Archive for the ‘Cops’ Category

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Obit watch: July 9, 2021.

Friday, July 9th, 2021

Dicky Maegle.

Maegle was an all-American as a senior in the 1954 season, when he ran for 905 yards and 11 touchdowns and finished sixth in the balloting for the Heisman Trophy, presented annually to college football’s most outstanding player. The trophy was won that year by the Wisconsin back Alan Ameche (who went on to fame with the Baltimore Colts for scoring the winning touchdown in overtime in the storied 1958 N.F.L. championship game against the New York Giants).
The San Francisco 49ers drafted Maegle in the first round of the January 1955 N.F.L. draft. He was a 49er for five seasons, playing mostly at right safety and occasionally as a running back, then concluded his pro career with the 1960 Pittsburgh Steelers and the 1961 Dallas Cowboys. He intercepted 28 passes, running one of them back for a touchdown.
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1979.

But he’s best remembered for something that happened in 1954 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas:

Taking a handoff at Rice’s 5-yard line in the second quarter of its matchup with Alabama, Maegle cut to the right and raced down the sideline. When he passed the Alabama bench while crossing midfield, on his way to a virtually certain touchdown, the Crimson Tide fullback Tommy Lewis interrupted his rest period and, sans helmet, sprang onto the field and leveled Maegle with a blindside block at Alabama’s 42-yard line.
The referee ruled that Maegle was entitled to a 95-yard touchdown run. Rice, ranked No. 6 in the nation by The Associated Press, went on to a 28-6 victory over 13th-ranked Alabama.

Chick Vennera, one of those knock-around actors. Credits include “Thank God It’s Friday”, “The Milagro Beanfield War”, and a lot of TV, including “The Golden Girls” and voice work on “Animaniacs”.

James Kallstrom, FBI guy.

In his 27 years with the F.B.I., Mr. Kallstrom helped convict the bosses of New York City’s five Mafia families with cleverly concealed wiretaps and spiked meatballs. And he investigated the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center, expanded the bureau’s surveillance purview to include cellular phones, and recovered a half-million dollars in diamond jewelry that had been stolen by a baggage handler at Kennedy International Airport in 1995 and that had belonged to Sarah, the duchess of York.
In the investigation of the crash of Flight 800, he became the face of the F.B.I. in daily briefings as he and other authorities sought to understand what caused the explosion that sent the jetliner plummeting into the waves off Long Island on July 17, 1996 — one of the deadliest aviation incidents in American history.

He may also be known to some folks as the guy who introduced episodes of “The F.B.I. Files”.

Posted in Cops, FBI, Law, Movies, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

There WASN’T supposed to be an earth-shattering KA-BOOM!

Thursday, July 1st, 2021

Over a dozen people were hurt when an LAPD bomb squad truck was blown to smithereens during a planned detonation of illegal fireworks on Wednesday night.

From the LAT (through archive.is):

At a news conference, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said officials responding to a home on the 700 block of East 27th Street had found several thousand pounds of illegal fireworks as well as improvised explosive devices that were “more unstable.”
An LAPD bomb squad transferred the improvised devices into the iron chamber of a semitruck that’s meant to contain such explosive material, he said.
Police detonated the devices at 7:37 p.m., believing that the vehicle would be able to contain the explosion, but there was a “total catastrophic failure of that containment vehicle,” Moore said.

…

At the residence’s patio, officers found several thousand pounds of commercial fireworks stacked 8 to 10 feet high in boxes, and bomb squad personnel spent the day moving them to be stored at another location.
Officers also found improvised explosive devices with simple fuses — about 40 the size of Coke cans and 200 smaller objects of similar construction — and conducted X-rays to determine their contents.
Less than 10 pounds of the devices were transferred into a semitruck, which Moore said was rated, with its outer containment shell, to handle 18 pounds. Officials established a 300-foot perimeter behind the vehicle and evacuated the north and south sides of 27th Street.

According to reports, none of the injuries are “life-threatening”.

