Officer Kenneth Copeland of the San Marcos Police Department was killed yesterday.
Officer Copeland was assisting other officers in serving a warrant, and was shot by the suspect. He was 58 and had four kids.
Officer Copeland is the first San Marcos PD officer to die in the line of duty.
Also among the dead: John Anderson, former Congessman from Illinois, perhaps most famous for his presidential campaign as an independant against Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Actually, two: New York Football Giants head coach Ben McAdoo and general manager Jerry Reese.
From what I’ve read (somebody please correct me if I’m wrong), it wasn’t just the 2-10 record, though that was a big part of it. The team had previously said they weren’t going to fire McAdoo before the end of the season.
But then the whole Eli Manning thing blew up. Rumor has it that the Giants ownership are big, big Eli Manning fans, and they were not pleased with the benching and how it was handled.
I think we have a photo of that:
In other news, ESPN has their predictions for every bowl game up. I don’t care that much about the predictions, but this is a handy list of every bowl game (as far as I know): it’s fun to go down the list and pick out the silly ones.
For example, the “Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl”? The what? (“Cheribundi” is apparently some sort of bottled tart cherry drink that the makers are trying to position as a Muscle Milk/Gatorade competitor.)
And there’s the “Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl”, which, it turns out, is actually the reincarnation of the old Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl, which in turn became the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl for one year (and I guess hasn’t had a sponsor between 2015 and now).
I was thinking the list of bowl sponsors is awfully heavy on chicken: I still do, but research tells me that Popeye’s stopped sponsoring the Bahamas Bowl this year. Darn shame, that: we need to get them back into the bowl game swing. And I still want my Beef O’Brady’s Bowl, too.
At least I have the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl on the 22nd.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Cleveland.
I said last week that this was the game I was most worried about. As much as I hate the Chargers (and I do hate the Chargers) I’m glad they pulled out the win here.
The final four games are:
Packers in Cleveland.
Ravens in Cleveland.
Bears in Chicago.
Steelers in Pittsburgh.
Of those, I figure the Steelers and Ravens are near locks. The Packers: who knows? It looks like Rodgers won’t be playing until the week after this one, but they are 6-6 and beat Tampa Bay (granted, in overtime).
And the Bears are…bad. They just lost to San Francisco, for crying out loud (granted it was a close loss). But they will be playing at home.
Speaking of bad teams, San Francisco won…and the New York Football Giants lost, putting both teams at 2-10 and in line for second worst record this season (and the draft pick that comes with it). However, Indianapolis, Denver, and Chicago are all within striking distance.
And we may have a firing later today. Watch this space for updates.
Question #2: does athletics director John Currie quit, or get fired?
Answer: he got fired this morning, according to “reports”. The press conference is at 4 PM Eastern.
ESPN reports that Currie was in LA yesterday, interviewing Mike Leach (!).
And I don’t have another good place to put this, so I’ll stick it here:
The discovery on this case has the potential to be interesting like a train wreck. I can smell the popcorn now…
Dabrett Black is the man who shot Trooper Damon Allen to death on Thanksgiving Day.
Mr. Black was allowed to plead to a misdemeanor charge instead of two felony charges. The plea was not approved by the local DA or his assistant, which is apparently a violation of policy. However, the current DA has said he’s not going to fire the ADA who took the plea. That current ADA is running for the DA position, and doesn’t have any opposition.
When the shooting occurred, Black was free on $15,500 bail in another Smith County incident where he was charged with assault on an officer and evading arrest after a police chase this summer ended with Black allegedly ramming a patrol car.
Probation officers had told staff to be careful of Black in internal emails after the 2015 attack, according to the material obtained by WFAA. In a July 2015 email, a probation officer told staff he believed Black was trying to provoke them into responding and encouraged them to be vigilant both inside and outside the office because he believed Black was the kind of guy who would ambush someone.
Back in September, a man named Brandon Berrott was arrested and charged with making terroristic threats against his girlfriend. After his arrest, the threats continued: he was jailed “at least” three time, had to post bail, and lost his job.
The girlfriend, Lisa Marie Garcia, ultimately called the mayor of Baytown and complained that the state district judge who was presiding over the cases against Berrott was taking bribes to let Berrott out on bail.
And you won’t believe what happened next, as BuzzFeed would say:
Yes, it’s another classic “b—-h set me up!” case that turns out to be true.
After her boyfriend made bail, Garcia set up Instagram accounts pretending to be him and sent messages to herself and the other woman threatening to kill each of them for calling the cops on him. She then took the messages to the Baytown Police Department and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, leading to seven charges being filed between Oct. 21 and Oct. 31.
