Credits (other than “Barefoot In the Park”) include “Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling”, and guest shots on “Lou Grant”, “Police Story”, and “The Six Million Dollar Man”.
Yvan Colonna. This is a couple of days old, and you’ve probably never heard of him, but the case is interesting.
Mr. Colonna evaded capture for four years. He was convicted of murder in 2007. That conviction was later overturned, but he was convicted again in 2011 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Three weeks ago, Mr. Colonna was attacked by another inmate:
She also threw up in a laundry basket and someone’s shoe. The article doesn’t specify if the shoe belonged to “judgy f–ker”, but I’d personally be pretty judgy if someone threw up in my shoe.
Dr. Julian Heicklen, “a charismatic, cantankerous chemistry professor who dedicated his retirement years to a series of public protests in defense of civil liberties” as the paper of record describes him. He was 90.
What is sort of buried in the NYT obit is the actual nature of his protests. He was an advocate of jury nullification:
On July 21, 1960, she was abducted from the backyard of her grandmother’s home in Alamogordo, New Mexico. A body was found about 10 days later: but, at the time, law enforcement did not believe the body belonged to Ms. Gallegos.
The body had remained unidentified, and known as “Little Miss Nobody” since that time. Yesterday, the local sheriff’s office announced that they had established through DNA testing that it was actually the body of Ms. Gallegos.
Tyler James, golf coach at the University of the Southwest. Sometimes there’s just nothing you can say.
I have said before that I’ve avoided covering the NRA’s issues. I do not trust anybody (except a very small handful of people) to report on those issues accurately and fairly. The small handful of people I do trust, I do not have permission to quote here.
I think this is the right decision, for the right reasons. If the NRA leadership is committing fraud against the membership, there are remedies for this that don’t involve dissolving the organization, as the judge said. My only disappointment is that the judge did not start the process of disbarring New York Attorney General Letitia James for malicious prosecution and overreach.
I sent this around yesterday to a small group, including two bloggers I know. One blogger agreed with me that it was shocking to see a sensible gun-related ruling from a judge in New York.
The other blogger commented that they had just sent back their NRA board election ballot: they voted for Frank Tait, wrote “Wayne Must Go” in four out of five write in slots, and “Fire Wayne Now” in the fifth.
(If those bloggers want to out themselves in comments, they’re welcome to.)
This sounds like a giant sting operation, whether intentional by Blakeman or unintentional but inadvertent.
Also, how is this going to work? Is it like a Lend Lease thing? Will people get their guns back after the war?
(I know this didn’t happen with most of the Lend Lease guns. But I have a very vivid memory – which I can’t back up now – of seeing a target rifle that a prominent marksman sent to the UK during WWII. It had a brass plaque attached to the stock with his name and a short explanation on it: after the war, the rifle found its way back to him. It may be in the NRA museum in Springfield, but again, I’m not sure.)
Someone asked me yesterday if it counts as a flaming hyena if the politician is out of office. My answer in this case is:
1. Yes, because the alleged conduct took place while he was in office.
II. I have the distinct impression that Madigan, while out of office, probably still wields a lot of power behind the scenes.
C. I’m not going to pass up a chance to kick an Illinois politician.
Number two is a bit more local story, but it has received national attention.
Van Taylor, who represents the 3rd Congressional District (in the Plano area) got 49% of the vote in Tuesday’s primary, and was in a runoff.
At least, until yesterday, when he dropped out.
Why? Well, he was married and having an affair. He paid the woman $5,000 to not say anything but the story came out anyway.
The affair part isn’t so bad, I guess. Consenting adults, between him and his wife, etc. I don’t know where the $5K came from, or if there’s a crime involved with that.
So I gather she wasn’t married, and got a divorce the old-fashioned way: by informing on her husband, so US drones could turn him into something that looked like tomato paste.
