protests yesterday at the border show that this is not going to go away. Nor should it.
The Border Patrol has extraordinary power, and there have been other deadly encounters where rocks were met with bullets.
According to Ortega:
“There have been eight incidents in the past three years in which agents have shot and killed alleged rock-throwers, among 20 deaths caused by agents since the beginning of 2010. In all but three of those cases, the FBI investigations remain open and the Border Patrol and the DHS have declined to release any information, including the names of the agents involved.”
We need answers. We need them now. [I agree with you Linda, but it ain't going to happen]
Those who paint dystopian scenarios about an out-of-control national government threatening civil liberties are often the same people who demand tougher border security. They ought to be careful what they ask for.
The Border Patrol needs to be accountable. Not secretive. [Again it ain't going to happen. This is why we need the Second Amendment. When the government becomes tyrannical and the police and elected officials are above the law the only way to fix things is with armed citizens physically ousting the government tyrants]
Phoenix officers to begin wearing video cameras
So the cops will decide when to turn on the cameras????This makes as much sense as giving bank robbers a video camera and telling them they are on the honor system to turn on the video camera before they rob any banks.
Of course I suspect now and then a cop will forget to turn off his camera before beating up a person.
That happened in the case when the Fullerton, California police beat up and murdered Kelly Thomas. But normally cops are smart enough to turn off their cameras before they commit any crimes. Or "accidentally lose and destroy the cameras" if they do forget to turn them off when they commit a crime.
Some Phoenix officers to begin wearing video cameras
By Cecilia Chan The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Fri Apr 12, 2013 4:43 PM
Police officers in the Maryvale Precinct of west Phoenix will begin wearing video cameras on Monday to record their interaction with the public.
Phoenix Police Department teamed with Arizona State University to purchase 50 on-officer cameras with a $500,000 federal grant to study the impact of the cameras on crime and accountability. The cameras will be worn for about a year.
“The whole purpose of the test is to really find out what type of impact it has on law enforcement,” police spokesman Tommy Thompson said. “Is there really a need for this kind of technology?”
The camera is about the size of a pager and will be clipped in the middle of an officer’s shirt area, Thompson said. The officer will turn the camera on when dealing with the public and download the footage onto a computer at the end of the shift. The footage can not be edited. [So the cop will decide when to turn the camera on and off. Obviously most criminals, especially police criminals are smart enough to turn off the cameras before committing crimes, such as beating up a suspect!!!!]
Arizona law requires that only one person be aware that they are being recorded, but officers will disclose they are recording an interaction if asked, officials said. [Yea, sure they will. Just like they will always turn on the cameras before they commit any crimes!!!]
The Maryvale Precinct was chosen because it has two squad areas. One squad will wear the cameras and the other, as a control group, will not, Thompson said.
The data obtained from the two groups will help determine if cameras enhance an officer’s ability to conduct domestic violence and other criminal investigations, he said.
Thompson said many times in a domestic violence situation, a victim will later change the story in court because of financial dependency on the abuser.
The data also will show if the cameras measurably impact how officers and citizens behave, he said.
The department first tested the cameras in 2011 for 90 days with 18 officers in the South Mountain and Cactus Park precincts. The three-month trial period resulted in 860 hours of video, where footage was used as court evidence in 62 cases, according to police.
The pilot program was spurred by the recommendation of a task force created after a March 2010 controversy over an officer's confrontation with Phoenix Councilman Michael Johnson at the scene of a fire.
Other police departments in Mesa, Surprise and Peoria are testing or implementing digital cameras that officers wear to record virtually everything an officer does during a shift.
Cops read everything you post online???
From this article it sounds like they have teams co cops reading everything that is posted on line looking for even trivial criminal violations.This Chicago teenager was busted for the victimless crime of posting a Craigslist ad selling his pet alligator.
I also posted articles before about Phoenix and Tempe cops who work full time posting internet ads posing as hot, horny, underage teenager girls looking for old men to have sex with.
On these web pages I get at least one visit everyday from a site in the Washington D.C. area (IP address 76.114.145.234 located in Shady Side, Maryland), which appears to be a Homeland Security office that is spying on me for my posts documenting crimes committed by the police.
