Apologies for the silence the past two days. I have been busy assisting the police with their inquiries.
Archive for the ‘Cops’ Category
Ketchup.
Thursday, March 7th, 2024Art (Acevedo), damn it! watch. (#AK of a series)
Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024Art Acevedo is not taking the job in Austin. Repeat: Art Acevedo is not taking the job in Austin.
Acevedo notified Interim City Manager Jesús Garza Tuesday morning, following a firestorm about his appointment as an assistant city manager over the Austin Police Department (APD). On Tuesday afternoon, he posted a statement on X, the platform previously known as Twitter.
“It is clear that this newly created position has become a distraction from the critical work ahead for our city, the Austin Police Department, and the Austin Police Association,” Acevedo said in part, adding that he has always loved and admired the members of APD and, “as a long time member of their extended family, I will continue to support them in any way I can. Their well being has and will always [be] a priority for me, which is one of the reasons I have made this decision.”
I was actually surprised by the reaction to this, but haven’t had a chance to cover it. Many city leaders said, in essence, they felt bushwhacked by the decision and resented not being consulted.
It was also particularly upsetting to victims of sexual assault. The city had a special apology ceremony this afternoon:
The DNA lab problems, and the case mishandling, all took place under Chief Acevedo’s watch.
If we find out anything about what he’s doing next, we’ll post another Art Watch here. To be honest, we’re a little surprised he never got a position in the Biden administration…
Art (Acevedo), damn it! watch. (#AJ of a series)
Saturday, January 20th, 2024Seriously. I bet you never expected this item to come back around. I certainly didn’t.
But Art Acevedo is back in Austin, baby!
Doing what?
Excuse me, but aren’t the city manager and city council supposed to be supervising the Austin Police Department? Doesn’t the chief report to the city manager? Why do we need to pay $271,000 a year for another layer of bureaucracy?
“…lead the department through staffing challenges”? Is Art going to have the ability to authorize new academy classes on his own? Because that’s how you’re going to get through “staffing challenges”: by staffing the department.
Am I unreasonable in thinking that a new position that pays over a quarter of a million dollars a year, plus benefits, should be signed off on by the city council? Doesn’t this seem strange to anybody?
As a recap, since it has been a minute since I posted one of these: Art Acevedo was, until this week, the police chief in Aurora, Colorado. Somewhere in there was also a gig as a CNN commentator. The job in Aurora was, according to reports, “interim”.
Before that, he was the chief in Houston.
It was on his watch that HPD narcotics detectives murdered two innocent people.
Obit watch: November 14, 2023.
Tuesday, November 14th, 2023Michael Bishop, one of the great SF writers of our day. Lawrence sent over a Facebook link from Asimov’s, and Michael Swanwick has a very nice obit on his blog.
I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Bishop in person twice, once at a signing in Houston and the other at an Armadillocon (back in the day when I was still going to those). He always treated me with a great deal of kindness, which surprised me. But I guess it shouldn’t have: the word everyone seems to use when describing Mr. Bishop is “kind”. I think I made him smile when I brought breakfast tacos for an 8 AM Sunday morning science fiction poetry panel.
I didn’t know (as Mr. Swanwick points out) that he was a “sincere Christian”. We never got to the point where we talked about religion. But I think I’m going to ask my people to say a prayer for the repose of his soul Sunday morning. He was a good man. I liked his writing, and his passing leaves a hole in the world.
Officer Jorge Pastore of the Austin Police Department. He was killed during a SWAT standoff Saturday morning. Two apparent hostages and the suspected shooter also died in the incident.
Pastore’s passing was one of three deaths in total for the Austin Police Department over the weekend.
Two other officers died in separate incidents, one retired officer in a car crash and another officer died by suicide.
Peter Seidler, chairman and controlling owner of the San Diego Padres.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#111 in a series. Also, random gun crankery.)
Saturday, October 21st, 2023There is no joy in this one.
Larry Vickers pled guilty to federal firearm charges yesterday.
“But,” you say, “Larry Vickers isn’t a political figure.” Right you are, Bob.
Mr. Vickers was charged with four other men: Sean Sullivan, James Tafoya, Matthew Hall, and James Sawyer. Mr. Hall was the chief of police in Coats, North Carolina, and Mr. Sawter was the chief of police of Ray, North Dakota. This is where the flaming hyenas come in.
He was a Fed?! I know, I know, quel fromage! But really?
Allegedly, all of these guys came up with a really clever scheme.
The indictment alleges that, beginning in at least June 2018 through at least March 2021, the defendants conspired to acquire machineguns and/or other restricted firearms, such as short-barreled rifles, by falsely representing that the firearms would be used for demonstration to law enforcement agencies, including the Coats Police Department and the Ray Police Department. The indictment further alleges that Hall, Sawyer, and other conspirators signed law letters with no expectation that the weapons would ever be demonstrated to their respective law enforcement agencies.
