Great and good friend of the blog RoadRich is taking the CPA class with me. Actually, the whole thing was his idea, so now you know who to blame for the blog posts.
And as far as blaming people for blog posts, he also sent a thoughtful reply to the use of force post. I liked it enough that I asked him for permission to use it here, which he granted. What follows after the jump are his comments, with a few personal asides edited out.
Earlier this week, I wrote about the Austin Police Department, use of force policies, and the officer who was fired for shooting a naked unarmed 17-year old male.
I have two followups to that.
Austin has an organization called the Office of the Police Monitor. This is an organization independent of the APD; the basic idea is that they serve as a civilian oversight organization for the police. They’re the ones who issued that report on stops and searches I touched on a while back.
Part of what they do is monitor Internal Affairs investigations, and make recommendations as they see fit. You might correctly guess that they were involved in the shooting investigation.
The Stateman published a story late yesterday afternoon about one of the OPM’s recommendations as a result of this incident: they want a trainer at the police academy reassigned.
Yes, a trainer. Why? I’m going to put a break here because this is running long…
Let’s play a little game: fill in the blank in this headline. (No fair peeking.)
New York Police Increase Patrols Around 20 Clubs to Combat [Blank] Violence
Did you say “gun”? Bzzzzzt! Sorry. Understandable, but wrong. We were looking for “knife”. “Knife”.
I just like pointing out the use of “knife violence” here.
And speaking of things I just want to point out:
“There’s never been a paper bag for drugs…until now.”
I have to admit, “William Butler Yeast” is clever.
The latest additions to the National Recording Registry came out today.
A few random notes:
album, which does not appear to be available digitally.How much force can police use?
The first answer to that question probably ought to be another question, “Under what circumstances?”
For example, if someone’s passively resisting – just goes limp, doesn’t fight back – should a police officer whip out his issue sidearm and kill them? Perhaps if the officer is a member of the Chicago Police Department (where apparently officers can get away with anything) but in a normal police department, such behavior will get you fired and criminally charged.
Is this okay?
I absolutely hate the BuzzFeed inspired headline on this story. But the story itself is worth reading:
Twenty-seven years ago, on a drug raid conducted by an elite special operations team with the same county police department, Sommers had shot and killed his best friend, a fellow squad member named Mark Murphy. In the days afterward, one of the few people who could reach Sommers, locked away in private torment, was another officer who had also accidentally killed another cop.
And now Sommers was being asked by his friend to do the same thing for the officer who had killed Colson — just as he has done for cops across the country who have suddenly found themselves at the center of unfathomable circumstances.
Obit watch: James Sheldon has passed away at the age of 95. The name didn’t ring a bell with me, but wow, what a career:
Larry Drake. You know, I remember being fond of “L.A. Law” when it was first running; I wonder how it holds up today.
I wanted to take note of this story, and the complete report from the Office of the Police Monitor.
Chief of Staff Manley, who is quoted extensively in the Statesman report, addressed our Citizen’s Police Academy class last week and spent about 30 minutes going over the report. I feel comfortable saying that pretty much everything he told us, as far as APD’s response to the report, made it into the Statesman‘s article. But I’m glad to get the OPM’s side, too.
(A representative from the OPM did address our CPA class, and I think the CPA deserves some credit for having him there. However, his presentation came the week before the OPM report was released.)
There are some things that Chief Manley said in his presentation that bother me a bit, but I’m having trouble articulating exactly why; this may be the subject of a longer post later, along with one I’m trying to write about “response to resistance”.
(As we all know, resistance is a) futile, and II) voltage/current.)
Two from the NYT:
Save the endangered Long Island skeet!
Harper Lee was a big fan of Opus. Yes, the penguin, from “Bloom County”.
Borepatch left a most gracious note on the last obit watch, which was much appreciated. I’ve been feeling like all I do is write obit watches these days. It also feels kind of lazy sometimes; but I like to think that there’s some historical value, if not now perhaps in the next few years, in noting these deaths and how they were covered.
And every once in a while you find an obit for someone who didn’t get the attention that Harper Lee or Scalia got, but deserves some attention. Speaking of that…
And speaking of lazy, I do have some longer pieces I want to write. Some of them are still in draft status, waiting for things to come together. Then there are some things that I expected to be able to write longer form entries about that just haven’t materialized yet.
I’d love to be able to write about my ongoing experiences with the Austin Police Department Citizen’s Police Academy, for example. But we’re only two sessions in and the first one was mostly back-patting. I’m hoping that there will be things that are worth writing about (and that I can write about without breaking any rules) soon. (If you’re really interested in the actual police academy and the training process, there’s a set of videos up on YouTube.)
Quick movie note: Lawrence and I went to see “Hail, Caesar!” yesterday. Lawrence liked it more than I did. I don’t think it is a bad movie, but it seemed slight and insubstantial.
We watched “Burn After Reading” a few weeks ago, and I liked that a little more: it may have something to do with almost everyone in “Burn” being utterly insane. (Especially John Malkovich’s character; but then, Malkovich adds that extra special touch to everything he’s in. I’m still not going to see “Zoolander 2”, though.)
TL,DR: wait for “Hail, Ceaser!” on streaming.
I haven’t been paying as much attention to the LA County jail scandal as I used to: things sort of got away from me.
But this is stunning and noteworthy: the former LA County sheriff, Lee Baca, has pled guilty to lying to the feds.
In a plea agreement filed in federal court Wednesday morning, Baca admitted that he lied when he told federal authorities that he was unaware that his subordinates planned to approach the FBI agent leading the jail investigation at her home.