The site that logs the visits was broken into several times, by I suspect police with the Homeland Security, or perhaps hackers hired by the Homeland Security and they modified the logging software.
Sadly only 30 years after 1984, America is beginning to look like the police state written in the novel 1984.
Police: Galewood neighborhood man tries to sell alligator on Craigslist
By Rosemary Regina Sobol Tribune reporter
2:30 a.m. CDT, April 16, 2013
A Northwest Side man accused of trying to sell a baby alligator on Craigslist for $300 was arrested Monday evening, police said.
Juan A. DeJesus, 19, of the 1700 block of Meade Avenue, was charged Monday with one count of misdemeanor possession of wildlife, police said.
A state Department of Natural Resources police officer responded to an advertisement that was posted on Craigslist and went to DeJesus' home Monday afternoon under the pretenses he was going to purchase the alligator, police said.
The ad, which has since been pulled from Craigslist, stated:
"Baby gator for sale, id consider a trade for a leachie gecko. Sale price is 300 obo asap."
DeJesus came out of his home with the alligator and said he would like to have $300 for it, but the officer identified himself and told DeJesus of the violation, police said.
The alligator was seized as evidence and given to other IDNR agents and DeJesus was transported to the Grand Central District police station to be processed, police said.
DeJesus could not be reached immediately Tuesday morning. He is scheduled to appear in court at the Daley Center on May 31.
rsobol@tribune.com
Tempe prosecutor Kathy Matz arrested for domestic violence
More of the old "Do as I say, not as I do" from our government masters.Tempe assistant prosecutor, boyfriend held in assaulting each other
By Cecilia Chan The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Fri Apr 12, 2013 10:08 PM
A Tempe assistant city prosecutor and her live-in boyfriend were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of assaulting each other, according to Tempe police.
Kathy Matz and Keith Walls were arrested late Wednesday night at the Tempe home they shared and transported to the city jail, according to a police report. Both had been drinking, police said.
Each posted a $500 bail Thursday, police spokesman Michael Pooley said.
Police arrived at the home at about 11:10 p.m. Wednesday after Matz called 911.
According to the report, Walls and Matz were on the bed, watching television when he asked Matz to move over. When he returned from the bathroom, she still had not moved and as he laid down in bed, she told him to get out and sleep on the couch, the report said.
Walls told police he refused and when he sat up in bed, Matz punched him in the back of his head.
They both got out of bed and Matz began shouting obscenities and swinging her closed fists at him, hitting him in the eye and kneeing him in the groin, he said.
Walls said he then threw water on Matz from a cup before he walked out of the room and proceeded to pack his clothes.
Matz told police that Walls was upset with her being on his side of the bed and he began to push her off the bed causing her to fall to the floor.
The report said Matz told police that Walls also threatened to shoot her with her gun that she kept under her side of the bed. She then pushed Walls away from her and he picked up a plastic cup of water and threw it at her, hitting her in the eye, the report said.
Police found no visible injuries on Matz when they arrived, but doctors found a bruise on the back of her head that she claimed was from hitting the headboard when she was being assaulted by Walls, according to the report. Doctors were unable to determine when she received the contusion and she never told officers on scene about the injury, police
Matz also complained that Walls gave her two bruises to her left wrist when he grabbed her. But police said they were unable to determine when she received the injuries and she did not tell officers on scene about the bruises.
Walls had a small bruise under his right eye, according to the report.
Matz will be placed on paid administrative leave while the matter is reviewed under the city’s Personnel Rules and Regulations, according to the city spokeswoman Nikki Ripley.
Her case will be transferred to a different jurisdiction in Maricopa County, she said.
Matz has worked for the city since 1998 in a number of roles, including city clerk and assistant to former Mayor Neil Giuliano, Ripley said. Her current salary is $115,045 and she is one of seven prosecutors on the city staff.
Both Walls and Matz told police they would not aid in the prosecution. Walls told police that he just wanted the relationship to be over.
