#384 - Typical of folks with a Huffington connection to have an agenda. Here the suggested target however deserving in his own right is the wrong one if a connection to the current incident is intended. Of course if a general assault on dubious characters is the idea there are many out there.
Folks who want a target actually connected with what reportedly started as a random
(but see my own comments above on what random often means in context - this may make it hard to explain to someone why the selection and to justify the intrusion)
search might start with the Office of Professional Responsibility under ICE and go up the line to the Assistant Secretary who leads ICE. The post is of course a Presidential appointment with the advice and consent of the Senate. Perhaps ask the White House to use more care in appointment and the Senate to oversee?
It hadn't occured to me but perhaps Federal Service suggested to Mr. McDevitt a universe where all intelligence had fled?
Interesting to watch folks here there and everywhere tar with the same brush the (CBP) Customs and Border Protection Officer and the Border Patrol Agent right along with any and all of the divisions of (ICE) Immigration and Customs Enforcement as though they are all the same thing. Maybe they are.
Sometimes piling on is more important than piling on right? Maybe folks can tell say Jack McDevitt about customs enforcers and how evil they are in dealing with SF writers?
#329 and others -
No doubt some here have from the horse's mouth knowledge of the particular Court room in which the 22 December appearance is scheduled - and perhaps are already making arrangements to be there.
For the rest of us unreliable sources strongly imply Michigan jurisdiction and laws will be applied -
Port Huron police Capt. Jim Jones would not provide the Times Herald with a copy of a police report about the incident Friday. He did read the police report to a reporter.....Jones said Port Huron police were called to the scene after the scuffle and took Watts into custody.
....
St. Clair County District Court records show he is due back in court Dec. 22 for a preliminary examination on charges of assaulting, obstructing and resisting a police officer. The charge is punishable by up to two years in jail and/or a $2,000 fine.... http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20091212/NEWS01/912120305/1002/Writer-faces-assault-charge - a local paper on the US side.
Folks who care to may want to contact that Court for copies of the official records. Others may discuss hypotheticals.
#328 - Global warming by the day has raised the atmosphere - increased drag - like solar wind as on Mercury - leads to orbital changes mostly decay.
Perhaps we can't have border guards exercising independent judgement for the same reason school rules in the United States of America must show zero tolerance - but I'm not sure what that reason is.
- rumor says that a guard who does enhanced searches by hunch or by profile has to balance statistics after the manner of a stratified sample - stop a minority for (assumed) cause then stop two above suspicion majority types so the racial numbers balance in statistical reports.
It doesn't seem to be productive to fire for the first mistake no matter how trivial - that leads to coverups and the retained are perhaps after the manner of Teela Brown the lucky ones who haven't made a mistake and so perhaps never learned better - or just the ones who were clever enough not to be caught and so more not less likely to transgess in the future.
Might start with the educational practices of The Republic or maybe Jannisaries make the best guards? Perhaps enforced service after the manner of jury duty - that would only be involuntary servitude for some; others might enjoy the job? Federal Service in Starship Troopers terms?
Obs SF - there's an SF short story where all the power of the Space Patrol is vested in idealistic young short service Space Cadets - their commander has real personnel shortages so he asks his older brother about retaining older ex-Cadets - the older brother says in effect that after you get interested in girls you just aren't that idealistic any more.
I've got a friend with good language skills who used to cross the border there with a friend - a last friend, though not a tooth. I'm not sure there was a universal and broad respect for human rights during Soviet control - but maybe we were all mistaken despite the rather expensive effort to track what was going on.
For my money people in the United States today need not generalize to the effect that our police and border guards have less self control and less respect for the rights of the public than East German border guards under Soviet Control - folks born in 1962 who saw Berlin when in their teens may have a different view than folks who were around earlier - and perhaps more correct and perhaps not.
die-berliner-mauer
160 km Grenze
46 km Mauer zwischen dem Ost- und dem Westteil der Stadt
45.000 Einzelteile (3,60 x 1,20), 2.75 Tonnen schwer
116 Wachtürme
450.000 m² Todesstreifen
10.000 Grenzsoldaten und Offiziere
knapp 5.000 Fluchtversuche
239 Tote enphasis added
100 miles border line around West Berlin
29 miles Wall between the Eastern and Western Part of Berlin
45,000 concrete segments weighing more than 2.5 tons
116 Watchtowers
10,000 border guards
5000 escape attempts
239 deaths emphasis added
FREX
The Uprising of 1953 in East Germany started with a strike by East Berlin construction workers on June 16. It turned into a widespread uprising against the Stalinist German Democratic Republic government the next day. The uprising in Berlin was violently suppressed by tanks of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany and the Volkspolizei. In spite of the intervention of Soviet troops, the wave of strikes and protests was not easily brought under control. Even after June 17, there were demonstrations in more than 500 towns and villages.Uprising of 1953 in East Germany
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I grant you individual Guards might have acted differently than they did in Noveber of 1989 and so changed timelines if you will - but I would not give the armed guards quite all the credit - given the initial statement was by a member of the Polit Bureau
Die Mauer wird versehentlich geöffnet - durch einen Versprecher des SED-Politbüro-Mitgliedes Schabowski, der ankündigt, die Grenzübergänge zu öffnen (Dokument at http://www.die-berliner-mauer.de/schabowski-maueroeffnung.jpg).
