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Down here in Arizona, everyone needs an AK 47 because the feds gave them to the Mexicans and our 357M ain't enough firepower.
Brian Terry could tell you that as the agents fired "beenbags" at the smugglers. He lost!
Special Report: Bloomberg reloads in push for gun control
By Emily Flitter | Reuters – 11 hrs ago.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Among the slick, million-dollar ads for the likes of Pepsi and Honda during the Super Bowl this Sunday, viewers in Washington will see a far more modest spot. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino will be sitting on a couch touting an issue most politicians avoid like the plague: gun control.
The two mayors, whose local teams face off in the big game, are making the pitch for Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), the organization they co-founded in 2006.
Murder has been on the decline in New York and other major American cities for years, but the mayors say they still see too many dead cops and teens. On Tuesday night, Bloomberg was at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan visiting a New York police officer who had just been shot in the face in Brooklyn.
"We have someone who's dedicated his life to protecting all of us, who has had a much too close brush with death tonight because of what appears to be an illegal gun," Bloomberg told a news conference. He added that more Americans have been killed by illegal guns since 1968 than were killed in World War II.
Candidates for local and national office in the U.S. have faced sharp backlashes for advocating restraints on gun ownership, such as assault weapons or guns on campus. Such pushes draw fire from the well-funded National Rifle Association (NRA) and its allies. For many defenders of the Constitution's Second Amendment - the right to bear arms - guns are the single issue on which they vote.
"We have to face the fact that both Democrats and Republicans have for a while viewed this as the third rail of American politics," said John Feinblatt, who helps run MAIG as Bloomberg's chief advisor for policy and strategic planning. (Bloomberg is an independent; Menino is a Democrat.)
Democrats, who are more likely than Republicans to favor some restrictions on gun ownership, made a conscious decision to stay away from the gun issue in the 2010 midterm congressional elections. The aim: protect the so-called Blue Dog conservative Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, who didn't toe the party line on gun control. Most were defeated anyway.
If the Democratic Party hoped to keep the gun issue off center stage in the 2012 presidential race, MAIG's campaign makes that unlikely. So does the fact that the NRA and the gun industry's trade group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), have announced they will have a combined war chest of $225 million.
"We are anticipating having a voter-education effort that will be our largest effort ever," said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel at the NSSF.
NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre echoed the sentiment.
"I don't think this is going to be an apathetic year for American gun owners."
NO MORE CANDLES
New York's activist mayor cannot simply restrict handguns in his city - as he has done with smoking and transfats. Two Supreme Court decisions - District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago - have declared such local initiatives unconstitutional. Instead, Bloomberg launched MAIG, which now has 600 members nationwide. Although it has a handful of private donors, the bulk of MAIG's $4 million budget comes out of the mayor's own pocket.
"He's putting his money where his mouth is," said Carolyn McCarthy, a Democratic congresswoman from Long Island. She entered politics after a 1993 shooting spree on the Long Island Rail Road left her husband dead and her son severely injured.
Bloomberg, in his third and last term, is free from concerns about electability and can tap a personal fortune of $19.5 billion, according to a November estimate by Forbes. As for speculation that he might mount a presidential bid this round or next, his leadership on such a divisive issue makes that look less likely.
"There was a lot of political capital that was poured into this," one person who worked closely with MAIG said.
In the past, advocates for stricter gun controls held marches, rallies and candlelight vigils. MAIG has taken a far more activist approach, conducting undercover investigations and sting operations that are then dramatically revealed to the press.
In 2009, New York City contracted the security firm Kroll Inc. to send undercover agents to gun shows in Ohio, Tennessee and Nevada to show how people who could not pass a background check easily bought guns.
MAIG also used undercover investigators to expose gun dealers who sold to "straw purchasers," buyers intending to quickly resell the guns on the black market. Another investigation identified online gun sellers who did not require background checks.
Bloomberg launched another probe after the January 2011 shooting in Arizona that killed six people and wounded 13, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Using city money, he sent undercover investigators to Arizona to repeat the gun show sting and prove how easy it was for someone like Jared Lee Loughner, the shooter, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, to get a gun.
That move enraged supporters of unfettered gun rights.
"The 'sting' was a waste of money that misleads Americans and did nothing to reduce crime," wrote John Lott Jr., an economist who writes about guns, in a column on FoxNews.com. "Talk about an aggressive publicity stunt."
The NSSF's Keane said there are serious problems with many MAIG actions. He cited another investigation in which MAIG used gun data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to sue dealers found to be selling guns to straw buyers.
"The New York City police department went to the ATF, traced data, turned that traced data over to private investigators, violated federal law, and interfered in 18 ongoing criminal investigations," he said. "The ATF had to pull agents out of the field because they were placed at risk."
Marc Lavorgna, a spokesman for the New York City mayor's office, said in response: "They can't argue the substance, so they continue to make a false, tired claim that has been directly refuted by the ATF. And the courts have validated that our investigations were legal."
The ATF did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Opponents of the mayors' efforts have also seized on a Department of Justice program codenamed "Fast and Furious" to discredit sting operations. Beginning in 2009, the ATF, investigating a gun-trafficking network in Arizona and Mexico, supplied 2,000 illegal guns they hoped to trace through the system so they could catch the leaders. Instead, they lost track of hundreds of the guns - two of which were found near the murder scene of Brian Terry, a border patrol agent, in 2010.
Last Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder was called before a congressional committee for a second time to explain how the program went bad. He repeated that senior Justice Department and ATF officials had not known about the operation until it was over.
REAL CHANGE
Members of the MAIG say they are not trying to take guns away from their legal owners, just to close loopholes that allow criminals to get guns and move them around undetected.