Tempe prosecutor Kathy Matz arrested for assault
More of the old "Do as I say, not as I do" from our government masters.Tempe assistant prosecutor, boyfriend held in assaulting each other
By Cecilia Chan The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Fri Apr 12, 2013 10:08 PM
A Tempe assistant city prosecutor and her live-in boyfriend were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of assaulting each other, according to Tempe police.
Kathy Matz and Keith Walls were arrested late Wednesday night at the Tempe home they shared and transported to the city jail, according to a police report. Both had been drinking, police said.
Each posted a $500 bail Thursday, police spokesman Michael Pooley said.
Police arrived at the home at about 11:10 p.m. Wednesday after Matz called 911.
According to the report, Walls and Matz were on the bed, watching television when he asked Matz to move over. When he returned from the bathroom, she still had not moved and as he laid down in bed, she told him to get out and sleep on the couch, the report said.
Walls told police he refused and when he sat up in bed, Matz punched him in the back of his head.
They both got out of bed and Matz began shouting obscenities and swinging her closed fists at him, hitting him in the eye and kneeing him in the groin, he said.
Walls said he then threw water on Matz from a cup before he walked out of the room and proceeded to pack his clothes.
Matz told police that Walls was upset with her being on his side of the bed and he began to push her off the bed causing her to fall to the floor.
The report said Matz told police that Walls also threatened to shoot her with her gun that she kept under her side of the bed. She then pushed Walls away from her and he picked up a plastic cup of water and threw it at her, hitting her in the eye, the report said.
Police found no visible injuries on Matz when they arrived, but doctors found a bruise on the back of her head that she claimed was from hitting the headboard when she was being assaulted by Walls, according to the report. Doctors were unable to determine when she received the contusion and she never told officers on scene about the injury, police
Matz also complained that Walls gave her two bruises to her left wrist when he grabbed her. But police said they were unable to determine when she received the injuries and she did not tell officers on scene about the bruises.
Walls had a small bruise under his right eye, according to the report.
Matz will be placed on paid administrative leave while the matter is reviewed under the city’s Personnel Rules and Regulations, according to the city spokeswoman Nikki Ripley.
Her case will be transferred to a different jurisdiction in Maricopa County, she said.
Matz has worked for the city since 1998 in a number of roles, including city clerk and assistant to former Mayor Neil Giuliano, Ripley said. Her current salary is $115,045 and she is one of seven prosecutors on the city staff.
Both Walls and Matz told police they would not aid in the prosecution. Walls told police that he just wanted the relationship to be over.
Only police officers can be trusted to handle guns properly!!!!
SourceRetired cop drops gun, shoots self at Des Plaines school
By Jonathan Bullington Tribune reporters
8:18 p.m. CDT, April 16, 2013
A retired police officer accidentally shot himself when he dropped his gun inside a Des Plaines school while attending his grandson's Boy Scout troop meeting.
Police and school officials said the man was carrying his licensed, loaded gun inside a fanny pack Monday evening at Iroquois School, and that the gun went off and a bullet struck him in the leg after he dropped the pack.
The man, who school officials called a troop leader, was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. Des Plaines police Chief William Kushner said the man is a retired Chicago police officer.
No one else was injured, and police did not file charges because no laws were broken, Kushner said.
The retired officer is licensed to carry the firearm, according to a letter to the school community from Iroquois Principal Michael Amadei.
"Of course, the district does not condone bringing firearms on school grounds," the letter states.
Kushner said he initially heard that the retired officer was in serious condition, but school officials said the man's injuries were "not as serious as anticipated."
Amadei's letter said the school "will continue to work with" police and Scouting officials "to clarify any questions that arise. ... Student safety is our number one priority."
Representatives of the Boy Scouts of America Northwest Suburban Council could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.
Tribune reporter Robert McCoppin contributed.
jbullington@tribune.com
LA shoots itself in foot with silly porn condom law!!!!
SourcePorn filming declines sharply since L.A. condom law passed
By Kurt Streeter
April 17, 2013, 3:21 p.m.
Film permits issued for porn shoots in Los Angeles County have dropped to almost zero since a law was enacted requiring actors to use condoms during shoots.