Each time he got out on bail, Garcia would fake more messages and call the police, landing Berrott back in jail or court. He was accused of violating his bond conditions and no-contact orders.
Mr. Berrott was lucky enough to have an attorney who actually believed in his innocence, and who was able to convince the authorities to do more investigation.
[Britni] Cooper [the prosecutor – DB] said the onslaught of charges in October did not immediately raise red flags because the complaints were filed with different agencies. Once the DA’s office, the sheriff’s office and Baytown police department put the pieces together, the pattern and the holes, were easy to see.
As the investigation continued, she said prosecutors were instructed to stop accepting charges from Garcia, who continued calling the police and filing false reports even while Berrott was working with authorities to clear his name.
What kind of holes?
The defense attorney was Carl Moore. Folks in Baytown, remember that name, and please throw some business his way if you can: it sounds like he’s one of the good guys. The scary thing is: how many other people are in jail for similar reasons, and don’t have that kind of support network?
This news broke late last night, while I was at the CPA class, so I wasn’t able to blog it at the time, and it has been covered a lot elsewhere. But I did want to say a few things about the acquittal of Jose Ines Garcia Zarate on charges of killing Kate Steinle, since I’ve touched on it before.
1. I’ve written before about my belief that “the verdict of a jury deserves a certain amount of deference“. I still believe that: the jury was there, I wasn’t, the jury saw and heard all the evidence, I didn’t, the jury deliberated, I didn’t. But sometimes, it’s real hard to hold on to your principles. Then again, if it was easy to have principles, would they be principles?
2. In that vein, “Law is the manifest will of the people, the conscious rule of the community.” But a lot of the comments I was reading last night at Instapundit are…disturbing. Have we really reached the point where people are ready to form lynch mobs?
(“Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?”)
3. There’s a lot of smart stuff from other people out there on this case. In particular:
To expand just a bit on @rumpfshaker’s very good post — it doesn’t just matter whether you give a jury the option of a lesser included offense, like manslaughter. It matters how you argue it to the jury. /1
— Sign Popehat's Yearbook (@Popehat) December 1, 2017
(Follow the thread from there.)
4. Also smart: Sarah Rumpf’s “Have We Been Lied to About the Kate Steinle Case?” There’s a lot in there that I didn’t know: I wasn’t following the case that closely, but other people have said the same thing. For example, the bullet that hit Steinle was actually a ricochet off the concrete pier.
There’s also some things that I have problems with, which are not Ms. Rumpf’s fault. In particular, the whole thing about the SIG being unusually prone to “accidental discharge”. I don’t own any SIGs: Mike the Musicologist is the SIG (and FN) guy. I also don’t own one of those cool trigger pull measuring gadgets, so I can’t tell you what the trigger pull on any of my auto pistols is. It looks like standard trigger pull on a Glock is somewhere between 5.3 and 6 pounds according to GlockTalk.
Is 4.4 pounds too light? That seems questionable. And a lot of those cited incidents seem to involve holstering the gun: could the problem not be with the SIG, but with people not keeping their booger hook off the bang switch?
But:
It’s also not clear to me which model of SIG was involved in the shooting. I think this whole “bad gun!” thing needs some more investigation, and my short notes are already long enough as it is.
5. Also smart: Patterico on California homicide law. (Has anyone ever seen Patterico and Ken White in the same room together? Just asking.)
Before we jump into this week’s column, we wanted to link to an article on the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network’s website: “Projected 2018 NFL draft order: Browns inch closer to top pick“.
It shouldn’t come as any great shock that the Browns are in pole position, but who comes in second? And third? Hint: one of our regular readers isn’t going to like where their team falls.
Also, this amuses us, but we are simple people:
Of course, there’s no reason for him to stay at USC. All he has to do is tell Cleveland, “No, I won’t play for you if you draft me.” (This is also known as the Eli Manning gambit.)
Anyway. After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Shot:
White men who fear poverty are more attached to their guns, Baylor study finds
Chaser:
(Warning! Slideshow!)
A photographer documents heat-packing women and the guns they love
(Warning! Slideshow!)
David Fizdale out as head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies. I do believe this is the first coach firing of the NBA season.
He was 50-51 after a little more than a year with the team. The big problems seem to be that he was 7-12 so far this season, they’ve lost eight games in a row, and Mr. Fizdale got crosswise with Marc Gasol (one of the team’s star players).
In other news, Ty Detmer is also out as offensive coordinator for BYU.
David Bailiff out as head coach at Rice.
He’d been there for 11 seasons and was 57-80 overall.
He also took Rice to four bowl games.