"It's a serious safety issue," said Margaret Stock, the Democratic mayor of Butler, Pennsylvania, the town of 13,000 where Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum spent part of his childhood. "If an officer gets shot with an illegal gun I'm responsible."
Butler is in a sparsely populated area of western Pennsylvania where the first day of deer hunting season is often a school holiday.
"We're a big hunting community, but this is illegal handguns, it's a totally different issue," Stock said. "I had a little bit of backlash from local members of the NRA that I was somehow anti-gun. That was not the intent of the coalition."
MAIG's efforts have spurred some change. In 2008, Wal-Mart signed the voluntary 10-point code of conduct MAIG developed for gun sellers. It includes videotaping the area of a store where guns are sold, setting up a computerized gun tracing and alert system, and performing background checks on its employees.
An Ohio gun show operator identified in MAIG's 2009 sting began offering police and federal firearms agents a free booth at his shows to strengthen background checks and help dealers recognize straw buyers, according to the Dayton Daily News.
MAIG claims on its website that "four out of the seven gun shows and venues" fingered in the 2009 investigation "have changed their practices."
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
No one thinks gun control is going to be the most important issue in 2012, but there are specific races and constituencies where it certainly will matter.
One such race is northwestern Arkansas, where a 33-year-old Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran named Ken Aden is challenging his former battalion commander for a Congressional seat. Aden is running as a progressive Democrat; his Republican opponent, Steve Womack, is a freshman incumbent, part of the Tea Party sweep of the 2010 midterm elections.
Aden, who has already met with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and other party officials in Washington, has strong views on guns. He collects them, and say he knows what damage they can do. When Aden was 16 his father was shot and killed by his stepmother in a domestic dispute, using his dad's own 357 magnum and his shotgun. The shooting was ruled a justifiable homicide, Aden says; his stepmother has since died."
"We've got to keep guns out of the wrong hands," Aden said.
He supports the background checks mandated by the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and has pledged in his platform to "fight to make sure that dangerous assault rifles and ammunition with no practical purpose in hunting, self-protection, or sport shooting ... stay off our streets."
Womack, for his part has co-sponsored several pieces of legislation to reinforce Second Amendment rights, including a bill that would force states to honor other states' concealed carry permits.
"New, more stringent gun laws will not keep guns out of the hands of criminals," Womack told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in January 2011, after the Tucson shootings. "Rather, proper enforcement of our current laws will provide the necessary mechanisms to ensure the well-being of the American people."
The NRA is telling supporters that President Obama will outlaw guns in a second term by appointing Supreme Court justices to reverse the gains made in the Heller and McDonald decisions. The White House denies that it has any such aim.
"The real threat to the Second Amendment is the reelection of President Obama," said LaPierre.
He believes that other Democratic candidates will stay away from gun issues so as not to draw attention to Obama's ultimate game plan.
"Their strategy is to fog the issue through the 2012 election, because they don't want the Second Amendment or guns to prevent the reelection of President Obama," LaPierre said of the Democrats.
SWING VOTERS
Democratic strategist Celinda Lake, who has spent many years polling on gun issues, said her data suggest two audiences will be open to gun-control measures in the 2012 elections: Latinos and suburban women.
Her firm, Lake Research Partners, conducted a poll in late October for MAIG that found 76 percent of Latinos supported a new program requiring gun dealers in border states to report when someone attempts to buy more than one semi-automatic rifle within a five-day period.
Suburban women, Lake said, who are known to be swing voters, want guns kept out of their neighborhoods.
In addition to his work with MAIG, Mayor Bloomberg is keeping a close eye on elections all around the country. He has already backed six candidates for Virginia's state senate with contributions of $25,000 each, and may give to more candidates.
MAIG's Feinblatt said the group had not yet identified congressional races it wanted to support, but, he added, "We're always watching."
http://news.yahoo.com/special-report-bloomberg-reloads-push-gun-control-075206659.html
Man Dies After Eating Ounce of Cocaine Out Of Brother's Butt
By JULIA JACOBO
December 20, 2011
SOUTH CAROLINA (PIX11)— After eating an ounce of cocaine hidden in his brother's buttocks, a South Carolina man died soon after.
Deangelo Mitchell, 23, and his brother Wayne, 20, were in the back of a North Charleston Police Department cruiser on Nov. 30. The duo was being transported to jail when they began whispering about narcotics hidden inside the older sibling.
The Mitchells were arrested when a police officer found three small bags of cocaine underneath a rear seat of their 2001 Chrysler. It is evident in video footage that Deangelo Mitchell encouraged his younger brother to ingest the cocaine. The older Mitchell has a lengthy record and was concerned that he could face life in prison if convicted of a narcotics charge. "I can't get no more strikes," he told his brother.
He further directed his brother to "Eat that s***" and "Chew that s***."
In the footage, Wayne Mitchell can be seen, in handcuffs, reaching back to retrieve the cocaine from his brother. He then drops his head while he eats the cocaine.
Wayne Mitchell soon after began convulsing and bleeding from his mouth. "White powder residue" was found on the rear seat of the police cruiser, cops noted. Deangelo later said "he believed his brother swallowed an ounce of cocaine."
Wayne Mitchell died within an hour of ingesting the cocaine.
Deangelo Mitchell was initially charged with narcotics trafficking and was released from custody after posting $50,000 bond. But after a review of the police footage, authorities rearrested him Tuesday, charging him with involuntary manslaughter in connection with his brother's death.
http://www.ky3.com/news/wpix-man-dies-eating-ounce-cocaine,0,6503301.story
A friend sent me a copy of a rather interesting article a couple of days ago. It covers the results of one man's study of 'stopping power' of individual calibers - that age-old subject of zillions of arguments. I thought it was extraordinarily well done, and most of all, the author has (or disclaims anyway) no sort of financial or proprietary interest in any certain ammo company. Go read it when you get time. You'll either agree with it (as I largely do) or disagree ... and the author has a good answer to those who disagree .....