So far this year, only two permits have been issued for pornographic filming, far off the pace for an industry that typically gets about 500 permits annually, according to Paul Audley, president of FilmLA, a nonprofit agency that oversees permitting throughout Los Angeles County. “It’s a steep drop,” Audley said, adding that “both of those applications came in January.”
Coupled with an apparent increase in filming in nearby Ventura County -- where one politician says some residents have complained about “seeing people naked” during film shoots -- the decrease has been seized on by porn industry insiders who have long claimed that efforts to regulate their industry would end up hurting Los Angeles’ pocketbook.
“We’re not surprised by this,” said Diane Duke, chief executive of the Free Speech Coalition, a film industry trade group. “Movie companies are beginning to look for other areas,” outside the San Fernando Valley, the longtime home base for most of the industry.
Duke said that Measure B, the ordinance passed by Los Angeles voters in November mandating condom use during film shoots, has created difficulties for the industry because most consumers want to see scenes without condoms. She added that many film companies are simply deferring production, waiting for the results of a lawsuit expected to be heard in U.S. District Court challenging the measure on free speech grounds. The new law also requires studios to apply to Los Angeles County for health permits.
Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which like many other public health groups has strongly advocated the restrictions, said that porn studios in Los Angeles simply need to accept the vote.
The industry’s prediction of a filming exodus that would create a deep economic hole was “heard by the voters in L.A. County, and 57 percent voted for Measure B.” Weinstein said. “We live in a democracy.”
Weinstein added that there was no evidence the industry has started filming elsewhere, nor was their evidence that nearby states such as Nevada were keen to allow X-rated filming.
But parts of Ventura County are already grappling with an increase in porn film permits since the Los Angeles law took effect, said Linda Parks, a Ventura County supervisor. Parks said residents of a neighborhood she represents near Thousand Oaks are upset because companies from Los Angeles have started shooting and “people are hearing moans and groans and seeing naked people.”
The supervisor said she is planning to introduce legislation modeled on Measure B -- and a similar law in Simi Valley -- in an effort to regulate porn filming in her county.
State Assemblyman Isadore Hall (D-Compton) has proposed an Assembly bill similar to Measure B that would cover all of California.
The decline in permits was first reported by the Daily News of Los Angeles.
Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema gets $333,000 in campaign contributions
When it comes to accepting bribes, oops, I mean campaign contribution U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is a professional!!!!OK, they are not bribes, they officially are campaign contributions, but for the man on the street it's hard to see the difference.
And of course people who give suitcases full of money to Congressmen, expect something in return for their cash.
U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema recently sponsored a $5 billion dollar corporate welfare program for corporations which make solar cells. I am sure she will say it wasn't a result of the campaign contributions she receive from the solar industry. But the rest of us have our questions.
Last but not least Kyrsten Sinema when she was a member of the Arizona State Legislator sponsored a bill which would have slapped a 300 percent tax on medical marijuana in an attempt to flush the will of the people down the toilet who voted for Prop 203 which legalized medical marijuana in Arizona.
Sinema, Barber flex fundraising muscle
By Ronald J. Hansen and Rebekah L. Sanders The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Apr 17, 2013 3:51 PM
Though she is only a freshman on Capitol Hill, U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema has quickly established herself as one of the more prolific fundraisers in Congress.
Sinema, a Phoenix Democrat, collected $333,000 between January and March and ranked 55th among all incumbents in the House. Her haul wasn’t far behind the $345,000 raised by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Posting an impressive fundraising total in the beginning of an off-election year could help Sinema ward off potential challengers to her toss-up seat — or at least intimidate them. Two fellow Arizona Democrats, Reps. Ron Barber of southern Arizona and Ann Kirkpatrick of northern Arizona, were close behind in total fundraising, reflecting the importance of campaign cash for the three incumbents who took narrow victories last year.
Barber raised $297,000 and Kirkpatrick $314,000.
By contrast, Reps. Trent Franks of Glendale and Paul Gosar of Prescott, two Republicans holding among the safest conservative seats in the country, raised less than $100,000 combined. Both ranked near the bottom of fundraisers among incumbents, Federal Election Commission records show.
