Archive for the ‘Law’ Category

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TMQ watch: September 18, 2012.

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

The time has come for TMQ to go after…well, not exactly a gnat, maybe an amoeba…with a sledgehammer.

Actually, we were thinking of something different, but we’ll take that one and run with it after the jump…

(more…)

Posted in Cops, Law, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch, TV | Comments Closed

Hillsborough.

Thursday, September 13th, 2012

This was covered some on FARK yesterday, but I kind of feel like it is important enough to mention here.

On April 15, 1989, at the Hillsborough Stadium (located in Sheffield), 96 people were crushed to death. The initial inquiry on the deaths basically blamed the fans for what happened; that was a controversial verdict.

The British government agreed to a new inquiry in December of 2009. The results of that inquiry were issued yesterday.

Prime Minister David Cameron formally apologized on Wednesday to the victims’ families, saying their “appalling deaths” were compounded by an attempt by the police, investigators and the news media to depict the victims as hooligans and to blame them for the disaster.

More:

Quoting from the new report, Mr. Cameron said: “The Liverpool fans were not the cause of the disaster. The panel has quite simply found no evidence in support of allegations of exceptional levels of drunkenness, ticketlessness or violence among Liverpool fans, no evidence that fans had conspired to arrive late at the stadium, and no evidence that they stole from the dead and dying.”

And further:

The report also concluded that 116 witness statements presented by the police to previous inquiries had been amended by the police “to remove or alter comments unfavorable to the police,” and that police officers conducted computer checks on those who had died in an attempt “to impugn the reputations of the deceased.” In addition, the report said the coroner measured blood-alcohol levels in all who died, including children, only to discover — a fact withheld from previous inquiries — that the levels of alcohol consumption were “unremarkable and not exceptional for a social or leisure occasion.”

Additionally, the report suggests that at least some of the people who died may have lived, if they had been given prompt medical treatment:

The report said autopsy findings showed there were 41 victims who did not have the traumatic asphyxia that caused most of the deaths, and Dr. Bill Kirkup, a physician on the panel, said they might have survived if they been taken swiftly to a hospital.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, History, Law, Safety, Sports | Comments Closed

Good taste: you can’t afford it.

Thursday, September 13th, 2012

Ramiro Pozos Gonzalez, a “founding member” of the La Resistencia drug gang, has been captured.

Ordinarily, I don’t note the capture of every cartel member that comes down the pike. But the HouChron article includes a charming photograph of Mr. Gonzalez’s gold-plated “AK-47”, which was also captured with him.

I can sort of, vaguely, understand plating the gun. But the magazines? That’s just a waste of money. Magazines are disposable items. You should be prepared to trash them if they don’t feed; gold-plating them just makes the decision that much more difficult.

(Previously.)

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Law | 2 Comments »

Random notes: September 12, 2012.

Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

Amy Bishop took a plea. She’s going away forever. Good.

Speaking of plea deals, one of the suspects in the Austin nightclub case has also pled out to charges of selling and distributing cocaine. He’ll do 46 months in prison, and three years of “supervised release”. The cases against the other suspects are proceeding, but it looks like at least one of them is on the run.

Obit watch: Dr. Thomas Szasz, noted critic of psychiatry.

This is interesting to me on a personal level: there’s a shopping center at the corner of North Lamar and 38th Street that has what is easily one of the Top Ten worst parking lots in Austin. The tenants in that center have been told that they need to move out: apparently, someone plans to demolish that center for new development.

The other thing that makes this interesting to me (besides the loss of the horrible parking lot) is that one of the anchor tenants is Precision Camera, a regular stop for me on Saturday and (as far as I know) the only real camera store in Austin. Even better, they’re moving to a location at Burnet and Anderson, almost within walking distance of my apartment.

[Jerry] Sullivan [owner of Precision] has twice expanded his Precision Camera store, but he said there’s still not enough room. The new location will be larger — about 20,000 square feet compared with the current 13,000 square feet — and will feature more products and services. There will also be more parking for customers, he said.
“The sales floor over there will be two — almost two and a half — times bigger,” he said. “We need the space. Right now, we’re crammed in here sideways.”

Preach it, brother! I’m excited about this move, in case you couldn’t tell.

Posted in Clippings, Law, Obits, Photography | Comments Closed

The Indian of the group.

Tuesday, September 11th, 2012

The Colorado Supreme Court has upheld lower court decisions, and has refused to reinstate Ward Churchill as a professor at the University of Colorado.