I think that qualifies as an important safety tip for all of us dudes: have at least one friend who you can trust to tell you “banging an ISIS chick isn’t a good idea, especially if you’re already married”.
Twenty five years ago today, at about 9:17 AM Pacific Time, Larry Eugene Phillips Jr. and Decebal Ștefan Emilian “Emil” Mătăsăreanu attempted to hold up a Bank of America branch, located at 6600 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood.
Phillips and Mătăsăreanu were not, to borrow a memorable term from John Hearne, “crackheads with Ravens“. They had previously robbed two other BoA branches and two armored cars. They’d spent a lot of time scoping out the bank and were armed illegally with fully automatic weapons: “two Norinco Type 56 S rifles, a fully automatic Norinco Type 56 S-1, and a fully automatic Bushmaster XM15 Dissipator”. As I understand it, all of these were semi-automatic rifles that had been purchased and then modified to fire full-auto.
They also wore body armor and took drugs before the robbery. These guys were motivated and prepared. They’d taken $1.5 million in the two previous bank robberies, and expected to take about $750,000 in this one.
Sometimes you just get unlucky. The bank had changed procedures and schedules, and there wasn’t as much money there as they expected. Phillips got ticked off and shot up the vault, destroying even more of the money that was there. Then he tried to loot the bank’s automatic teller machine…but, due to a procedural change, the bank manager wasn’t able to open it. (“In the end, the two left with $303,305 and three dye packs which later exploded, ruining the money they stole.”)
They also thought they had eight minutes to pull off the robbery, given their observations of LAPD radio transmissions. However, a patrol unit was actually driving by the bank, saw Phillips and Mătăsăreanu go in, and put out a “211 in progress” radio call. By the time Phillips and Mătăsăreanu finished and went to exit the bank, they were facing multiple LAPD patrol cars and unmarked detective units.
LAPD at the time was armed with 9mm pistols and .38 Special revolvers. (Wikipedia says they were Beretta 92F and 92FS pistols and S&W Model 15 revolvers. However, the LAPD detective in the podcast linked below says he and his partner were carrying S&W 9mm pistols.) There were also some shotguns in the patrol cars, but LAPD wasn’t issuing patrol rifles at the time. So when Phillips and Mătăsăreanu started shooting, and LAPD started shooting back, the police rounds weren’t making it through the crook’s body armor. Phillips and Mătăsăreanu were doing a good job of laying down covering fire, and the ranges involved were fairly long, making it hard for the police to go for head shots.
I find the whole thing – the geometry and much of the sequence of events – hard to visualize, in terms of who was where and what the ranges were. Quoting Wikipedia, which has some diagrams:
Police officers went to a “nearby gun store” (A gun store? In LA?) and obtained some AR-pattern rifles (and, I assume, ammo) which they used to shoot back. LAPD SWAT, who were issued AR-15s, arrived on scene 18 minutes after the shooting started.
Mătăsăreanu took at least three hits, and what sounds like a fourth grazing wound, while he was still in the parking lot. He was able to get into a getaway car, get it started, and pulled out of the lot with Phillips walking alongside, firing a HK-91. At some point, Phillips took a round in the shoulder and his HK-91 was disabled by incoming fire. He grabbed one of the Norincos and apparently went one way on foot, while Mătăsăreanu went another direction in the car.
Phillips went down Archwood Street, hid behind a truck, and fired on the police with the Norinco until it jammed. He then pulled out a Beretta 92FS and continued to fire until taking a round in the right hand, which caused him to drop the gun. He picked it up and shot himself in the head with it: at the same time, one of the police officers shot him and severed his spine. (“Either bullet may have been fatal.”)
Mătăsăreanu’s car was shot to heck and wasn’t driveable. He tried to hijack a Jeep (per Wikipedia: it looks like a pickup, but it may have been one of those Jeeps with a bed), and transferred weapons from the getaway car to the Jeep: however, the driver had deactivated the Jeep before fleeing on foot, and Mătăsăreanu couldn’t get it started. The police showed up:
“two and a half minutes of almost uninterrupted gunfire“.