FotB RoadRich can correct me if I’m wrong, but I have a memory of APD’s bomb squad telling us (when we were going through the Citizen’s Police Academy) that the most dangerous thing a bomb squad does is…disposal of fireworks. I don’t know if that’s because they do more fireworks disposal than anything else, because people get blasé around them (“It’s just fireworks!”), or if because fireworks are more volatile than anything else they deal with.

Edited to add: Lawrence sent over this tweet from CBS LA: their helicopter was directly overhead when…

Posted in California Über Alles, Cops, Explosives, Law | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 28, 2021.

Monday, June 28th, 2021

NYT obit for Frederic Rzewski, which went up after I posted yesterday.

John Langley. He was perhaps best known as the creator of “COPS”.

Apart from Cops, Langley also produced American Vice: The Doping of a Nation, which showed live drug arrests on television. Other credits include Inside American Jail and Las Vegas Jailhouse; documentaries Cocaine Blues, American Expose: Who Murdered JFK?, Anatomy of a Crime and Terrorism: Target U.S.A.;and series’ Video Justice, Undercover Stings, Jail, Street Patrol, Vegas Strip and Road Warriors.

He also was involved in off-road racing, and apparently did quite well at that:

In 2009 and 2010, Langley’s team, COPS Racing, took first place in its class in the Baja 1000, an off-road motorsports event held annually in Baja California.

He died of an apparent heart attack while his team was competing in the “Coast to Coast Ensenada-San Felipe 250” this past weekend.

I have not seen this elsewhere, but “Reason” is reporting the death of libertarian economist Steve Horwitz.

Posted in Cops, Law, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

Memo from the police beat.

Tuesday, May 18th, 2021

There have been a few mildly interesting police stories in recent days. Here’s a round-up.

1. The police chief of the Manor ISD Police (yeah, the school district police, not the city police) has been “placed on administrative leave“.

The accusations against him seem to amount to two things: “falsifying timesheets”, and “improperly donating used cellphones to a local domestic violence shelter”.

The defense attorney representing Chief Shane Sexton and three other officers in the force, said credible evidence has been submitted to the district to show that all timesheets have been accurate.
Sexton’s attorney Brad Heilman said Verizon Wireless donated the cellphones to the department, came at no cost to the district and were no longer being used.

Manor is about 34 miles down the road from here, and has an estimated population (as of 2019) of about 13,000 people. Small town politics…but I’ll come back to that in a bit. (I also have some questions about why small school districts need their own police departments, but that gets into other issues: how big does a school district have to be to justify their own police force? Does not having a police force for a small school district divert resources from a small city police force? Is it just a question of which pocket the money comes out of? I haven’t though through all of this yet.)

2. Lorenzo Hernandez used to be a deputy with the Williamson County sheriff’s department. He also appeared on “Live TV”, back when they were in WillCo and “Live PD” was a thing.

And now he’s been charged with “assault and official oppression”.

In the arrest affidavit, a Williamson County detective wrote that the woman Hernandez is accused of assaulting “did not pose a threat.”
“Defendant Hernandez escalates the event through an intentional, unreasonable use of force against [the victim] by placing his hand on her throat directly below her chin,” the affidavit said, adding that Hernandez then squeezed her throat and pushed her back into the apartment wall.
“The intentional use of force by Defendant Hernandez by placing his hand on the throat of [the victim] is unlawful, as no exception provides Defendant Hernandez the justification for the use of said force.”

3. This one is in my own backyard, but I’ve avoided writing about it. The story broke late Friday afternoon, and I’ve been trying to get a little more clarity about what’s happening.

The Lakeway police chief, Todd Radford, resigned on Friday. His resignation was not voluntary.

“I stand before you tonight more than likely for the last time as your chief of police, regrettably so. Upon request I am submitting my resignation,” Radford told the council. “Over the last 14 years, I have been every other week in this chamber with multiple volunteers who have sat in your seats as council members and I have served honorably, in my opinion, for three mayors and felt like I have done above and beyond what has been asked of me. And I believe the agency has done so as well. To receive the number of accolades we have has not been easy and I feel like it should be better recognized.”