The defendants allegedly intended to impermissibly import into the United States and resell the machineguns and other firearms for profit or to keep for their own use and enjoyment. Sullivan allegedly submitted the false law letters to the ATF seeking to import the machineguns and other restricted weapons. Once the firearms were received, Sullivan allegedly kept some of the machineguns and other restricted weapons and transferred some of the weapons to Vickers, Tafoya, and other conspirators.
Now, everyone else hasn’t gone to trial, and should be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
So just not illegal import of restricted firearms, but also sanction violations. “Between July 2014 and March 2021” makes me wonder who the sanctions violations were against.
I haven’t seen any coverage of this anywhere, including the usual gun blogs. The only reason I know about it is that Mike the Musicologist sent me a link to the Justice Department press release. I feel kind of bad for Mr. Vickers, who also was dealing with cancer a while back. But this doesn’t sound like BATFE “paperwork” violations. This sounds like a pretty serious conspiracy to illegally import restricted weapons under cover of the law enforcement exemption.
While I object to the idea that what these people did should be against the law, the fact remains that it is, and they apparently (“all suspects” etc) tried to camouflage it as “only ones”. You know, “we’re the only ones competent enough to have full-auto weapons. We’re the only ones competent enough to carry a Glock.”
That, I do resent.
Obit watch: September 13, 2023.
Wednesday, September 13th, 2023Howard Safir, former NYPD commissioner and gun grabber.
In the final years of his life, Safir, who founded his own intelligence and security firm, has advocated for stricter policing on guns.
Last year, he floated the idea that those who purchase firearms in the city should be required to conduct yearly safety check-ins so authorities can make sure the weapons aren’t lost or sold off to unknown parties.
Neil Currey, noted bodybuilder. He was 34.
Brandon Hunter, former forward for the Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic. He was 42.
Mike Williams, former NFL wide receiver for Tampa Bay and Buffalo. He was 36, and died as a result of injuries sustained in a construction accident.
Obit watch: September 8, 2023.
Friday, September 8th, 2023And speaking of police: William Phillips has passed away, and this is one of the most interesting obits I’ve read in a bit.
Who was William Phillips? He was a cop with the NYPD. He was also corrupt.
He acknowledged that he partook in police corruption as a patrolman in the 1960s and early ’70s. When not golfing at a country club, flying his plane, taking ski trips, playing the horses or darting around town in his red sports car, he was walking a beat in Gucci loafers and collecting bags of cash from brothels, gamblers, drug dealers and others “on the pad” — cop slang for payoff lists.
Finally, he was caught by investigators taking bribes from Xaviera Hollander, the madam who wrote the best-selling 1971 book “The Happy Hooker.” Mr. Phillips wore a wire and went under cover to avoid prosecution. He joined Officer Frank Serpico and Detective David Durk as star witnesses at the hearings of the Knapp Commission, which detailed endemic police corruption in New York.
(On a side note, Xaviera Hollander is still alive, according to Wikipedia. She’s 80. And she has a website.)
Then it gets weird.
Mr. Phillips may have been a hero to the public, but a homicide detective who saw him testify on television told prosecutors that he resembled the sketch of a man wanted in a cold murder case. Reports later emerged that the detective who had started the inquiry was a close friend of a police lieutenant who, believing that Mr. Phillips had identified him as a grafter, killed himself.
Mr. Phillips was arrested and charged with murdering a pimp and a prostitute in a Manhattan brothel at about 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 24, 1968. But from the start, evidence against him was contradictory. A half-dozen relatives and friends gave Mr. Phillips hour-by-hour alibis, placing him in three homes on a round of preholiday visits from 4 p.m. until past midnight.
The only evidence the prosecution had was the testimony of a man named Charles Gonzales, who was patronizing the prostitute at the time of the murder. Mr. Gonzales was also shot by the killer.
Mr. Phillps was tried twice. F. Lee Bailey defended him the first time: “…the jury deadlocked 10 to 2 for acquittal. Jurors said they had not believed Mr. Gonzales.” Mr. Phillips was convicted in the second trial. The conviction was overturned on appeal by New York state appellate courts (“It was later revealed that a juror had applied for a job with the Manhattan district attorney’s office during the trial, and that the prosecutors did not tell the judge until after the verdict.”) but the Supreme Court allowed the conviction to stand.
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When he became eligible for parole after 25 years, his records were filled with recommendations for his release from wardens, college deans, judges and federal agents. Manhattanville College, in Westchester County, offered him a job. But the parole board denied his application. His defenders said it was because he had refused to admit guilt.
At another hearing, in 2003, he acknowledged being guilty of “reprehensible conduct” but not of murder. Parole was again denied. The board called Mr. Phillips “a criminal of the worst kind whose danger to public safety is in the highest degree.”
He appealed, and Justice Alice Schlesinger of State Supreme Court in Manhattan called the board’s ruling “perverted” and “contrary to the law.” She asked, “Does the board honestly believe that Mr. Phillips, a 74-year-old man, half-blind from cancer, who has helped countless people and learned and taught the principles of law to many, truly is a continuing threat to society?”
Another judge ordered his release in 2006, but the parole board argued sucessfully that the judiciary didn’t have that authority.