“The first quarter fundraising shows that Kirkpatrick, Barber and Sinema are taking their re-elections seriously,” said Nathan Gonzales, deputy editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report, based in Washington, D.C. “If you raise a lot of money early, it does give challengers pause. But I don’t think at this early stage potential challengers look at a fundraising number and think, ‘It’s too big, and there’s not enough time to get there.’ ”
“By the time we get to next summer and fall,” Gonzales added, when the election cycle will be at its peak, “both sides will be dumping money in.”
Among potential challengers to Sinema, retired Air Force Lt. Col. Wendy Rogers, a Tempe Republican, raised $103,000 in the first quarter. Rogers’ total was among the highest in the country among non-incumbents. Sinema represents parts of Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, Paradise Valley and Scottsdale.
Rogers, who has begun sending e-mails touting her campaign bid, ran in the district last year, as did Vernon Parker and Martin Sepulveda. Parker, who won the Republican primary and lost to Sinema in November, raised $11,000. Sepulveda took in 70 cents.
Republicans in Barber’s district appear to be pinning their hopes on retired Air Force Col. Martha McSally. Barber barely scraped by her in November, but easily raised more cash than McSally in the first quarter. McSally reported $8,400 in contributions, half of which came from a Georgia-based GOP PAC.
Barber’s district includes part of Tucson and all of Cochise County near the U.S.-Mexico border.
In recent months, McSally has appeared on national news shows, sent out e-mails from her campaign account and visited political groups in the district, sending signals that she will run again, but she has declined to make it official.
“If we see a couple more quarters from McSally with that showing, there will be concern on the Republican side,” Gonzales said. But “for someone like McSally who just got off the campaign trail, I think there’s usually a natural pause before getting things ramped up again.”
Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat, raised $75,000; Rep. Ed Pastor, a Democrat, raised $90,000; Rep. Matt Salmon, a Republican, raised $94,000; and Rep. David Schweikert, a Republican, raised $172,000.
Senate filings were not yet available.
Most Glendale tax dollars go to the POLICE!!!!
This article had a photo and graph which showed that the police in Glendale get 41 percent of the budget.That is followed by the fire department which gets 22 percent of the budget.
And all other departments combined share the remaining 37 percent of the budget.
They had a second graph that showed the number of Glendale police employees was 550, the number of fire department employees was 250. All the other city employees on the graph were 500. So the police and fire departments have more employees then all the other departments combined.
Those numbers are typical for other city budgets I have seen and the money spent on the cops is usually twice as much at the fire department, and that the police and fire departments budgets are always more then that of all the other city departments combined.
Which leads me to say that America cities are police states because most of the money is spent on the police.
The sad part is that most of the arrests the police make are for victimless drug war crimes. I have read that at the Federal level two thirds of the people in prisons are there for victimless drug war crimes. I am not sure what percent of people in state prisons are there for victimless drug war crimes, but I suspect it is also a huge number.
Glendale city finances could be nearing steep cliff
Source
Glendale city finances could be nearing steep cliff
By Paul Giblin The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Apr 17, 2013 8:59 AM
The mostly new Glendale City Council is contending with a mostly old problem. The city’s financial position has been on a downward slope for years.
In an effort to offset declines in tax revenues, the state’s fifth-largest city has nearly chewed through its financial reserves while it has shed employees and cut services.
Yet, according to the city’s projections, its financial position is about to get far worse.
According to current forecasts, the city will have $3.4 million in reserve in the general fund at the end of fiscal 2014. Without serious restructuring, by 2015 the city would be $3.8 million in the red, and by 2018, the city would have a $20.3 million shortfall.
One option city bookkeepers recommend is to make $3.5 million in cuts for the fiscal year opening in July, followed by $10.8 million in reductions for 2015, and an additional $8.2 million in cuts in 2018.
The seven-member council, with its four new members, is trying to determine how to shape a budget that will keep enough police on patrol and parks in good repair.
But those goals seemed to border on unachievable during an opening series of budget workshops in recent weeks.