Go read it when you have a few minutes. Let me know what you think. At the very least, it will get you to thinking a bit.
http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/7866
North Carolina Death Row Inmate Writes Letter About Life of 'Leisure'
By CHRISTINA NG | ABC News – 9 hrs ago...
A convicted murderer on death row in North Carolina wrote a taunting letter to his hometown newspaper about his life of "leisure" in prison and making a mockery of the legal system.
Danny Robbie Hembree Jr. was found guilty of murdering 17-year-old Heather Catterton in 2009 and was sentenced to death on Nov. 18, 2011.
Hembree, 50, is on death row at Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C., but he's not looking for any pity in the letter he sent to The Gaston Gazette.
"Is the public aware that I am a gentleman of leisure, watching color TV in the A.C., reading, taking naps at will, eating three well balanced hot meals a day," Hembree asked in the letter. "I'm housed in a building that connects to the new 55 million dollar hospital with round the clock free medical care 24/7."
He also asks if the public knows that the chances of his "lawful murder" taking place in the next 20 years, if ever, are "very slim."
Hembree has also been accused of killing two other women. One was 30-year-old Randi Dean Saldana, whose burnt remains were found near Blacksburg, S.C. in 2009. The other was 30-year-old Deborah Ratchford, whose body was found in 1992.
He admitted to taking drugs and having sex with Catterton and Saldana on the days they died, but told jurors he did not kill them or dispose of their bodies, according to ABC News' Raleigh-Durham affiliate WTVD. He is scheduled to go on trial for Saldana's killing in March.
Hembree confessed to killing the three women during recorded police interviews, but later said the confessions were an attempt to cover up a string of armed robberies, according to the Gaston Gazette.
In the letter, Hembree also mocks the judicial system.
"I laugh at you self righteous clowns and I spit in the face of your so called justice system. The state of North Carolina has sentenced me to death but it's not real," he wrote.
North Carolina State Representative Paul Stam told WTVD that the letter is a travesty of justice. He said that it is more likely that Hembree will die of natural causes than of the death penalty.
"His punishment does not fit his crime at all," Stam said.
Hembree tells the citizens of Gaston County, N.C., that they should petition that state and force them to carry out his "murder sentence."
The Gaston County District Attorney's Office did not immediately respond to request for comment.
"I am a man who is ready to except [sic] his unjustful punishment and face God almighty with a clean conscience unlike you cowards and your cowardly system," Hembree wrote. "Kill me if you can suckers. Ha! Ha! Ha!"
The letter is signed, "Sincerely, Danny Hembree."
http://news.yahoo.com/north-carolina-death-row-inmate-writes-letter-life-152637993--abc-news.html
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Yet another 'accomplishment' of liberals in this country.
Anyone actually believe this guy could be innocent, and needs a 20 year appellate process?
Thank you sir - good post/information.
When Stopped By Police & Carrying
Tips When Stopped By Police
by Personal Defense TV
May 27, 2011
Lethal Force Institute’s Massad Ayoob gives Host Tom Gresham some essential tips for safely interacting with police when carrying a firearm while driving your vehicle:
http://www.gunsandammo.com/2011/05/27/tips-when-stopped-by-police/
****************
Progressiveness Must Die Today,
In Order That We May Be Free Tomorrow
OMG/OBAMA MUST GO - NOBAMA IN 2012!!!
Oklahoma Mother, 18, Kills Intruder Breaking Into Her Home While on Phone With 911
11 hours ago - ABC News 2:11 | 4,115,421 views
911 operator told young mother she could not shoot until man entered her home.
Watch it here:
http://gma.yahoo.com/video/news-26797925/oklahoma-mother-18-kills-intruder-breaking-into-her-home-while-on-phone-with-911-27777235.html#crsl=%252Fvideo%252Fnews-26797925%252Foklahoma-mother-18-kills-intruder-breaking-into-her-home-while-on-phone-with-911-27777235.html
Sorry about the ad .........
This little gal doesn't take any crap!
Lost homework leads to NY boy's burglary arrest
AP – 4 hrs ago...
LIBERTY, N.Y. (AP) — A 12-year-old upstate New York boy may be wishing that his dog ate his homework.
Police in the village of Liberty tell the Times Herald-Record of Middletown that officers used math homework to track down a boy suspected of breaking into an auction house Saturday night.
The owner said he arrived Sunday morning and discovered that a window had been removed and jewelry, cellphones, video games and other items had been stolen from his business.
Police say homework with the suspect's name on it was found in the woods behind the auction house.
The youth has been charged with burglary. His case is being handled in Sullivan County Family Court.
___
Information from: http://news.yahoo.com/lost-homework-leads-ny-boys-burglary-arrest-134517671.html
..
Just everyone who wants one.
Just like everyoen who wants a religion can have it.
Actually, I am out of the AK business ...
More into the AR 10/LR 308 business these days .. (American made, you know!)
You got yours but nobody else needs theirs.
Oh gosh ......... What if I just say "OK"?
I am just wondering.....why does everybody need a gun.
Let's play......No one needs an AK 47......,,too much fire power.
How the Recent Debt Ceiling Law Affects Gun Owners
Friday, 05 August 2011 11:26
Well, the hot debate which dominated the nation for several weeks has finally simmered down. The debt ceiling deal is now law, and both sides of the political aisle are arguing over who won and who lost.