„Um befreundete Staaten ( in Anspielung an die Besetzung der Prager Botschaft und die Massenflucht von DDR-Bürgern über Ungarn) zu entlasten, hat man sich entschlossen, die Grenzübergänge zu öffnen."
"A journalist asks when this new regulation will take affect. Schabobowski stutters, "If I am informed correctly, this regulation becomes effective immediately."
Upon hearing these unbelievable words, thousands begin their journey to the West. The border guards do not know how to react to the mass movement of people. The checkpoints are opened and the East and West German fall into each other's arms."
Is the ideal model for the United States a UK force that shoots electricians in the head for boarding a subway while foreign? There is no Utopia created by perfect regulation.
#281- Read that although the Times is not a primary source and to that extent any such statement is hearsay, it should be admitted as an admission against interest - that is if even the Murdoch press says "the Danish police need little excuse to detain people" then likely enough there's a grain of truth - and this despite their police position between the two socialist democracies of the Netherlands and Sweden which seen from Hawaii must themselves approach that happy Utopian state of freedom from fear of police detention (at least for the native population but then Hawaii has long had issues of the native population vs the rest of the world).
It should be obvious that my notion of right and proper police powers is more that Libertarian insanity that citizen's arrest ought to be good enough for anybody - as it pretty much was for Federal authorities in state jurisdictions for many years - absent a warrent.
Odd that Copenhagen lying as it does between the two socially oriented democracies of Sweden and the Netherlands should be a place where "the Danish police need little excuse to detain people."*
But perhaps the Times as a right wing Murdoch paper dislikes right and proper police powers and so casts them in a bad light??
*Tom Whipple and Philippe Naughton in Copenhagen
The Sunday Times December 13, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6954981.ece
The current AP story on American Customs in Michigan strikes me as perhaps more balanced and certainly in the face of the current decline in original reporting has been reprinted in an amazing number of places - this time classic media won't be taking a backseat to the blogosphere. On the whole I think this a good thing in general but I wonder what the impact on the man at the center of the story will be - high profile cases often bring out the worst in those elected to serve the public.
#267 - Myself I'd consider the Beeb the primary source here but perhaps the language loses something in the original - eux-meme perhaps. Formatting - emhasis - added.
Ms Evans said the actions of the police were appalling.
"People were very scared and they were held for about four hours on the ground. They weren't able to have any medical attention, any water, and weren't allowed to have any toilet facilities," she told BBC Five Live.
"People were there in freezing conditions urinating on themselves and being held in lines like, essentially like animals."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8410414.stm
L'une de ses porte-parole, Mel Evans, a souligné auprès de la BBC que plusieurs centaines de personnes avaient été "menottées et gardées environ quatre heures assises dans la rue, sans assistance médicale, sans eau ni possibilité d'aller aux toilettes". "Alors qu'il gelait, des gens urinaient sur eux, parqués en ligne, comme des animaux", a-t-elle insisté.
http://www.lemonde.fr/le-rechauffement-climatique/article/2009/12/13/copenhague-polemique-apres-les-nombreuses-arrestations_1280059_1270066.html#ens_id=1275475
On the general question of staying in/exiting the car in the United States - discussion emphasizing traffic stops and so traffic stop training as dominant in other dealings with law enforcement.
For most of the history of the automobile in the United States it was sound practice - polite and deferential - when pulled over at a traffic stop to exit the car promptly and walk toward the LEO with his/her lights on. This deference tended to show a respect for authority - law and order - and was therefore part of negotiating for a warning instead of a ticket.
Today the wiser practice in a traffic stop in the U.S. of A. is to remain seated and put the hands on top of the steering wheel - dash - back of the seat in front - with the dome/interior lights on as appropriate. Always keep the hands visible and make no sudden moves - think Simon Says or Mother May I.