“The Colorado State Supreme Court spends 55 pages saying the regents are above the law,” said David A. Lane, Mr. Churchill’s lawyer. “Regents at universities all over the country should feel emboldened to feel free to violate the First Amendment any time they want, as long as there is some sham due process that is given before they do it.”

Bitter much?

More from the Denver Post. Churchill background here.

Posted in Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

“I like to do it like the Boss Tweed way.”

Monday, September 10th, 2012

I’m sure it comes as no great shock to anybody that California isn’t the only place in the country where corruption runs rampant.

The mayor of Trenton, New Jersey, Tony Mack, has been arrested on charges of “conspiring to obstruct, delay and affect interstate commerce by extortion under color of official right”.

Also arrested were the mayor’s brother, Ralphiel, and Joseph Giorgianni, described as a “sandwich shop owner” and “convicted sex offender”.

U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said at a news conference Monday that the city-owned land for the garage was assessed at $271,000. He said Mack and Giorgianni agreed to accept $100,000 for the land for the city coffers — as long as the purported developers paid a bribe of $100,000 to be split between the two alleged conspirators.

It appears that Giorgianni was the bagman for the mayor, and that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. The “Boss Tweed” line above is a direct quote from Giorgianni. Other great quotes:

Giorgianni complained at one point that Mack, 46, could not take bribes because he was being watched so closely, the documents said. “It’s sickening,” he told one of the informants, according to the court papers.

More:

He was also caught on tape telling one of the informants: “One thing about the Mack administration — when I say that, it’s me and Mack — we’re not greedy. We’re corruptible. We want anybody to make a buck,” and “I’m there to buffer the thing where, you know, take the weight … going to jail’s my business. It ain’t his.”

“We’re not greedy. We’re corruptible.” That’s got to be a quote of the year right there.

One piece of evidence they offer is that Giorgianni referred to money by code — calling it “Uncle Remus” — when he spoke with Mack, and that Mack seemed to know what he was saying.

And by way of the awesome Jay G., we learn that the not greedy, but corruptible, Mayor Mack was also a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. So he’s for gun control, but apparently had no problem with Giorgianni, who…

…went to prison in the 1980s on charges of carnally abusing and debauching the morals of a 14-year-old girl in the back of his shop.
The case gained notoriety because of weight-related health problems that got Giorgianni, a steakhouse owner who once claimed to tip the scale at over 500 pounds, released and led a prosecutor to charge he “ate his way out of jail.”

(Giorgianni and some other folks (not including the mayor and his brother) are also charged with selling oxycodone, and Giorgianni is also being charged with “weapon possession by a convicted felon”, speaking of illegal guns.)

(I’m linking to the WP rather than the Trenton papers, because I looked at the two Trenton newspaper sites that came up in Google, and their coverage wasn’t good.)

Posted in Clippings, Guns, Law | Comments Closed

This is for Andrew.

Sunday, September 9th, 2012

An article from this week’s NYT Magazine:

How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

Unfortunately, the article isn’t about couches with knife-like edges on the underside, but rather about the alleged dangers of flame retardant chemicals used in couch foam.

Since 1975, an obscure California agency called the Bureau of Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation has mandated that the foam inside upholstered furniture be able to withstand exposure to a small flame, like a candle or cigarette lighter, for 12 seconds without igniting. Because foam is highly flammable, the bureau’s regulation, Technical Bulletin 117, can be met only by adding large quantities of chemical flame retardants — usually about 5 to 10 percent of the weight of the foam — at the point of manufacture. The state’s size makes it impractical for furniture makers to keep separate inventories for different markets, so about 80 percent of the home furniture and most of the upholstered office furniture sold in the United States complies with California’s regulation.

The big problems are:

  • These chemicals apparently don’t stay bound to the foam, but migrate into the environment.
  • These chemicals allegedly have negative side effects on human health.
  • And these fire retardants may not be doing a damn bit of good in any case.

In Babrauskas’s view, TB 117 is ineffective in preventing fires. The problem, he argues, is that the standard is based on applying a small flame to a bare piece of foam — a situation unlikely to happen in real life. “If you take a cigarette lighter and put it on a chair,” he says, “there’s no naked foam visible on that chair unless you live in a horrendous pigsty where people have torn apart their furniture.” In real life, before the flame gets to the foam, it has to ignite the fabric. Once the fabric catches fire, it becomes a sheet of flame that can easily overwhelm the fire-suppression properties of treated foam. In tests, TB 117 compliant chairs catch fire just as easily as ones that aren’t compliant — and they burn just as hot. “This is not speculation,” he says. “There were two series of tests that prove what I’m saying is correct.”