But one thing you won’t hear about -- in fact, we may not fully know the answer for several months -- is how much gun owners lost in this recent deal.
To quote Kentucky Senator Rand Paul from earlier this week:
The Super Committee [created by the new law] limits the constitutional check of the filibuster by expediting passage of bills with a simple majority. The Super Committee is not precluded from any issue [including gun control], therefore the filibuster could be rendered moot.
Get that? The law raising the debt ceiling creates a Super Committee (in other words, a Super Congress) which will give its recommendations for balancing the budget. This Super Congress can include ANYTHING in its legislation, including gun control.
And none of it can be filibustered or amended!!
Well, you might think, the Super Congress’ recommendations still have to be voted on by each house of Congress. Surely, we can find enough congressmen to shoot down any anti-gun recommendations.
Maybe, maybe not ... because here’s the problem. Whatever this super-committee reports in November, including gun control, will HAVE to be passed -- or the Pentagon loses a total of $800 billion (effectively shutting it down).
How many pro-gun congressmen will feel they have to “hold their noses” and vote for the Super Congress’ legislation to prevent a total of $800 billion from being cut from the Department of Defense?
The key will be who gets appointed to this Super Committee. Senator Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi will pick six members -- as will House Speaker John Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell, for a total of 12 members.
But if the six Pelosi/Reid Democrats can cower a single Republican into going along with their radical agenda -– using the threat of a massive defense cut totaling hundreds of billions of dollars -– then we could be stuck with additional gun control.
We already know that the six Pelosi/Reid Democrats are going to vote in lockstep. What if the only Republican vote they need is a RINO like John McCain or Lamar Alexander?
The question answers itself.
By the way, this debt ceiling deal was not a compromise. A real compromise would have repealed the anti-gun ObamaCare law which (in addition to being a trillion dollar boondoggle) will compile everyone’s health-related medical records into a massive computer database. This centralized information could allow the FBI to determine whether any American has a medical condition justifying a gun ban.
Please check and see how your Representative and Senators voted, and make a point to speak to them during the summer recess.
ACTION: Your representative and senators will be holding town hall meetings in August. Attend them. Speak at them.
Tell your representative and senators, politely but firmly, that you are disgusted by Congress’ debt limit “compromise.”
TALKING POINTS:
1. There is NOTHING in the debt ceiling deal which prevents the Super Committee from including other issues like gun control in its legislation. (The Super Committee has virtually unlimited authority under subparagraph 401(b)(3)(A)(i).)
2. Whatever the Super Committee puts in the bill is unamendable and non-filibusterable. In other words, the House and Senate must conduct an up-or-down vote on the Super Committee’s legislation.
3. You have put a gun to the head of every congressman by forcing them to choose between devastating Defense Department cuts ($800 billion in total) or blindly adopting the Super Committee’s legislation, which could include gun control, tax increases, etc.
4. This debt ceiling deal was not a compromise. A real compromise would have repealed the anti-gun ObamaCare law which (in addition to being a trillion dollar boondoggle) will compile everyone’s health-related medical records into a massive computer database. This centralized information could allow the FBI to determine whether any American has a medical condition justifying a gun ban.
5. IF YOUR REP. OR SENATOR VOTED “YES” ON THE DEBT CEILING, THEN ASK HIM THIS: Considering the fact that two-thirds of the American people support a “cut, cap and balance” approach, why would you vote for a debt ceiling bill that could, ultimately, strap me with additional gun control proposals?
http://gunowners.org/a08052011.htm
---------------------------------------------
Evidently, I am not the only one who foresees real problems with this 'super committee/supercongress" bullshit ... I have a very bad feeling about this whole thing.
ATF agents denounce rogue guns transfers
Not told of ‘insane’ operation of arms allowed to go south to Mexico cartels
ATF field agents working in Mexico broke ranks with their supervisors Tuesday during a rancorous five-hour House committee hearing, saying they were kept in the dark about a controversial undercover operation in which hundreds of guns ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Carlos Canino, the ATF acting attache to Mexico; Darren Gil, former attache; and Jose Wall, senior agent in Tijuana, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee they had serious concerns about the alarming rate of guns found in violent crimes in Mexico whose source was “Operation Fast and Furious” in Arizona.
“I would like to apologize to my former Mexican law enforcement counterparts and to the Mexican people for Operation Fast and Furious,” said Mr. Gil. “I hope they understand that this was kept secret from most of ATF, including me and my colleagues in Mexico.”
Mr. Gil said he found it “inconceivable” that any competent ATF agent would allow “firearms to disappear at all,” especially on an international border. As a result, he said, the Mexican people will continue to suffer the consequences of narcotics-related firearms violence.
In emotional and often angry comments, Mr. Canino said “walking guns” was not a recognized investigative technique, adding that hundreds of weapons ultimately went to ruthless criminals in Mexico.
“It infuriates me that people, including my law enforcement, diplomatic and military colleagues, may be killed or injured with these weapons,” he said, describing the Fast and Furious program as “insane” and adding that he was unable to defend it to government officials in Mexico who already think the U.S. is indifferent to Mexican violence and death.
“I have reason to believe we were kept in the dark because the ATF leadership in Phoenix feared we would tell our Mexican partners,” he said, adding that “never in my wildest dreams” would he have thought that ATF agents would allow guns to be walked to Mexican criminals.
Mr. Wall testified that he was skeptical when critical stories about the operation first appeared earlier this year, saying he “could not believe that someone in ATF would so callously let firearms wind up in the hands of criminals … But it appears I was wrong, that hundreds and quite possibly thousands of guns have been allowed to reach the hands of organized crime.”