Along with this change in practice has come a change in police expectations and training. As noted above there is a positive feedback system in which increased police activity reinforces bad acts and bad acts reinforce police activity. Law enforcement is being trained to actively control all situations from the get-go while being denied some traditionally effective techniques - nothing quite like breaking somebody's collar bone with a night stick/ Mag Lite/ Monadnock Enforcer (tonfa analog) to enforce compliance. Past practice was to allow more leeway followed by more violence. For better or for worse training and practice today is to go Taser and spray early to reduce the opportunities and so the need for more violent action later.
For those who want to hire only perfectly polite Kung Fu masters who can handle anything I suggest a reading of Jim Cerillo on hiring gunfighters for the NYC stake out squad - it was easy to find folks entirely too willing to shoot first and ask questions later and equally to find people who would get themselves and their parters killed - it was hard to find people who both mentally and physically could shoot effectively when necessary and not when it wasn't. I knew a fine officer C with great gun handling skills. In a year when two of his friends had recently been shot down then shot in the head execution style by a criminal who was shown too much politeness my friend talked down an armed criminal who was waving his own gun around. I said to my friend C that in his shoes I'd have shot (I worked for the defense team on that one and saw the facts presented in the light most favorable to the defense IMHO); my friend C said that if he wanted to shoot people he'd had a half a dozen chances to run up his score that would have been written up rightous - and he was right - and he retired early with stress related disabilities.
I've actually walked across national borders without showing any papers at all in modern Europe myself and there was a time common folks didn't much need passports or anything else for many borders. That's a much surer guarantee of no unpleasantness than trying to find the perfect border guard and finding the perfect border guard guard and the perfect border guard guard guard.
And to repeat myself from another forum - how about saying to Detroit that Maker Faire Detroit will bring more business to the depressed city if Canadians can come and go freely rather than taking a lantern and going into the day looking for the ideal border guard guard.
Various - To some extent I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt
- and I couldn't/wouldn't live in Singapore
- my impression of the "socially-oriented democracies like, say, Sweden or the Netherlands" is that so long as the population is relatively homogenous their bonds don't chafe. For those who don't fit in life is not so easy.
Frex:
The results clearly show that employers have stronger negative implicit attitudes toward Arab-Muslims relative to native Swedes as well as implicitly perceive Arab-Muslims to be less productive than native Swedes.
Implicit Prejudice and Ethnic Minorities: Arab-Muslims in Sweden
Jens Agerström
Kalmar University
Dan-Olof Rooth
Kalmar University
and IZA
See especially the place of minorities in Japan.
It would be going far afield to bring up the ASBO's in the UK or the political correctness vs. free speech issues in Canada but for my money there is no Utopia.
In my own limited observation power corrupts in fact: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
Putin is currently engaged in a great struggle which might be briefly described as rewriting Soviet history once again (for pedagogical examples of historiography if the former U.S.S.R. didn't exist it would be necessary to invent it) to say Stalin bad Stalinism good.
In comparing the failures of the actual to the Utopian ideal the (unobtainable) Utopian ideal will always come across better. In the example I cited all the power of the FBI and of the United States District Attorney could not rein in corruption - in some part I think because corruption was then and is now pervasive in the local community.
The end of watchers of the watchmen then watchers of the watchers of the watchmen (ob sf Small Change) is littler fleas to bitem and so on ad infinitum
Not directly related but still a useful tale of Federal bureaucracy in a related field.
In the old days - in fact before either Bush was President - there were once two Filipino skilled nurses
(who might well have qualified legally through appropriate channels for their desired skills)
who walked into the Chicago INS office (before it was ICE) looked around and said (paraphrased):
"Our usual bagman isn't at his desk, who do we pay off?"
As a result the FBI did a full field investigation, secret police (undercover if you prefer) working in the office, posing as legal and as illegal documented and undocumented with a great deal of effort. The final result: a report that said these folks have so much discretion and so few checks and balances that we the FBI don't know what's appropriate and what's not and we the FBI certainly can't make a case for the Federal Attorney.
Chicago police corruption was much the same way.
Oddly enough Chicago was also a hardship station for the Border Patrol - people then mostly joined the Border Patrol to work with some independence outside the cities - riding horses around the Big Bend country and such (the old phrase He'll do to ride the river with) - after some familiarity with forged documents acquired along the border the folks would be assigned to Chicago for their expertise in documents and chains of forged documents though it wasn't what they signed up to do.
My point to the extent I have one is that it was ever thus - and the cargo cult thinking that some particular action or inaction will change events - switch us to that nicer timeline as a reward for doing the right thing - is indeed a superstition - why is an itch for which there is no scratch - post hoc ergo propter hoc is a fallacy.
I'd like to suggest that the appropriate response to have our friends' backs is to ask the state to do less for us in all things that is to limit the power of the state.