One question sort of implied, but not explicitly asked, by this article: many of these standards, like TB 117, were implemented at a time when far more people smoked, and smoke detectors were far less common. The idea was to keep Grandpa’s cigarette from setting the couch on fire if he dozed off in front of the TV set. Now that smoking has decreased dramatically, and smoke detectors are everywhere, do these standards continue to make sense? And shouldn’t this be a consumer choice? If you have kids, buy a couch with all natural fabric and stuffing. If you smoke and drink in front of the TV set and frequently doze off, get a couch that you couldn’t set on fire with a blowtorch and napalm.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law, Safety | Comments Closed

Banana republicans watch: September 8, 2012.

Saturday, September 8th, 2012

Friday’s LAT had an interesting article about the tensions between LAPD beat officers and the homeless in downtown LA. Specifically, the homeless beer vendors:

One by one, his customers approached, handing over $1.50 for cans of Colt 45, Steel Reserve or Heineken that he kept hidden in a blue cooler beneath a shopping cart. Government checks had arrived a few days before. Business on skid row was good — as it has been all year.

Yeah, yeah, illegal, yeah, yeah, alcohol drives crime on skid row, yeah yeah. But I have to admit that my first reaction was “Damn, I wish Austin’s homeless were that entrepreneurial.” Seriously, it’d be kind of nice to be able to walk down the street and pick up a cold bottle of something to sip on for $2.50 or so. (This being Austin, you couldn’t get away with selling that Colt 45 or Steel Reserve crap on the streets. You’d have to go with the local craft brews; Shiner Bock in bottles, maybe some Fat Tire. Leave the malt liquor to the gas stations.)

Come to think of it, you don’t even have to limit yourself to beer, and all the problems associated with that. There are times when, if that guy on the street corner wasn’t panhandling for cash, but had a cooler full of ice and cold sodas and bottled water, damn sure I’d give him at least $2 bucks for a cold drink when it is 103 degrees out there. I know someone who tried this experiment a while back, but I’ll let him report in comments if he wishes.

(And before you jump on my case: I know the problem is more complex than I’m making it sound, and selling bottled water and sodas on street corners isn’t a surefire way to get folks from homelessness to prosperity. But providing a useful good and/or service to a willing customer beats begging for bucks in my mind.)

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

Banana republicans watch: September 7, 2012.

Friday, September 7th, 2012

Hey, remember Maywood? The city that couldn’t get insurance, and had to disband the police department and much of the municipal government, in large part because the cops were out of control? That Maywood?

Well, cops are going to be cops, right? And if they aren’t cops in Maywood, they’ve got to end up somewhere, right?

Guess where they ended up.

If you said “I bet they ended up with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department”, you get to drink from the firehose.

Should being employed by Maywood be a bar to signing on with LACSD? Given the level of misconduct and corruption in that department, I think a case can be made that yes, former Maywood officers should not be employed in law enforcement anywhere. But let us set aside the generalities for the moment and focus on specifics. Some of the former Maywood officers hired by LACSD included:

There were apparently four “questionable” applicants from Maywood hired (the article does not mention why number four was considered questionable) out of an unknown number of applicants from Maywood. As a reminder:

At least a third of the then-37 member force had left other police jobs under a cloud or had brushes with the law while working for Maywood.

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

Quick banana republicans update.

Thursday, September 6th, 2012

The bankrupt city of San Bernardino has voted to cut 100 city jobs.

Of the 100 eliminated jobs, 41 are non-sworn positions in the Police Department. The rest are positions in other departments ranging from managers to janitors. The cutbacks also could lead to the closure of three or four library branches.

The city is not cutting fire department positions. (It is interesting that the original reports stated that 20 positions were proposed to be eliminated, nine people would be demoted, and nobody would be laid off. I wonder why, if this was the plan, there were threats of “rotating, temporary closures of fire stations”.)

(Thanks to Lawrence for the backlink yesterday.)

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Banana republicans watch: September 5, 2012.

Wednesday, September 5th, 2012

We previously mentioned the lawsuit by former police chief Randy Adams against the city of Bell over unpaid severance.

The other shoe has dropped: the city is suing Adams and wants all the money he was paid, plus “a portion of the $20 million the city estimates it lost as a result of a corruption scandal that led to the arrests of eight former civic leaders.”