William McMahon, ATF deputy assistant director for field operations in Phoenix and Mexico, and William Newell, former ATF special agent in charge of the Phoenix field division, steadfastly defended the program, denying a growing body of evidence showing that as many as 2,000 weapons were allowed to be walked or taken into Mexico.
Sitting next to the ATF field agents and subjected to testy exchanges with members of the committee, Mr. McMahon, the highest-ranking ATF official to testify publicly about the operation, accepted responsibility for what he described as “mistakes” in carrying out the program, but said ATF had good intentions when it began the operation in 2009.
“It was not the purpose of the investigation to permit the transportation of firearms into Mexico,” Mr. Newell added. “To the best of my knowledge, none of the suspects in this case was ever witnessed by our agents crossing the border with firearms.”
Mr. Newell said he would do such an investigation again with some changes.
The operation has drawn widespread criticism, sparking questions on who outside the agency knew that weapons were being taken from “straw buyers” in this country to Mexico. President Obama has said he did not authorize the program, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., also has pleaded ignorance, calling for an investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General.
At the Tuesday hearing, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, who heads the department’s Criminal Division, was described as being aware of the Fast and Furious operation, even touting it during a visit to Mexico.
Rep. Darrell E. Issa, California Republican and committee chairman, said the consequences of arming Mexican drug cartels seemed obvious, but as the weapons kept turning up at crime scenes in Mexico, there “wasn’t enough for Justice Department officials to arrest straw purchasers and shut down their trafficking operations.”
“Tragically, it wasn’t until Fast and Furious guns were found at the murder scene of a Border Patrol agent that Justice officials finally ended this reckless and arrogant effort,” Mr. Issa said, referring to the two ATF supervisors as the “paid non-answerers” as he unsuccessfully tried to get them to admit that ATF allowed the guns to be walked over the border.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the committee’s ranking Democrat, told Mr. Newell his testimony was “a frustration” to members of both parties.
When asked by Mr. Cummings to define how guns would be deemed as having been “walked” into Mexico, Mr. Newell responded they would have had to be handed by a law enforcement agent to the straw buyers and not by a gun shop owner, as they were, to meet his definition.
At least 122 weapons linked to Operation Fast and Furious have been recovered at crime scenes in Mexico, according to a report released Tuesday by Mr. Issa and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. More than 1,000 weapons are still unaccounted for, the report said.
The report also said there was “little to no information sharing” from the Phoenix field division, ATF headquarters and the Justice Department to colleagues in Mexico on the Fast and Furious program. It described the operation as “reckless,” saying it made unprecedented use of a dangerous investigative technique known as gun walking, rather than intervening and seizing the illegally purchased firearms.
The weapons, the report said, included AK-47 assault rifles, Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifles, .38-caliber revolvers and FN-57 semiautomatic pistols.
According to the report, Mr. Gil and Mr. Canino called the agency’s Washington headquarters and the Phoenix field office to express their concerns about the flood of weapons “only to be brushed aside.” The report also said ATF personnel in Arizona denied ATF officials in Mexico access to crucial information about the operation.
“Rather than share information, senior leadership within both ATF and the Department of Justice (DOJ) assured their representatives in Mexico that everything was ‘under control.’ The growing number of weapons recovered in Mexico, however, indicated otherwise,” the report said.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jul/26/atf-agents-denounce-rogue-guns-transfers/
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So, President Obama thinks it 'dangerous' to allow the re-importation of surplus mlitary rifles from Korea back to the US (for sale to Americans who would have to undergo background NCIS checks before buying them)... but evidently it is not dangerous to allow 50 caliber sniper rifles to be illegally transferred to Mexican Drug Cartels ... WTF?
Open Carry & Good Cop,
Three minute video:
http://www.wimp.com/goodcop
Hernando Deputy Dies After Crashing During Four-County Chase
By From staff reports
Published: July 04, 2011
A Hernando County sheriff's deputy is dead after a high-speed chase through four counties early Sunday morning.
Deputy John C. Mecklenburg, 35, died after his patrol car crashed into a tree and burst into flames while he was trying to stop a driver police spotted heading the wrong way on U.S. 41 in Brooksville.
Mecklenburg, a U.S. Army veteran, had been with the Hernando County Sheriff's Office since January 2009. The Green Bay, Wis., native graduated from Springstead High School in Spring Hill and leaves behind a wife, Penny, and two children, 4-year-old Andrew and 18-month-old Jessica.
"Whatever call he was on, he wanted to right the wrong," said Deputy Sandra Wilfong, who had worked with Mecklenburg the past two years. "He wanted to prove or disprove the situation. He wanted to make sure if there was a victim they were protected. If there was a predator, they were stopped.
"He was amazing with his people skills and his investigative skills."
A sergeant with the sheriff's office sustained minor injuries in a separate wreck during the chase, which started at 4:40 a.m. when Brooksville police spotted a driver heading the wrong way on U.S. 41.
Officers tried to stop Michael James Anthony, 35, of Silver Springs, but he sped off in his 1991 Honda Accord, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Officers chased the car, and deputies from the sheriff's office soon joined the pursuit.
A deputy forced Anthony's car to a stop by performing what's known as a "precision immobilization technique," hitting it in a way that stops it without causing significant damage to either vehicle.
Deputies moved in to arrest Anthony, but he took off, again heading south on U.S. 41.
At U.S. 41 and Ayers Road, Sgt. Brandon Ross lost control of his car, hitting a pickup and a power pole. Ross sustained minor injuries. He was treated at a local hospital and released Sunday, the sheriff's office said.