EMTs and ambulances didn’t want to come in until the scene was clear. There were reports of a possible third gunman, and it was obviously a pretty chaotic situation. It took about 70 minutes for medical aid to come in for Mătăsăreanu, and by that time he’d bled to death.
According to Wikipedia (I know, I know) the department started issuing patrol rifles: first surplus M16s (obtained from DoD) to patrol sergeants, and later as standard issue for all patrol vehicles. They also added Kevlar to the car doors. And, in what seems to me to be an odd development, LAPD also authorized the .45 ACP pistol for general carry. Previously, they’d only been authorized for SWAT. I say “odd” because if 9mm wasn’t getting through the body armor, .45 probably wouldn’t have either, so I don’t understand what difference they thought it would make.
Wikipedia entry. This links to a version of a very detailed memo from (then) Chief Bernard Parks, which is where I think much of the Wiki entry comes from.
As far as I have been able to tell, there is no good (or even halfway decent) book on the robbery. This seems like a huge gap: some skilled true crime writer is leaving money on the table. If I’m wrong, and someone has done a book, please let me know in comments.
William Kuenzel has passed away from cancer at the age of 60. I’m noting his obit because this is a bizarre and troubling case, that got Robert M. Morgenthau (NYC’s liberal DA) and Edwin C. Meese III on the same side.
Mr. Kuenzel was arrested in November of 1987 and charged with killing a convenience store clerk. His roommate, Harvey Venn, initially told police Mr. Kuenzel was probably asleep at home, but later changed his story and claimed Mr. Kuenzel pulled the trigger. Mr. Venn got a reduced sentence for testifying against Mr. Kuenzel. Mr. Kuenzel refused to plead out.
The facts that she was acquitted of 15 charges, and has had two convictions thrown out, do give me some pause. However, they apparently do not give the Tennessee State Senate pause: two is enough.
The Brian Flores lawsuit against the NFL is mildly interesting, but it is also being well covered in other places, and I don’t know what I can say about the suit itself.
However, there is one aspect of it that I think isn’t getting as much coverage as I’d like:
I have to wonder: if paying coaches to lose is a common practice, why haven’t we seen more 0-16 (or 0-17) teams? Is there so much “respect for the game” out there that nobody’s willing to take the offer? Even if you’re going to end up with a #1 draft choice?
Lawrence sent this over for the “Burning In Hell watch”, but I have to say: I don’t have the strong feelings about Durst that I’ve had about other criminals who I hope are roasting. Durst was almost certainly nuttier than a Stuckey’s pecan log roll, and was probably guilty of the crimes he was convicted of.
Admittedly, I only followed the trials from the fringes, but it did seem to me that there was a lot of…stuff…that made me go “hmmmmmmm”. I wasn’t on any of the juries, I didn’t hear all the evidence, but I’m not sure there was enough there to convince me beyond a reasonable doubt.
At this point, it doesn’t matter: he knows, God knows, and that’s good enough.
Relentless advocate for children, and author, Andrew Vachss has died. This is by way of Lawrence from Joe Landsdale, and I don’t have any more information than what’s there at the moment. I’ll follow up as more information is posted.
But: most of these charges are gun charges, and the sort of gun charges that I’m not sure should be a crime in a free country, much less New York state.
There’s a semi-meme in the gun community about people ordering “fuel filters” from Chinese vendors…and getting a knock on the door from the Feds. I wonder if that’s what happened in this case. (The only online reference I could find to this was on a site that I have a policy of not linking to or acknowledging in any way.)
So I can’t gloat too much over the gun charges: after all, if I believe that silencers, modern sporting rifles, and normal capacity magazines should be legal, I can’t throw stones at this guy.
But fake law enforcement credentials? He deserves whatever he gets for that.