If all goes as scheduled, the council will offer a draft of the 2014 budget and a 10-year capital-improvement plan May 28, then authorize a final budget June 11.
Glendale’s financial experts project the city to finish the current fiscal year with an $11.4 million reserve in the general fund.
Ending with any savings, or a reserve, in 2014 requires $3.5 million in reduced spending that would be accomplished by eliminating vacant positions and related costs, Financial Services Executive Director Sherry Schurhammer told the council.
With those cuts and deeper ones recommended by staff, the city could build its reserve to nearly $20 million by fiscal 2018.
Without changes, the city’s financial position is set to become particularly grim in 2018, because that year marks the first year without revenue from a current, but temporary sales tax.
“What I want to make clear here — or hope I’m making clear — is that this ongoing structural operating deficit exists even if that sales tax does not sunset, because you’ve got this negative fund balance,” she said March 27.
The general fund is important because it’s the city’s largest operating fund and it supports the widest range of programs, she said.
The city’s financial position is headed downward because municipal spending patterns were based on prerecession tax collections, and spending was not reduced enough to keep pace as tax collections tapered off during the recession, Schurhammer said.
Most city departments have reduced spending by letting vacant positions remain unfilled in recent years, but those efforts aren’t enough to balance the books, she said.
The heads of most municipal departments told council members that staffing cuts already have cut into their programs.
Acting Police Chief Debby Black and Fire Chief Mark Burdick told council members that they have run out of ways to cover the staffing cuts by adjusting employees’ work schedules and assignments. Both departments need more employees, they said.
Likewise, the number of positions in the Community and Economic Development Department has fallen from 78.5 in 2009 to 39.8 this year, according to city records. Projections call for the department to lose three more positions next year.
Yet the city’s economic development officials are handling more business prospects than they have in years, Executive Director Brian Friedman said.
In addition to anticipated budget expenses across the city, council members are expected to consider an array of new expenses in coming weeks. Among them:
Payments to the potential new owners of the Phoenix Coyotes or a separate management firm to operate Jobing.com Arena. Next year’s budget assumes the city could pay an arena manager $6.5 million.
Funding air-traffic controllers at Glendale Municipal Airport beginning in June when the federal government discontinues the service.
Securing permanent parking and perhaps even building a parking garage around University of Phoenix Stadium.
Possible pay raises or cost-of-living adjustments for city employees, whose pay has been frozen for years.
Union contract prevents corrupt cops from being fired
The cops are saying don't blame us, even if the cop is a crook the union contract prevents us from firing him.Of course those same cops forget to say they are the ones that wrote up the contract.
If you are a criminal the best place for you to get a job is either as a police officer or an elected official. In both jobs you can usually get away with committing crimes that would send any of us normal serfs to prison for years.
Chicago police officer escapes discipline despite inspector general's findings
Probe finds that contract prohibits reprimand
By Bill Ruthhart, Chicago Tribune reporter
8:58 p.m. CDT, April 17, 2013
The Chicago Police Department declined to discipline an officer who improperly used the job to generate business for a friend's firm, according to a quarterly report released Wednesday by the city's inspector general.
The Police Department agreed there was "substantial probability" that the officer acted improperly but said its contract with the union prevented it from taking action, according to the report.
Inspector General Joseph Ferguson said his investigators determined that while serving court summonses for building violations, the officer sought to drum up business for a friend whose company offered to resolve such violations.
The officer visited homes with "an official city summons in one hand" and a "friend's business card in the other," according to the report. The report did not identify the officer.
Ferguson's office, which also accused the officer of lying to investigators, recommended that the officer be fired.
The Police Department said its contract with the Fraternal Order of Police prevented it from disciplining the officer in a noncriminal case because any complaint — even one from the inspector general — must be filed by a "firsthand witness," according to the report. The city's Law Department agreed.
"The underlying issue here is that the city's Law Department and Police Department do not differentiate between an inspector general's investigation and a general complaint from a layperson," said Jonathan Davey, a spokesman for Ferguson.
