Henry W. Segar filed a racial discrimination suit against the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in 1977.
The BNDD is now the DEA. And the Segar case is still being litigated.
Archive for the ‘Law’ Category
Jarndyce and Jarndyce, call your offices, please.
Thursday, December 9th, 2010Obit watch.
Thursday, December 9th, 2010David Schultz was unavailable for comment.
Hondo Harrelson does not approve.
Friday, December 3rd, 2010APD SWAT team member rolls his unmarked car. Officer arrested for DWI.
Somehow I have a feeling even the arbitrator isn’t going to get him out of this one.
Cracks in the facade.
Friday, December 3rd, 2010Celebration, Florida, the Walt Disney Company master-planned community, had their first murder over Thanksgiving weekend, and a police standoff last night that ended in a suicide. (The police standoff and the murder were apparently unrelated.)
All linky, all the time.
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010Jason Kottke has a link up to Give Me Something To Read’s Best of 2010 list.
I was previously unaware of “Give Me Something To Read“, which looks like an interesting attempt to combine two things; a regular blog of interesting articles, and a way to send links to those articles to a mobile device for later reading.
I have my qualms about the list itself, specifically the number of articles from The Atlantic and Mother Jones. But there are a couple of pieces on it that interest me; Jon “Them
(Regular readers of WCD know that neuroscience in general is one of my interests, and the Molaison story in particular fascinates me.)
We’re not going to white collar resort prison…
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010Dear members of the Imperial Stars:
Here’s a link to the guitar tab for “Folsom Prison Blues”.
I think you might need that where you’re going.
Pager duty?
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010The City of Austin is paying a police officer – not just any police officer, but one of Art Acevedo’s fired/reinstated by an arbitrator officers – $98,000 a year.
Now, $98,000 a year is good money, especially in Austin. “But,” you may say to yourself, “I don’t want to get shot at, even for $98,000 a year.”
No worries, mate.
Interestingly, the whole thing appears to stem from a domestic dispute:
Correct me if I’m wrong, someone, but doesn’t the fact that he was convicted of a crime of domestic violence mean that he can’t own or carry a gun in any case?
Obit watch: But what about Thumper?
Monday, November 22nd, 2010One of my tipsters pointed out that Lawrencia “Bambi” Bembenek has died.
For those of you who don’t remember the bizarre saga of the Bembenek case: Ms. Bembenek was a former waitress in a Playboy Club who became an officer with the Milwaukee PD. Shortly after that, she married a Milwaukee PD detective. Shortly after that, the detective’s ex-wife was capped.
Ms. Bembenek was arrested and charged with the murder, but claimed she had been framed by members of the Milwaukee PD, as retaliation for her cooperation in a federal investigation of the department. In spite of this, Ms. Bembenek was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Eight years after her conviction, Ms. Bembenek escaped from prison and fled to Canada. She was recaptured within three months, but in the meantime had gained a substantial amount of support in Milwaukee.
Edited to add: slightly more detailed WP obit here. Somehow, I missed the whole “lawsuit against Dr. Phil” thing.
Those thin lines.
Thursday, November 11th, 2010I don’t really like just throwing up links to other people’s posts, at least without adding some commentary here.
But Matt G.’s post on the concept of “The Thin Blue Line” deserves highlighting, and I really can’t add anything to it except: this!
Art (Acevedo), damn it! watch. (#M of a series)
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010Continuing the ongoing saga of Officer Quintana:
He was arrested yesterday and charged with four misdemeanors related to the alleged domestic violence incident. Yes, the one he was fired over. Yes, the one that happened over a year ago.
Look, I’m not in favor of cops thumping on their women, or thumping on other folks for that matter. But something stinks about this story; either the Leander PD covered for Quintana, or someone put pressure on them to press charges over a year after the fact, and in spite of the victim’s initial statement that no assault had occurred. (And, yes, I’m aware that’s not uncommon in domestic violence situations, and probably even more common when the perp is a police officer. On the other hand, the victim is a police officer, too.)
Happy Guy Fawkes Day, everyone!
Friday, November 5th, 2010When you’re out and about tonight, remember to drink a toast to Guy Fawkes, the only man ever to enter the Houses of Parliament with honorable intentions.
Also remember: if your gunpowder gets damp, don’t stick it in front of a fire to dry out.
Side note: Since I’ve been hammering on the Bell thing, I did want to link to this LAT article: basically, California Attorney General (soon to be Governor) Jerry Brown may have exceeded his authority by suing for the repayment of salaries and surrender of future pension money. Note that this just applies to the civil lawsuit: the criminal cases against Robert “Ratso” Rizzo and the others are proceeding.
Notes from the police blotter.
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010Susan Wright got her sentence reduced from 25 years to 20. Ms. Wright was convicted of tying her husband to a bed and stabbing him. Stabbing him 193 times, that is.
This was actually a somewhat sensational trial; during the trial,
Mostly I wanted to blog this because of Lawrence’s comment: “That’s five days off for every stab wound”.
In other news, who knew that being a fake ICE agent was so financially rewarding? I certainly didn’t.
Sounds like a mall somewhere is missing an idiot a ninja.
Can you say, “shakedown”?
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010The more I read about the city of Bell, the more I wonder. It seems clear that they weren’t just corrupt, but blatantly so. How did this go on for as long as it did?
Edited to add: I missed this. The Bell city council met last night. This is significant, since the council failed to make a quorum at their last meeting:
one council member resigned, another failed to make bail and two called in sick
And what was the primary piece of business at last night’s meeting?
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyenas!
Overkill?
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010There’s a breaking news story on the northwest side of Austin: apparently, two people were killed in a domestic disturbance, and responding police officers killed a third person. (Edited to add: The Statesman is now reporting only one person and the alleged gunman are dead.)
I’m commenting on this because I had to drive Loop 1 south to get to work this morning: I have never seen this many cop cars in one place, not even in the parking lot of a police station. I swear I saw a dozen police cars parked, nose to nose, on the Parmer Lane exit ramp, and those weren’t the only cars around. There were cars and crime scene tape all the way down to the Baskin Robbins in the shopping center at the Mopac feeder/Parmer Lane corner. Google maps and my eyeball estimate the distance from the off-ramp to there as about 1/2 mile.
(Edited to add 2: From what the Statesman is reporting now, it looks like the APD capped the guy in the parking lot of the Jaguar dealership, which is located right next to that shopping center.)
Combine this with the unfortunate incident on Saturday, where the APD felt compelled to block off two major highways for the better part of a day (not that I’m bitter or anything, just because I was caught up in that mess) and I have to wonder: do Austin police have enough to do?
“Special delivery. A bomb. Were you expecting one?”
Monday, November 1st, 2010Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong: guilty.
You may remember her for such roles as the bizarre pizza delivery bank robbery/bomb plot in Pennsylvania.