After going 3-9 in Bailiff’s first season in 2007, Rice rebounded with a 10-3 year and won the Texas Bowl in 2008. But since winning the Owls’ first outright conference title in 56 years in 2013, Bailiff’s teams have done progressively worse.
Rice went 8-5 in 2014 and won the Hawaii Bowl. They ended 2015 with a 5-7 record and finished 3-9 in 2016.
And they were 1-11 this year, which is not a good look.
…I think this is the strangest football story (college or pro) I’ve seen so far this season. I didn’t know anything about it until this morning when I checked my phone: Mike the Musicologist had pinged me overnight, but the media wasn’t covering this when I wrote last night’s loser/firings update.
But I digress. As you know, Bob, Tennessee fired Butch Jones a few weeks ago. So they’ve been looking for a replacement, and found one…
…Greg Schiano, current defensive coordinator with Ohio State.
The name “Greg Schiano” may ring some bells with longtime readers. Gregg Easterbrook had serious issues with Mr. Schiano during his previous coaching tenures, which include a stint at Tampa Bay (where he was fired after going 11-21) and at Rutgers for 11 years before that (where he was 68-67). Most of Easterbrook’s issues seemed to be with Mr. Schiano’s alleged lack of “sportsmanship”: Mr. Schiano famously bragged about telling his teams to disrupt kneel-down plays.
Anyway. The university apparently signed a “memorandum of understanding” with Mr. Schiano, and word got out on Sunday.
Hilarity ensued. If by “hilarity” you mean “a massive s–t fit”.
Tennessee students, fans, and some political figures did not like the idea of hiring Mr. Schiano. At least part of the objection seems to be that Mr. Sciano’s previous coaching stints also include a stop at Penn State during the Sandusky era.
Schiano was known in the NFL as being a domineering leader with a challenging personality.
Giggle. Snort.
Now Tennessee has apparently backed out of the deal. USA Today. ESPN.
Question 1: does Tennessee owe Mr. Schiano money? And if so, how much?
There are reports that TN will owe Schiano $20 million in a buyout for a contract that was signed but TN backed… https://t.co/fouiHHZmjl
— Brad Jones (@BradJonesBBBTV) November 27, 2017
I think Brad Jones knows more about this stuff than I do, but $20 million seems unlikely to me. I can see this costing the university some money, maybe even in the seven-figure range. But it looks like Mr. Schiano still has his Ohio State job, and the contract was “subject to approval” by the board of regents…
Question #2: does athletics director John Currie quit, or get fired?
Look, national media can think what they want about us, but at no point in history has every member of #VolTwitter AND the Tennessee media agreed on something. That's how big of a deal this Schiano thing is.
— Brian Rice (@briancrice) November 26, 2017
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Cleveland.
I remain cautiously optimistic. The Browns play the woeful Chargers next Sunday, and the Chargers are the team that ruined Cleveland’s shot at a perfect season last year. But: the Browns are playing in LA, those Chargers are 5-6, and they just beat Dallas at home (on Thanksgiving, yet, so those Chargers will have a few extra days to get ready and healthy).
Firings watch: in a move that was speculated on before Thanksgiving, Texas A&M fired Kevin Sumlin. He was 51-26 over six seasons, and the team is 7-5 (4-4 in conference).
As one of the articles I read put it: they were paying Sumlin %5 million a year, and just finished renovations to Kyle Field. They want and expect better than 7-5.
As much as I dislike linking ESPN, here’s a handy chart of coach firings for you.
What do we always say, folks?
That’s right: don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.
Mike Riley out as Nebraska head coach. 19-19 over three seasons.
And this isn’t sportshirings.com, but that soft wet sound you heard recently? That was the sound of Gregg Easterbrook’s head exploding. (For those who don’t remember, Easterbrook had some sort of grudge against Chip Kelly during his NFL coaching career, and wasn’t hesitant to advance that grudge in his column.)
And, of course, we have questions:
This literally just in: the other shoe has dropped in Arkansas. Bret Bielema out as head coach. He was 29-34 overall in five seasons, with a record of 4-8 overall and 1-7 in SEC play this season.
My prediction: Cleveland gets the first pick and takes either Darnold or Rosen. SF gets the second pick and takes whichever one Cleveland doesn’t. Whoever Cleveland takes plays for two years, gets battered and beaten, then gets tossed aside for another first round draft choice quarterback, and is probably out of the NFL by 2025.
I wish I didn’t think this: I’d like to see the Browns win a Superb Owl in my lifetime. But how many franchise quarterbacks have they drafted or signed from elsewhere over the years?