Law Department spokesman Roderick Drew said the city recommended no action against the officer because Ferguson did not conduct his investigation properly and any discipline could have led to a union grievance or unfair labor practice complaint.
Drew said Ferguson's office should have presented the accusations to the officer in writing before investigators conducted a formal interview.
Davey declined to respond to the reasons given by Drew for not taking action against the officer.
The case is the latest example of the inspector general's reach being thwarted.
The Illinois Supreme Court ruled unanimously last month that Ferguson cannot independently go to court to enforce a subpoena for documents from Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration. Ferguson said he has asked the mayor to turn over documents despite the ruling but that Emanuel has not responded.
"The IG has the same power and capability that the state IG and federal IGs have," Emanuel said Wednesday. "I don't think they're not capable of doing their job, and I think he's a good IG. Therefore, I think he can do his job."
When asked whether he'd reappoint Ferguson when his term is up at the end of November, Emanuel demurred.
"I have plenty of time," he said. "I have a couple other appointments I'm going to be working on between now and then."
bruthhart@tribune.com
Twitter @BillRuthhart
Sheila Polk is a habitual liar on medical marijuana???
OK, maybe Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk is just a normal liar when it comes to medical marijuana dispensaries???Sheila Polk Was Wrong: 16 Medical-Pot Dispensaries Now Open in AZ and Not Being Shut Down by Feds
By Ray Stern Tue., Apr. 16 2013 at 9:05 AM
Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk said last July that the feds would shut down medical-pot dispensaries in Arizona as they opened. With 16 dispensaries now open and more on the way, she's been proved wrong.
Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk announced in dramatic fashion last July that federal authorities would shut down every medical-marijuana dispensary in Arizona "as it opens."
Polk made the bad prediction in a letter she penned and sent to the governor after getting several other county attorneys to sign it. We checked into her assertion and reported to you at the time that Polk's claim appeared to be nonsense and was, in fact, a major exaggeration of something she'd been told by a retired drug agent.
How wrong was Polk's info?
As of today, there are 16 retail shops legally selling medical marijuana under Arizona law.
That's five more than were opened in late March, when we wrote of how the dispensary industry was taking off, finally. The first, Arizona Organix of Glendale, opened in November.
Now, there are legal weed stores for Arizona's roughly 40,000 qualified patients in Glendale, Phoenix, Mesa, Eloy, Wickenburg, Quartzsite, Globe, and many other towns and cities.
An additional 29 other shops are nearing their final inspection process, records from the Arizona Department of Health Services show, meaning those places will likely be open in a matter of weeks.
Another 25 would-be shops have requested dispensary applications but have not yet asked for inspections by DHS, the April 12 records show.
The lottery held last year by DHS granted 99 businesses the right to apply to open a dispensary in pre-planned geographic areas around the state.
Would-be pot-shop operators who won one of those "CHAA" areas in the lottery must request an inspection for their stores by DHS by June 8. Those who fail to do this will not be able to open a dispensary in the foreseeable future, and those "CHAAs" will go dark -- for a while, anyway.
Meanwhile, many "unauthorized" dispensaries, a.k.a. cannabis clubs, seem to be operating without much interference from authorities. Members of the Regulated Dispensaries of Arizona Association, have been urging law enforcement agencies to shut down the clubs, which provide marijuana for patients but aren't overseen by the state DHS. Patients may decide the issue by choosing to shop only at state-authorized dispensaries -- especially if the authorized shops can price their product more competitively.
So, Polk was wrong. Which isn't surprising considering that she exaggerated the quality of her information.
Arizona U.S. Attorney John Leonardo did not shut these legal Arizona dispensaries down as soon as they opened. Apparently, he has no imminent plans to do so.
Whether the feds ultimately do shut down Arizona's burgeoning dispensary industry is still an open question.
For now, with 16 dispensaries and many more on the way, the industry is beginning to bloom.
Cop pulls gun on McDonal's customer for taking too long in line????
Remember only police officers can be trusted with guns - HonestPosted: 4:39 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, 2013
DeKalb cop arrested for alleged assault at McDonald’s
By Alexis Stevens
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A sergeant with the DeKalb County police department was arrested Wednesday morning following an alleged assault against a teenager at a McDonald’s, according to police.