The chase continued into Pasco County, the Florida Highway Patrol said. Just south of the intersection of U.S. 41 and Painter Place, Mecklenburg lost control of his car, veering onto the shoulder and hitting a tree. His car caught fire, which was put out by other law enforcement officers chasing Anthony.
The crash woke Carol Schaub, who lives across the street and went outside with her son to see what happened.
"It sounded like a major explosion," she said.
"When we came out, all we seen was a bunch of metal wrapped around a tree, and the engine was on fire and a piece of the car was on fire. We couldn't see what kind of car it was. It was that badly mangled."
Deputes showed up immediately, followed by firefighters and an ambulance. Rescue workers kept talking to Mecklenburg and encouraging him, Schaub said.
"We knew he was alive because they kept screaming his name," Schaub said. "(The deputies said), 'Talk to us. Stay with us, buddy. Stay with us!' "
Mecklenburg was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, where he died at 9:21 a.m.
Anthony kept driving south on U.S. 41 through Pasco and Hillsborough counties, prompting several other drivers to report his reckless driving.
At 5:09 a.m., a state trooper found Anthony's car sitting on the side of Fourth Street North, south of Interstate 275 in Pinellas County. It had three flat tires. As the trooper approached the car, Anthony came out from some trees near the road and surrendered.
He was taken to Bayfront Medical Center and was booked into the Pinellas County Jail Sunday night on a probation violation charge. He will face multiple charges in several counties, according to the patrol.
Anthony has served time in state prison for stealing cars and fleeing and eluding police, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement records.
In 2008, the Punta Gorda Police Department arrested Anthony for larceny grand theft. He was convicted in 2010 and placed on three years' probation, records show.
At a news conference Sunday, Hernando County Sheriff Al Nienhuis said the entire sheriff's office was hurting over Mecklenburg's death.
"Deputies know everyday when they put the uniform on that they may have to give their life in the pursuit of justice," Nienhuis said.
"Deputy Mecklenburg was doing just that this morning trying to keep our citizens safe from a very reckless driver," he said. "He gave the supreme sacrifice."
The sheriff's office will take care of the Mecklenburg family in its time of need, along with helping to plan funeral arrangements, Nienhuis said.
The sheriff's office will also review its policy on high-speed chases to see if changes are needed, the sheriff said.
"Not intervening would obviously put lives at risk," Nienhuis said. "So the deputies on the scene obviously made a decision and went with it."
http://www2.tbo.com/news/news/2011/jul/04/MENEWSO1-hernando-deputy-dies-after-crashing-durin-ar-241691/
Memphis police officer Timothy Warren felt danger closing in, wife says
By Beth Warren
A few days before he was fatally shot in a Downtown hotel, Memphis police officer Timothy Warren sensed he was in danger.
He warned his wife, Betsy: "I have a feeling something really big is going to happen. It's going to happen Downtown. It's going to happen really fast," she recalled.
"Betsy, I have a feeling I'm going to be right in the middle of it. It might cost me my life."
She tried to reassure him: "Surely not. God has other plans for you." But when Warren and other police officers stormed the DoubleTree Hotel, Warren took a bullet in the head. "Now I realize God did have other plans," his widow said. "He wanted him in heaven."
Today is the Warrens' ninth wedding anniversary, but Betsy Warren will be making funeral arrangements and filling out police department paperwork.
Their son, James, 8, is trying to come to terms with his anger toward the bad guy. Daughter Jewel, 4, doesn't understand that her dad is gone. Monday night she sang a tune her dad made up for her.
"Jewel is completely innocent and doesn't grasp it," Betsy Warren said. "I have a feeling in a couple of days she is going to miss him and wonder why he hasn't come to see her."
Timothy Warren cherished time with his kids, chasing them around the house and crawling on the floor while they rode his back. He would take his son to play with remote control cars. He and Jewel would have ice cream dates, which often left her with a chocolate mustache.
In order to spend more time with his kids, Warren left an assignment he enjoyed -- 11 a.m.-8 p.m. with buddies at the Airways Precinct -- to a more hectic shift, 7 p.m.-3 a.m. in the Downtown entertainment district.
This way, he could walk his son to and from the bus stop and play with Jewel during the day while his wife taught kindergarten at Idlewild Elementary.
But something didn't feel right about his new assignment. Hours before Warren went to work for the last time, he expressed dread.
"I really don't want to go in, but I got to," he told his best friend, Jerome Gray. "He kind of felt like something was going to happen," Gray said.
Warren was exhausted after his Saturday night shift dealing with holiday revelers who were drinking and cruising Memphis' entertainment district. Gray said Warren told him he expected more of the same as the weekend continued.
Hours before Warren was shot, Gray urged him to leave the police force.
"He felt that's where God wanted him," Gray said.
Working Downtown allowed Warren to see many of the city's needy.
The night before he was killed, he handed out bottles of water to officers and any homeless who passed by.
Some officers scowled, but Warren didn't flinch, his widow said.
Before finishing college, Warren briefly ended up homeless, his widow said.
It was winter and he would sleep on the floor curled up in a ball inside unheated, abandoned houses. So as an adult, he and his wife often passed out food to the homeless.
And when he recently encountered -- at 2 a.m. -- a woman at the bus station who had fled Texas with her young daughter to escape an abusive husband, he gave them money for a motel.
Warren often urged Gray to join Memphis' police force, while Gray said Warren should leave law enforcement to start a church.
This made Warren chuckle. "Well, police work is all I know," he had told Gray. "I enjoy it. It also gives me the chance to minister to people because I'm right there."
Warren wasn't always religious. He was struggling with his faith when he met Gray, an ordained minister, in 2000, while both trained to become deputy jailers.
Warren talked about how his mother had died of cancer on Mother's Day after he finished high school. "He kind of had a resentment: 'God took my mother.'"