The suit also asks that Adams be forced to pay the city’s costs to settle a whistle-blower lawsuit brought by Bell police Sgt. James Corcoran. Corcoran went to Adams with allegations of voter fraud, unlawful vehicle seizures, illegal selling of building permits and two instances of sexual harassment involving Rizzo. According to the lawsuit, Adams became upset when Corcoran told him he had taken the information to the FBI.

Corcoran was demoted, placed on “administrative leave”, and Adams “started an investigation for insubordination”.

After he was told he would be fired, according to the suit, Corcoran retired and sued the city. He recently settled for $400,000 and won back his job on the police force.

Meanwhile, the bankrupt city of San Bernardino is considering…cutting the city’s budget. No, really. (Edited to add: Or maybe not.)

I noticed this article yesterday, but didn’t have time to read it: Lawrence also sent me a link. Basically, police unions in California are behaving like bullies towards people who criticize them.

At a press conference held by [Costa Mesa Councilman Jim] Righeimer to spotlight the behavior of unions associated with Lackie, Dammeier & McGill, Councilman Fred Smith of Buena Park, who has also taken a tough stance on unions, said a uniformed officer approached waitresses and demanded to know why their restaurant had a Smith for Council sign in the window, as their squad cars blocked the restaurant parking lot entrance. Elected officials shared examples of threatening statements and text messages by police union operatives. [Costa Mesa] Councilman [Gary] Monahan has in the past said police have staked out his bar and pulled over patrons as they leave to harm his business.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

Morning random notes: September 4, 2012.

Tuesday, September 4th, 2012

Would you pay $18 for a 40-minute vinyl record of previously unreleased Charles Manson songs?

Yeah, I wouldn’t, either.

The album’s title, a vulgarity that means wasting time…

I want to come back to this later and elaborate on the idea some, but I’m getting more than a little tired of the mass media being coy in their reporting. (See also: Russian punk bands.)

Vasquez turned to the funding website Kickstarter to raise several thousand dollars to pay to have the album cover printed and 500 copies of the record pressed.

This kind of bothers me, too, but I’m not sure I can articulate why.

Headline in the NYT:

Gotham: A Summer of Easy Guns and Dead Children

First paragraph:

In Harlem, Paula Shaw-Leary talks of her youngest, Matt, who got his college degree in May and was accepted to graduate school…

Matt’s death is tragic, but a 21-year-old man who has been accepted to grad school is not a child.

(Gee, doesn’t NYC have strict gun control laws?)

I don’t think I ever saw anything Michael Clarke Duncan was in, and I wouldn’t say I was a big fan of his work. But 54 is just too young. (NYT. LAT. A/V Club.)

The Frank Lloyd Wright archive is moving to New York City. This sounds like a very good thing:

The models will live at MoMA, which has extensive conservation and exhibition experience. The museum will display them in periodic presentations and special exhibitions. The papers will be housed at Avery, whose librarians will make them available to researchers and educators starting at the end of next year.

(Well, a very good thing for everyone except Mike the Musicologist, who hates NYC.)

Headline from something called “The Root”, linked from the WP site:

Few African Americans at Burning Man

“Word Ends: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit”.

Posted in Art, California Über Alles, Clippings, Guns, Law, Media, Movies, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

Random notes, September 3, 2012.

Monday, September 3rd, 2012

Workers of the world, unite! Dyslexics of the world, untie!

In 2009, the two-year-old Southern lifestyle magazine [Garden and Gun -DB ] lost financial support from its first publisher. Its employees, many of whom had relocated from New York City to work here, were left with dwindling buyout packages and the promise of freelance pay. Real estate developers could no longer afford to buy advertisements, and some new prospects said they would not give a cent to the magazine until the owners took “gun” out of its title.

Oh, yes. Garden and Gun. I remember them. I was considering subscribing: that is, until they refused ads from the NRA. Now they can die in a fire, as far as I am concerned.

In other news, the NYT wants you to know that you should be careful buying art online.

My big question for the day: now that Reverend Moon is dead, how long will the Washington Times be around? I’ve gotten the distinct impression that it has survived that long purely because he wanted it that way, and his successors are not as wild about the paper as he was.

Mike Nesbitt has resigned as offensive coordinator at the University of Houston. That would be two days after the season opener, which they lost 30-13 to Texas State.

I’ve been kind of tied up the past couple of days and haven’t had a chance to blog the Austin Police Department acting as agent provocateurs to Occupy Austin story. I don’t really know what to make of it, so instead I’ll refer you to the Statesman story above, and the coverage from Grits for Breakfast here. (The other problem I have with this story is that much of the coverage comes from sources I don’t read and don’t trust.)