There is a lot of speculation on NextDoor about what’s going on. Most of it I find unreliable. The theory that I do find compelling is: this is related to a move by the council to eliminate contracts for all city employees and convert them to at-will status. This is something I can get behind for most city employees, but not for the police chief and police officers. I think law enforcement people should be on a contract basis – one which allows termination for clearly defined reasons. I don’t think a cop who murders or rapes someone should keep their job, but I don’t want them being fired because they didn’t fix a ticket for the mayor’s brother-in-law.

Posted in Cops, Law, Politics, Texas, Travis County, WillCo | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 409

Friday, May 14th, 2021

Today, a handful of random.

“Skallagrim” discusses “End Him Rightly”, a fighting technique from the Gladiatoria.

Bonus #1: Here’s another video from the good folks at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC): “Integrity in the Workplace”. Or, things you shouldn’t do as a Federal employee.

Bonus #2: A little something for FotB RoadRich again. Guy picks up a 1973 Piper Cherokee Cruiser for $9,000 (it needs an overhaul and the owner couldn’t afford it) and does a restoration and rebuild.

Besides putting this up as RoadRich bait, I’m posting this because that’s a really nice looking airplane. I could see myself flying something like that.

Bonus #3: And speaking of the Cherokee, “50th Anniversary of the Piper Cherokee” from the good folks at Piper.

Posted in Cops, History, Knives, Law, Planes, Swords | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 400

Wednesday, May 5th, 2021

This popped up in my feed, and you know I had to post it here: “TRS-80 Color Computer: Radio Shack’s $399 Micro from 1980!”

It me. Mine had 4K of memory: not 4 GB, or 4 MB, but 4,096 8-bit bytes of memory, and used cassette tape for storage.

Bonus #1: I’m marginal about using this one, but it calls back to an earlier blog entry: “The Norco Shootout, 40 Years Later”.

Not officially part of the content here, but: the “Behind the Badge” channel posted the Norco documentary in one (54 minute) chunk. I linked to that in my previous Norco post, but that version divides the video up into three chunks.

Bonus #2: Here’s something we hope you really like (especially you, RoadRich): a video on “Use of Force” from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC).

Bonus #3: This is short, but I thought it was worth putting up here. Simon Sinek on “The Most Toxic Person In The Workplace”.

Posted in Cops, Geek, History, Law, Leadership | 2 Comments »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 388

Friday, April 23rd, 2021

Two for today. Our first one is lower quality because it is vintage, but fits in with an ongoing theme.

This is a training film from the San Diego Police Department, made sometime in the late 1940s according to the notes.

To make up for the low quality of the previous video, here’s a much higher quality bit of history, also totally unrelated to the po-lice.

“Oil Men: Tales From the South Texas Oil Patch”.

Yeah, it is about an hour long, which is why I waited to post this until closer to the weekend.

Posted in Cops, History, Law | Comments Closed

Bad boys, bad boys…

Tuesday, April 13th, 2021

I’ve written a lot previously about the LA County Sheriff’s Department (motto: “dumber than a bag of hair“). But not in a while: I haven’t been following the LAT as much, as it is basically unreadable unless you pay for it.

This came across Hacker News, however, and is a Justice Department press release, so I can cover it here.

Marc Antrim, who used to be a LACSD deputy, was sentenced to 84 months in federal prison on Monday.

Why? He conspired to rob a marijuana warehouse.

Antrim pleaded guilty in March 2019 to a five-count information charging him with conspiracy to distribute marijuana, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, conspiracy to deprive rights under color of law, deprivation of rights under color of law, and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.

I love “conspiracy to deprive rights under color of law” and “deprivation of rights under color of law”. Those are two of my favorite charges in the Federal system.