Scott A. Biumi, 48, of Cumming, was charged with aggravated assault for the April 9 incident at the McDonald’s on Old Atlanta Road, the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office said.
Biumi was in the drive-through of the restaurant at 10:30 p.m. when he allegedly became upset with another customer, according to police.
“He exited his car, and following a verbal exchange with the customer, Biumi drew a gun and pointed it at the victim,” Deputy Courtney Spriggs with the Forsyth sheriff’s office said in an emailed statement.
Video footage from McDonald’s and released by the sheriff’s office shows a man, identified as Biumi, lunging into a pickup truck at the drive-through window. The alleged teenage victim, Ryan Mash, told Channel 2 Action News that Biumi got mad because it was taking too long to get his order.
“He grabbed me on my right shoulder and pinned me against my driver’s seat, and the next thing I know, I have a gun in my face,” Mash told Channel 2. “He goes, ‘Do you know who you’re messing with,’ and ‘You shouldn’t be holding up the line’ and all this and that.”
While investigating the incident, deputies determined Biumi was employed as a detective sergeant with DeKalb police, Spriggs said. At the time of the alleged incident, Biumi was driving a department-issued, unmarked Chevrolet and had a department gold star badge on his belt.
Biumi’s bond was set at $22,000 and he was in the process of bonding out of the Forsyth County jail Wednesday afternoon, Spriggs said. Biumi’s court date was set for May 23.
At an afternoon press conference, DeKalb County police Chief Cedric Alexander said he is awaiting the outcome of the Forsyth County investigation, but does not tolerate this type of behavior.
Frustrated by delay, Georgia cop allegedly pulled gun in McDonald’s drive-thru line
By Michael Walsh / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, April 18, 2013, 3:17 PM
Food, folks and fun? More like gall, grouch and gun.
A young Georgia man was not "lovin' it" when a hold up in the drive-thru lane at McDonald's allegedly led to an armed holdup with an off-duty officer Tuesday night.
Student Ryan Mash, 18, was waiting for his order at the drive-thru window of a Forsyth County McDonald's when he was taken by surprise — and it was not a Happy Meal toy.
It was a gun allegedly brandished by Sgt. Scott Biumi, 48, a member of the DeKalb County Police Department for more than 20 years, authorities suspect.
Biumi apparently grew frustrated that the fast food experience was not faster, so he stepped out of his car and yelled, "Stop holding up the drive-thru line," according to Mash.
Mash claims Biumi thought his sincere apology was sarcastic. Then witnesses reported hearing Biumi scream, "You don't know who you are (messing) with!"
"And that's when he pulled the gun on me," Mash said, "and kept on yelling at me for about 30 more seconds. And then walked off."
A McDonald's security camera recorded the incident.
One of Mash's friends saw that the man had a police badge on his belt. The high school students also wrote down the man's license plate number.
Forsyth County Sheriff Duane Piper linked the license plate number to Biumi and the DeKalb County Police Department. The teenagers identified Biumi from a photo lineup, and he was arrested Wednesday, reported Atlanta station WXIA.
"It's a betrayal of a trust to the public," said Piper. "We're expected to handle ourselves correctly in high-stress situations, and it's very disappointing that an officer would snap like this. It's a break in judgment that can't be excused."
Biumi was booked at the Forsyth County jail and released the same day on a $22,000 bond.
"I'm just not going to stand for any behavior that goes outside that of the scope of the law," said DeKalb County Police Chief Cedric Alexander.
He is on administrative leave with pay from his job as the investigation proceeds. Mash, however, thinks Biumi should be stripped of his gun and badge permanently.
"He shouldn't be serving in our community," Mash said, "because you never know, he could get angry at somebody for speeding, and pull a gun on him."
Previous Articles about Sheriff Joe
Here are some previous articles about Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arapio, who most folks in Maricopa County consider the worst sheriff on the planet.And here are even some more articles on Sheriff Joe and this thugs in Phoenix, Arizona and Maricopa County, Arizona.