Speaking of Grits, he also has an interesting followup on the Texas Highway Patrol Association and other similar scam organizations.

Posted in Art, Austin, Clippings, Cops, Guns, Law, Media, Obits, Politics, Sports | Comments Closed

Bad boys, bad boys…

Friday, August 31st, 2012

Our first story is kind of strange.

Matthew Itkowitz was drinking tequila one fine night in March of 2008. Apparently, Mr. Itkowitz got into an argument with his wife; Mrs. Itkowitz ran up to several people, including a man named Ryan Gonzalez, who were standing nearby, and asked for help.

Mr. Itkowitz claims that Mr. Gonzalez brandished a handgun, threatened to kill him, then punched Mr. Itkowitz and knocked him to the ground. Mr. Itkowitz deployed his own weapon and shot Mr. Gonzalez five times, killing him.

…the Los Angeles district attorney’s office declined to prosecute Itkowitz in 2010, despite concluding that his account of the shooting was “patently inconsistent” with video footage captured by a wall-mounted security camera in the alley.

Mr. Itkowitz has now been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of “deprivation of rights under color of law, using a firearm in relation to a crime of violence and obstruction of justice”.

The video footage in question appears to show Mr. Itkowitz pulling his gun and hiding it behind his right leg as Mr. Gonzalez walks away from him.

Still walking toward the tattoo parlor, Gonzalez turns back toward Itkowitz and motions for him to leave. When he doesn’t, Gonzalez turns and walks several steps back in Itkowitz’s direction. He is about 10 to 12 feet away when Itkowitz raises his gun and fires.

By the way, Mr. Itkowitz is a deputy US marshal.

Meanwhile, the LAPD is investigating five of their officers after a woman died in their custody.

And Lance White had his 2009 conviction for weapons possession overturned by a federal appeals court in Manhattan. Why?

…should have been able to tell the jury that the main witness against him, a New York City police detective, had been found to have testified untruthfully in proceedings involving an unrelated gun case.

Noted:

…the panel’s decision made it “far more likely that future juries will hear that an officer has previously lied or somehow been found untruthful. And it will make prosecutors think twice before they use him in future cases.”

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Law | 1 Comment »

And we’ll have fun, fun, fun until Daddy takes the newspapers away…

Friday, August 31st, 2012

The street finds its own uses for things.

Oh, look! Julie Taymor and the “Spider-Man” producers have settled their lawsuit out of court.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed and representatives for Ms. Taymor declined to comment further on Thursday. A press representative for “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” also declined to comment.

Quel frommage!

The worst Division I football program in history?

Over 11 seasons, Savannah State, the self-proclaimed University by the Sea, in a charming city distinguished by oak trees that sprout Spanish moss, has won 17 games, just five against Division I teams. It has changed coaches six times — once because of a death — and had nine athletic directors, including interims. It has been placed on N.C.A.A. probation twice and faced a pair of embarrassing lawsuits that claimed racial discrimination.

Savannah State is playing Oklahoma State and Florida State in the first two games, and will collect $860,000 (“which represents about 17 percent of the Tigers’ modest athletic budget”) for those games.

By the way, last year was a “1-10 season that included losses by scores of 63-6, 41-6, 47-7, 45-3 and 59-3, in addition to a defeat at the hands of a team that had lost 29 conference games in a row.”

There’s an interesting piece in the LAT about George Perez, former city manager and city councilman in Cudahy. (Previously.) Perez has not been charged with any crimes, yet, but is a major figure in the criminal cases against other Cudahy officials:

…court documents repeatedly refer to a top city official identified as “G.P.” orchestrating much of the alleged wrongdoing. Two law enforcement sources said “G.P.” is George Perez.

Perez started out as a janitor in Cudahy and worked his way up to the city manager position

…despite his populist persona, rumors of corruption long flowed from Cudahy City Hall, where nothing seemed to happen without Perez’s blessing.

And this is kind of interesting:

By 2000, Perez, married and with four children, was serving on the City Council and working at a building materials store. Then he lost his job. The council changed city laws so it could appoint Perez city manager. A group of Southern California city managers were so disturbed by Perez’s elevation that they asked for a criminal investigation. County prosecutors launched a conflict-of-interest probe, but investigators were met with silence at Cudahy City Hall, they said. In a memo produced by the prosecutors, they wrote that it was “clear that Perez liked politics and power more than the building materials business.”

So there were concerns twelve years ago, but nothing happened? Quel frommage, again!

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Geek, Law, Loser, Sports, Theatre | 1 Comment »

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