More details:

During the early morning hours of October 29, 2018, Antrim and his co-conspirators dressed as armed LASD deputies and approached the warehouse in an LASD Ford Explorer. Upon arrival, Antrim flashed his LASD badge and a fake search warrant to the security guards to gain entry to the warehouse. To perpetuate the ruse that they were legitimate law enforcement officers, Antrim and two fake deputies sported LASD clothing, wore duty belts, and carried firearms. One fake deputy also visibly carried a long gun to further intimidate the guards into submission.
At the beginning of the two-hour robbery, Antrim and his co-conspirators detained the three warehouse security guards in the cage of the LASD Ford Explorer. Soon after the guards were detained, a fourth man arrived at the warehouse in a large rental truck, and all four men began loading marijuana into the truck.
When Los Angeles Police Department officers legitimately responded to a call for service at the warehouse during the robbery, Antrim falsely told the LAPD officers that he was an LASD narcotics deputy conducting a legitimate search. To facilitate the sham, Antrim handed his phone to one of the LAPD officers so that the police officer could speak to someone on the phone claiming to be Antrim’s LASD sergeant. The individual on the phone was not Antrim’s sergeant, and Antrim did not have a legitimate search warrant for the warehouse.

…

At the time of the robbery, Antrim was a patrol deputy assigned to the Temple City station, but he was not on duty, was not assigned to the department’s narcotics unit, was not a detective, and would not have had a legitimate reason to search a marijuana distribution warehouse in the City of Los Angeles.

Six other people have been convicted and sentenced, including the ever-popular “disgruntled warehouse employee” who is serving 14 years. Former deputy Antrim testified at his trial, which is one reason why he only got seven years.

The big question in my mind: when is the movie coming out, and who’s going to play former deputy Antrim?

Posted in California Über Alles, Cops, Law | Comments Closed

Memo from the legal beat.

Tuesday, April 13th, 2021

Two recent stories from the Statesman that I find interesting, but haven’t sorted out yet. So they’re noted here with minimal comment.

1. The Pflugerville Police Department (Pflugerville is a small-ish suburb of Austin) hired a new chief in 2017. She left in February and got a six-figure payout (including unused sick leave and vacation time).

Did she leave because she was a Hispanic lesbian (that’s an actual statement from the article) fighting a “good old boy” system?

As an example, Robledo pointed to complaints by Alicia Fitzpatrick, a patrol officer since 2019, who accused a small group of officers in the Police Department of targeting and undermining her professional credibility to prevent her from being selected for specialized assignments.
Fitzpatrick similarly said that a good ol’ boy network dominated the department and that the network complains that female officers receive preferential treatment for promotions and are not subjected to the same disciplinary consequences as their male counterparts. She said the same “subculture” had an agenda to remove Robledo as chief, according to written reports.
In response, the city manager hired an outside investigator, the Austin Institute, to evaluate the department’s workplace culture. The institute’s December 2020 report was not made public but was recently obtained by the Statesman. The investigation confirmed that the subculture Fitzpatrick described exists within the Police Department.
“Given the voluminous amount of evidence that supports a finding of hostile work environment, gender bias and discrimination by Sgt. (Tyler) Summers, Sgt. (Richard) Thomas, Sgt. (Nathan) Hubel, Cpl. (Mark) Neff and Dispatcher (Alana) Kamp in targeting Officer Alicia Fitzpatrick … comparable misconduct, atrocious judgement, and behavior at such an unacceptable level has serious consequences in all police departments and should not be tolerated from a Sgt. of the Pflugerville Police Department,” the report said.

Or was she forced out because she was a bad leader?

Two former officers, in interviews with the Statesman, dismissed the notion that the department was unkind to anyone other than white men. Instead, they said Robledo caused the hostile work environment with her style of leadership and said she destroyed the careers of some of its longtime employees.
Reiff, who was not involved in either investigative report, said he received a dishonorable discharge after a 22-year career as an officer. In his dealings with the chief, he said, she often belittled officers and behaved with hostility toward them if they questioned policy changes, even if they were only seeking to clarify her new rules.
“I can attest to it personally when I was once working a homicide. She came into the conference room and the investigations division and told us, ‘Don’t f— this up,’” Reiff said. “You’re the chief of police. What do you think saying something like that does to everybody?”
He said the morale in the Police Department was so low and the stress so constant under Robledo that it was common for the officers to discuss how they did not feel comfortable.
“Nobody wanted to come to work. Everybody would have rather been off or was looking to get out,” Reiff said. “When she would get angry, she’d always say it was her passion coming through. But if another officer demonstrated the same type of behavior she did, it was a problem. Someone being afraid isn’t pushing someone to do better. She was a bully, and she hid behind her authority to push people around.”