The Silver Leaf is specifically mentioned by name in training manuals - this from a California training manual.
SILVER LEAF
Closed, this knife looks like a leaf. When opened, it converts into a knife with a two-inch long blade. This knife can easily be attached to a key ring where it appears to be a silver leaf.
www.pimall.com/nais/k.leaf.html
There are some useful tools that look right at home in manicure sets as well. Rumor has it fair success at getting tools through checkpoints comes with saying it's not as nice as it looks; it's an imitation from Harbor Freight.
Obs SF - Gordon Dickson's Hilifter
For those still following don't taze me bro issues a new Training Bulletin from the maker says what I hear the B&D folks have long known:
a. Simplify targeting for all TASER systems to one easy to remember map, avoiding chest shots
when possible and the risk of a head/eye shot in a
dynamic situation, as is standard for impact munitions
b. When possible, avoiding chest shots with ECDs avoids
the controversy about whether ECDs do or do not affect the
human heart.
http://www.taser.com/training/Documents/TASER%20Training%20Bulletin%2015_0%20Medical%20Research%20with%20Product%20Warnings_2.pdf
#272 - Chicago is a great example.
One of the bases in Southern California was fun for visitors- leave the base on the ocean or high rent side and McDonalds/Burger King was a lot more money than the same food on the desert or poor side.
#210 - Carl? that would be the ghost in the machine rather than zombie.
#718 Reviewing the question more specifically -
1. If police are responding to a 911 call, & find the door of the house locked; no one answers the door when they announce themselves but they hear muffled shouting from somewhere inside -- they're going to break down the door at that point, right?
Breaching gun in hand no doubt? Actually they would be responding to a dispatch order if such things matter - the 911 call mostly goes through the fire department because time is more important for fire and ambulance services than for crimes likely over before reported.
I'd expect an entry would be made - I would not be so confident the entry would be funnelled through the front door - again depending on history, neighborhood, architecture, nature of the call which might have been patched to the first responders along with additional information - the first and all of the responders will have lots of additional and confusing information in this information age.
#718 et seq
(with a nod at #738 - there are no Columbine police it's strictly the name of a high school in context - unincorporated Jefferson County using the Littleton (Arapahoe County) mail center and so sometimes referenced as Littleton. The only relevence is that it was a new from scratch community with everybody having come from someplace else quite recently and this may have affected personal actions.)
Try browsing the bookstore at any convenient college esp. community college with a Criminal Justice program.
I'd post more links but we know that goes. See Mas Ayoob on Backwoods Home Magazine for Columbine: Lessons Learned, Lessons Lost 2009 and Among The Cops And Their Instructors currently at http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/2009/04/24/among-the-cops-and-their-instructors/
John Farnam at defense-training.com has an extensive list of his own thoughts and observations going back many years - very good indeed for mindset. Hilton Yam at 10-8forums.com maintains a discussion board for current issues where the registration is limited to the truly knowing.
To come a little closer to answering specifically the first reaction on scene might well include an element of history at that addess and nature of the call.
The current general rule is mount up and ride to the sound of the guns - but everybody goes in the same door - marked never mind how and if possible manned - and maintains communication backward by something better than cookie crumbs - if you're not actively shooting you're both moving and talking. Nobody goes around back and comes in that way so the blue forces are never converging each expecting to confront a gun(wo)man head on.
Specific details are little more obscure in these times.
On farmers dealing with the weather I am reminded of a Bankruptcy Court order: Your plan assumes three years of good weather. If you'd ever had three straight years of good weather you wouldn't be in this Court. I can't confirm this plan. Denied.(Bud Hagen, Boise Idaho)
On eye contact an individual who is high will often respond to eye contact with a what are you staring at demand - it's happened to me though once it worked out better for me than the pair of them for other reasons.
I've wondered for years why some folks would choose the feeling of power that they as victim caused the crime rather than the feeling of powerless associated with ..it happens.
There is a strong generational difference - I know a woman in her mid eighties who grew up on the plains and who today blames the female victim because her own early life was virgin with a bag of gold safe. Much the same generational change followed the pill in other ways. Before the assumption of the pill I think consent in a social setting tended to be much more obvious and unambiguous (I have a diaphragm worked every time) - autres temps autre moeurs.
Myself I figure any woman I'm likely to meet who is mid sixties or younger has at best been molested in some fashion and often enough legally raped.
And yet there is still a blame the victim mentality even among some victims - anybody know why?
| Year | Number of comments posted |
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| 2007 | 83 |
| 2006 | 194 |
| 2005 | 137 |
| 2004 | 123 |
| 2003 | 65 |
| 2002 | 16 |
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