…
The authorities over the years have agreed that the commission helped break a culture of police corruption. But the immediate fallout was minimal.
Dozens of officers were charged, while top police and city officials were not. Many prosecutions were dropped because Mr. Phillips’s murder conviction destroyed his credibility as a witness and to some extent undermined the findings of the commission.
I don’t know if he was guilty or not, and the paper of record certainly puts their own pro-Philips spin on things. But I think at the very least there was reasonable doubt.
“The entire case they had against me was the identification that I was a 5-foot-8 pockmarked Italian,” he said. “Do I look like a 5-foot-8 pockmarked Italian?”
He was six feet tall and, friends said, had a ruddy Irish face.
DEFCON 31 news flash.
Friday, September 8th, 2023By way of Hacker News, and I only discovered this 15 minutes ago so I haven’t had time to go through all of it yet:
“Snoop unto them, as they snoop unto us”.
Here’s the original description:
The first link will get you to slides, video of the talk, files, and code. As you know, Bob, Bluetooth is a thing for this blog, so this is relevant to my interests…
Brief police beat news.
Monday, August 21st, 2023Austin Police chief Joseph Chacon is stepping down and retiring from APD after two years as chief.
I really don’t have anything much to say about this: Chief Chacon didn’t do anything in his time to really rise to my attention, either positively or negatively. There are things to be said about poor police response time, ongoing issues with the homeless, and other things going on within the department. But I feel like many of those issues are the results of poor decision making by our city government, and were out of Chief Chacon’s control.
I wish him well in his next endeavors, and I think a Fist Rockbone Brian Manley for mayor/Joseph Chacon for city council ticket would be a fantastic idea.
Noted.
Thursday, July 27th, 2023Scott Cobb will be paroled in August after 34 years in prison.
Obit watch: June 9, 2023.
Friday, June 9th, 2023James G. Watt, former Secretary of the Interior and notorious Beach Boys hater.
As planning for the 1983 Independence Day celebration on the National Mall began, Mr. Watt said that pop-music groups retained in recent years had attracted “the wrong element” — presumably young people drinking and taking drugs. The Mall’s most prominent band had been the Beach Boys, popular since the 1960s.
Mr. Watt, a Pentecostal fundamentalist who did not smoke or drink alcohol, proposed the Las Vegas entertainer Wayne Newton, whose signature song was “Danke Schoen,” and military bands, saying they would better represent the patriotic, family-oriented themes he preferred.
…
Carroll Cooley, historical and legal footnote, has passed away at 87.
Mr. Cooley was a detective with the Phoenix Police Department. In that capacity, he was the person who took Ernesto Miranda’s original confession.
…
The Miranda case was by far the most significant of Detective Cooley’s law enforcement career. Mr. Miranda was convicted of rape and kidnapping by a Superior Court jury in June 1963; the conviction was upheld nearly two years later by the Arizona Supreme Court, which ruled that his confession was admissible despite his not having had a lawyer present.
In late 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review four cases, including Mr. Miranda’s, in which indigent men had confessed after being interrogated. The next year, the court ruled 5 to 4 that the Fifth Amendment required the police to advise suspects that they had the right to remain silent once they were in custody and to have an attorney present during interrogations. The rights, almost from the day of the decision, became known as the Miranda warning.
Mr. Miranda’s conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court, but he was retried on rape and kidnapping charges and found guilty again in 1967. (The confession was not used in that trial.) He was paroled in 1972 and stabbed to death four years later in a barroom fight. After his death, it was reported that he had been trading on his legal celebrity by selling Miranda warning cards for $1.50 each.
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In 1976, he defended his actions in the Miranda case to The Republic, saying that Mr. Miranda’s confession had been written voluntarily and that Mr. Miranda knew his rights.
“He was not un-knowledgeable about his rights,” he said. “He was an ex-convict and served a year in prison” — for auto theft — “and had been through the routine before.”
Noreen Nash, actress. Other credits include the original “Dragnet” TV series, “77 Sunset Strip”, and ‘Yancy Derringer”.
Obit watch: June 6, 2023.
Tuesday, June 6th, 2023Astrud Gilberto, of “The Girl From Ipanema” fame.
Jim Hines. He set a world record by running the 100 meter dash in 9.95 seconds at the 1968 Olympics: that record stood for 15 years.
Roger Craig, noted split-fingered fastball pitcher.
Bobby Bolin, former pitcher for the Giants (also the Brewers and the Red Sox).
Bolin made his MLB debut in 1961 and was on the 1962 pennant-winning Giants, appearing in two games in the World Series against the Yankees, a series San Francisco would lose in seven games.
The sidearmer went a career-best 14-6 in 1965.
The following season he set career-highs with 10 complete games and four shutouts despite a pedestrian 11-10 record.
Mike the Musicologist sent over an obit for Kaija Saariaho, composer. He says some of her late works are appealing: I am unfamiliar with them myself.
George Riddle, actor. Other credits include “Arthur” and “The Trial of Standing Bear”.
Burning in Hell watch: Robert Hanssen, notorious spy.