But over time, Gray said he helped Warren find his Christian faith in 2002.
Warren became devout, ministering to Memphis' downtrodden. He bought a big grill, hauled it to Overton Park and fed the homeless. Betsy and the children helped, along with Gray and his son, Jeremiah, 7.
The men sometimes teased each other about their differences. Warren, who was white, grew up in a largely segregated area of Cleveland, Miss., while Gray, who is black, was raised in Detroit.
Hours before Warren's death, the two had a long talk at Warren's home. Gray left so Warren could take a nap before work. The two made plans to catch up over coffee at Starbucks when Warren finished his shift.
Instead, when Gray's phone rang a few hours later, it was Betsy.
At the hospital, the Grays' son tried to comfort them, saying; "Mommy, you've got to stop crying now. Uncle Tim is in heaven and he's an angel."
The two families, who say they feel like relatives, gathered around the slain officer in his hospital room.
"I held his hand," Gray said. "I prayed for him and told him bye."
-- Beth Warren: (901) 529-2383
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/jul/05/warren-felt-danger-closing-in-wife-says/
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When you feel that hair on the back of your neck 'standing up' .. pay attention to it. It's your sixth sense. I've experienced it and have always heeded that warning. Always better to listen and come back another day.
Officer and civilian dead after shooting at Downtown Memphis DoubleTree
By Jody Callahan, Kristina Goetz
Posted July 3, 2011 at 8:12 p.m., updated July 4, 2011 at 9:49 a.m.
Officer Timothy Warren
Two people — including a Memphis Police officer — were shot and killed in Downtown’s DoubleTree Hotel Sunday evening, victims of a domestic dispute that exploded into an armed confrontation.
Officer Timothy Warren was on duty and responding to a call when he was shot and killed at the hotel at 185 Union, at the intersection of Third Street, around 7 p.m., shortly after thousands of spectators had filed into AutoZone Park across the street for the Class AAA Memphis Redbirds game.
Warren was in the stairwell when the suspect stepped out from a doorway connecting to a floor and shot him in the head.
Warren, who joined the force in July 2003, was rushed to the Regional Medical Center at Memphis but was later pronounced dead.
“This is a very tragic situation. Any time an officer is ... harmed, it’s tragic,” Memphis Mayor A C Wharton said from The Med. “We want the officers and their families to know we understand the harm they face everyday.”
Said MPD Director Toney Armstrong, who began his tenure April 15: “Even if you have been the director 20 years, this is the one phone call that you hope you never have to get. It’s the one ... you hope you never have to handle. ... We’re grieving. This is like losing a family member. We’ll pull together and we’ll pull each other through.”
Warren’s wife was escorted by law enforcement personnel from Mississippi to The Med late Sunday. The officer also had two small children.
It appears that the armed suspect went to the hotel in search of a woman.
MPD sources report that the suspect was either married to the woman, or had been married to her. The second fatality, identified as a male, appears to have been involved with the domestic situation somehow.
An MPD release sent at 12:45 a.m. Monday reads: "The preliminary investigation revealed officers arrived on the scene, and located one male suffering from an apparent gunshot wound. Officer Warren encountered the suspect and was also shot."
The man and Warren were taken by ambulance to The Med, where both were pronounced dead. The suspect was subdued and taken to The Med. A woman overheard the suspect ranting as he was brought in.
“It was crazy. He was shouting, ‘I shot the officer. I shot the officer,’ ” Sharese Smit said.
Police cars swarmed the hotel, and officers roamed outside with shotguns and automatic weapons.
The hotel, across from The Peabody, was filled to capacity and rooms run about $130 per weekend night; guests were not allowed to return to their rooms until after 11.
Redbirds fans across the street filed out to the courtyard, peering through the gate at the commotion. The Redbirds continued with the game and postgame fireworks.
Joel Miller, a Maryland resident attending a family reunion, got in an elevator with the suspect, he said. The man, who was white and wearing shorts and a plaid shirt, “seemed off,” Miller said, “like he was out of it.”
Miller said hello to the man, who nodded in return. Then, as the man got off on the third floor, Miller saw him pull a gun from his pocket.
Then the man did something chilling, as Miller and his family watched from the glass elevator.
“He looked at us and pointed his finger and did like this,” Miller said, miming firing a weapon.
Added Markus Stringer, also in the elevator: “He was running through the third level. When he was running, he would duck down because we were watching him.”
Gina and Jimmy Halfacre of Jackson, Miss., were at the DoubleTree, celebrating their one-year anniversary. Some kids ran up to them, saying a man with a gun was on the elevator.
“They pointed him out on the second floor,” Jimmy Halfacre said. “They looked at me and said, ‘Do you think we should tell anyone?’ ”
DoubleTree guest Carolyn Scarbrough, visiting from Meridian, Miss., was in the lobby when everything erupted.
“We heard four shots, loud shots like a shotgun. It sounded like it was in an elevator,” she said. “I came outside and police officers just ran in. They got some shotguns out of the car. It was raining policemen.”
Antonio Webster, a DoubleTree employee, was about to serve food in the hotel’s banquet room when cops burst in with a warning.
“Next thing we know, police officers came back and told us there was a guy running around with a gun.”
Warren is the first MPD officer to die in the line of duty since Officer Marlon Titus died in a car accident March 30, 2004, while answering a call.
The last MPD officer shot and killed in the line of duty, patrolman Anthony Woods in 2003, was also responding to a domestic call.
After Titus was killed, an MPD officer identifying himself as “Tim Warren” and listing his badge ID number wrote on a website memorializing Titus.