2. Millie Thompson was elected as a County Court of Law judge in Hays County last fall.

Now she’s suing the other two judges.

Apparently, she wants her own court coordinator, specifically for her court, rather than court coordinators being appointed by (and answering to) the court as a whole.

The employee whom Thompson attempted to fire — Chris Perez — is one of two court administrators who wrote to human resources to report that they were victims of a hostile work environment under Thompson, according to documents the American-Statesman obtained via an open records request.
“I love my job and the people that I work for and with,” Perez wrote in the email to HR. “However, the stress of this situation — and that includes the fact the Judge Thompson’s actions have already led to the resignation of two extremely valuable employees as well as the retirement of a 30+ year veteran employee of this office — is causing me extreme anxiety.”
Closed records on personnel matters make it unclear which employees have resigned since Thompson took office.
Thompson attempted to fire Perez because of a docket scheduling issue, Perez told the Hays Free Press/News-Dispatch. Thompson missed a hearing because she was unaware of it. Perez emailed Thompson about the hearing, and it was listed on the judges’ calendar.
However, Thompson’s attorney, George Lobb, said Perez didn’t make enough attempts to communicate that schedule to her.

For what it may be worth (I’m trying to be objective and honest here) Judge Thompson is a Democrat, and the other two judges are Republican.

Posted in Cops, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 378

Tuesday, April 13th, 2021

I started out doing police training videos, but those have become thin on the ground. So when a new one shows up in my feed it is a cause for celebration.

Especially this one. I believe it is called “Out Numbered” and dates to 1968 according to the notes. Those same notes also point out that it features “Martin Milner of Adam 12 Fame”.

I want to point out that, while a lot of people knew Mr. Milner best from “Adam-12” (and I include myself in that category) he had a much broader and more interesting career beyond one cop show: “Route 66”, “Sweet Smell of Success”, both “Dragnet”s (the 1950s one and the late 1960s-early 1970s one)…

Bonus #1: totally unrelated to police work, but something I found kind of cool. This is a vintage (1969, maybe) promo film by Canadair for their CL-215 water bomber.

Bonus #2: “Testing a $600 survival tool”.

$600? At that price, not only should it include a tent, but it had better be setting up that tent for me automatically. And making me breakfast in the morning and dinner at night.

Posted in 1970s, Cops, History, Law, Planes, TV | Comments Closed

Art (Acevedo), damn it! watch. (#AF of a series)

Tuesday, March 16th, 2021

I’m a little behind on this, but I have to note it here anyway: after a little more than four years on the job, Art Acevedo is leaving as chief of the Houston PD…

…to take over as chief of the Miami PD.

(“The Tom Brady of police chiefs”? Fark that.)

My personal feeling? He decided to leave town before he got run out on a rail behind the narcotics scandal. But that’s just my opinion: I could be wrong.

More interesting question that someone asked me last night: could Flint Ironstag Brian Manley be headed to Houston?

Well, it is close to home, and it is a larger department, and he does have a proven track record, and it seems Houston is slightly more reasonable (and less hostile to the police) than the current Austin city council. But: 30 years in at APD, 97+% of his salary in retirement…what incentive does he have to take another police job in the current environment?

Other than the challenge, I guess.

Edited to add 3/17: Ha!

Farewell to Art Acevedo, the LeBron James of performative self-promotion

Posted in Cops, Law | 4 Comments »

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 328

Monday, February 22nd, 2021

Been a while since I’ve done any vintage police training videos, mostly because not that many have been popping up.

Here’s one for you, from the FBI apparently sometime in the 1970s: “Examination Of Stolen Cars”.

Bonus #1: Don’t you love stupid people getting what is coming to them? I know I do. Plus: CanCon!

“Bait Car Greatest Hits” from the Vancouver Sun.

Bonus #2: “Accident Investigation” from 1974. Not one of those traffic safety films, but more a guide for the patrol officer on how to handle these situations: use your car as a shield, don’t move injured people, watch for spilled gasoline, etc…

Posted in Cops, History, Law | Comments Closed

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