Baca agreed not to contest other allegations leveled by federal prosecutors, including that he directed subordinates to approach the agent, stating that they should “do everything but put handcuffs” on her, the agreement said.
I believe this is the incident in question.
Baca’s plea deal apparently includes a provision that he won’t serve more than six months, and it seems possible that he could get probation. His #2 man, Paul Tanaka, is going to go on trial in March; the plea deal also apparently does not require Baca to testify against Tanaka.
Edited to add: longer article from the LAT about Baca’s plea.
The first three paragraphs of this article push one of my hot buttons, so you might take that into account when considering my recommendation.
However, I really like Kathryn Schulz’s “Dead Certainty”, about “Making a Murderer” specifically, and the general trend of reporters conducting their own “extrajudicial investigations”.
Schulz puts her finger on something that’s bugged me for a while. I’m not proud of this, but I used to watch “America’s Most Wanted”. Sometimes, it reminded me of a scene from “Fahrenheit 451”, where Montag is being pursued and the pursuit is broadcast live on television, complete with a host who sounds a lot like John Walsh.
I don’t have a dog in this fight: I didn’t watch “Making a Murderer” and I didn’t listen to “Serial”. But I think what Schulz says is worth thinking about:
Okay, so it isn’t exactly Ninja Part 3: The Ninjaing. But I was entertained by Pete Wells’ review of Señor Frog’s in the NYT.
(Spoiler: he still liked it better than Guy’s American Kitchen and Bar.)
From the HouChron: off-duty HPD officer lists a couple of personal firearms on Texas Gun Trader, meets up with potential customers, and gets into a shootout.
Mildly interesting, but I call it out here for this quote:
“…from about $300 to almost $2,000”. Wow. That certainly narrows it down.
Seriously, if you don’t have specific information on what Curry (the HPD officer) was selling and how much he was asking, why put that in? Does the HouChron even have editors these days?
Speaking of Ross Thomas, I’ve been meaning to link to (and bookmark) Ethan Iverson’s “Ah, Treachery!” essay for a while now. There are a few things in it that I disagree with, but I think Iverson’s essay is generally perceptive about Thomas and his writing; I find myself referring to it periodically.
Young Joseph Wambaugh and the hobo, from the LAT.
Dave Barry’s year in review, in case you haven’t seen it yet.
For the record: NYT obit for Joe Jamail.
Damn. It has been a year since that asshole tried to shoot up the police department and got center-punched for his trouble? Where does the time go?
One year later article from the Statesman, which has some details I either didn’t know or forgot.
…
Yes. That was a 100 yard, one-handed shot with an M&P .40.
It was also the decisive one.
I can’t find it online, and my memory is a little sketchy, but I’m reminded of an “Ayoob Files” from some years ago. Briefly: bad guy armed with a rifle is holding off cops (and kills one dead). Cops are only armed with handguns, and try to take the guy out, but he has them pinned down 80 to 100 yards away. My recollection of Ayoob’s account is that at least one of the responding officers tried making shots at that range with his duty gun; when the bad guy was finally taken down (as I recall, by someone who arrived on scene with a shotgun and hit him with a rifled slug), they found a fairly tight group of bullet holes…just above where the bad guy’s head would have been.
One of Ayoob’s points, which I thought was well taken was: maybe every once in a while you should try taking long range shots with your duty weapon, just so you have some idea of what it can do and where you might need to hold. Then again…
…if you grew up shooting off the back porch, maybe you don’t need that advice.
(Also, Massad Ayoob, if you happen to be reading this: this incident, and Sgt. Johnson in particular, might make for a good “Ayoob Files” installment. Just saying.)
I’ve written previously about Ron Reynolds, a state representative and lawyer who was charged with barratry.
Well, it has been a while. The other seven people who were arrested with Rep. Reynolds took pleas, but Rep. Reynolds went to trial. And…?
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena!
I’ve also written about Kelly Thomas, who was beaten to death by the Fullerton PD. The city (meaning local taxpayers) is going to pay out $4.9 million to his family, in settlement of their wrongful death lawsuit.
Obit watch: noted elsewhere, but I did want to mention the passing of Ken Johnson, former player for the Houston Astros (and the Colt .45s, their predecessor), and the only pitcher ever to “complete a nine-inning game without yielding a hit and still manage to lose it.”
(Oddly enough, there’s a good explanation of how this happened in the FARK discussion thread.)
Also among the dead: Adele Mailer, Norman’s ex-wife and the woman he stabbed in a drunken rage.
In case anyone was wondering, the hand surgery went about as well as I expected: in that, I lived through it and didn’t die on the table from a bad reaction to the anesthesia or something else. My left hand is still wrapped tightly, but I’m approaching maybe 1 1/3 hand functionality. At this point, I’m off painkillers and it really doesn’t bother me: the itching is more disturbing than anything else.
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I’d managed to avoid breaking any bones or surgery requiring more than a local anesthetic for over 50 years. So much for that record.
I think what bothers me the most was the loss of continuity of consciousness, if that makes any sense. What I mean: one moment, they’re telling me that they’re going to put a sedative in my IV line. Next thing I know, they’re telling me the surgery is over and I’m okay. It just feels…weird, for reasons I can’t articulate. It’s not like going to sleep: it feels more like a gap during which I stopped processing memories. I need to think through this some more.
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I haven’t seen this covered elsewhere yet, and I’d really like to see coverage in someplace I trust more than the WP, but: the FBI is switching back to the 9mm, and away from the .40.
This also means new pistols for the FBI, and that’s going to be a windfall for somebody. It also won’t shock me to see the current administration attempting to use the procurement process to advance their political goals…
Heh.