It reads: “Titus was the first Ofc. I met that wasn’t a trainer. Just one of the guys. I was pretty nervous being one of a small handful of white officers in a nearly all black precinct. Titus gave me unconditional acceptance and a warm handshake from the first introduction to the last day. He taught me the only race in Police is blue. He made me feel like a member of his family.”
When the Halfacres heard some guests of the DoubleTree had asked for refunds, Gina teared up: "I understand their frustration, I do, but a man died today defending and protecting his city. I'm staying there (at the DoubleTree) too, and I came from here (Memphis). Today is our first anniversary (July 4) but we're not angry. We stopped and prayed."
Memphis Police officers killed in the line of duty since 1991:
Officer Marlon Titus: Died on March 30, 2004 in car accident while answering call.
Patrolman Anthony Woods: shot and killed on Aug. 27, 2003 while responding to a domestic violence call in Orange Mound.
Patrolman John Robinson: died in car accident on Dec. 1, 1999 while attempting to capture two robbery suspects.
Patrolman Don Overton: killed in car accident on Oct. 14, 1999 after being broadsided by four suspects in a car fleeing a scene.
Patrolman Dannael Weekes: killed in car accident on March 7, 1997 after responding to an officer in need of backup.
Major Rufus Gates: mistakenly shot and killed by a uniformed officer while undercover on Nov. 7, 1994.
Patrolman John Reeve: died after his squad car crashed into a telephone pole on Sept. 9, 1991 while responding to an alarm call.
-- Jody Callahan: (901) 529-6531
Staff members Megan Harris, Victoria Wright, Samantha Bryson and Rosemary Nelms contributed.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/jul/03/officer-critical-civilian-dead-after-shooting-doub/
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I have a good friend here who is former Memphis PD - He told me his buddies there said the TACT unit had been called and was on the way to the scene when Officer Warren was shot.
Re: None Post # of 19867
What will happen even more when only Outlaws have guns
and the outlaws will be law enforcement
are you prepared to die?
to give your life and the lives of your family over to this kind of so called friendly fire?
The British are Coming!
Oath Keepers to honor Marine Killed by SWAT
Oath Keepers to Rally in Tucson on Memorial Day Over Death of Young Marine Veteran at Hands of Pima County SWAT
Tucson, Arizona
May 30, 2011
March and rally from 9am to 3pm, followed by formal indoor meeting with speeches and additional memorial ceremonies
into evening.
Further details to be posted at www.oathkeepers.org
CALLING ALL OATH KEEPERS, ALL VETERANS, ALL PATRIOTIC POLICE OFFICERS, ALL GUN OWNERS, AND ALL LIBERTY LOVING AMERICANS.
This is an urgent call-out to all Oath Keepers, all veterans, all patriotic police officers, all Americans who cherish our liberty and our Constitution, and to all liberty leaders and patriotic organizations to join us in Tucson, Arizona this Memorial Day, May 30, 2011 to take a stand in defense of our Constitution, which our war dead fought to defend, and to take a stand against the egregious policy of using SWAT teams to serve search warrants on veterans and gun owners with no violent criminal history.
As you may know, on May 5, 2011, a young 26 year old Marine veteran who had survived two tours in Iraq, and father of two, Jose Guereña, was killed in a SWAT raid in Tucson, Arizona (see below news articles for details). At approximately 9:30 am, two hours after he hit the rack after working a twelve hour graveyard shift at an Arizona mine, his wife woke him by yelling that there were men with guns outside (she had seen a man outside the window pointing a gun at her). He told her to take their four year old son and hide in a closet, grabbed his AR-15, and stepped out into the hallway of his home just as his front door was battered in.
He died with his safety still on. He didn't fire a shot. The Pima County, Arizona (Sheriff Dupnik's department), SWAT Team fired 71 rounds at him, hitting him with approximately 60 rounds. He had no criminal record. The only justification given by the Sheriff's spokesman for using SWAT to serve the warrant was that it was a search warrant in a narcotics conspiracy investigation (with three other homes searched in the same neighborhood), and that this is their policy when the home-owner may be armed .
This policy of using SWAT to serve mere search warrants on people with no violent criminal history will lead to more deaths of veterans and other trained American gun owners because a trained man will react precisely the same way this young Marine did.
We must take a stand on this use of SWAT against gun owners and veterans who have no violent crime history, and that stand needs to be a firm one.
Therefore, we are going to rally in Tucson this coming Memorial Day, May 30, 2011 to honor this young Marine's service and to express our opposition to the destruction of our liberty, and our opposition to this policy of using SWAT Teams to serve mere search warrants on gun owners and veterans who have no violent criminal record.
We don't yet know the exact details of where precisely we will meet for a rally point in Tucson. We are still working out the details, which will depend on Jose's family's wishes, and other variables, but at a minimum we will conduct a solemn march and memorial for this Marine, Jose Guereña, to be followed by a formal gathering of remembrance for all of our war dead, with patriotic speeches by liberty leaders, patriotic police officers,and veterans.
We are seeking permission of the family to hold a memorial ceremony at Jose Guereña's grave, present his wife with an award for valor for him, from us, for his service to his country, and to his family for doing exactly what any warrior should do. If we get permission from his widow and family, we will march to his grave, hold the ceremony, and march back to a rally point, and then we will go to a meeting hall (VFW, Marine Corps League, American Legion, or a local church - still to be determined) and have speeches and further fellowship and remembrance of him and of all our fallen. We will invite ALL who cherish our Constitution and want to honor him and all our fallen. We will see who shows up and who does not. We will let that speak for itself.
We will also issue a formal statement and press release condemning the policy that lead to his death. that statement will be signed by our current serving and retired police officer leadership who oppose this misuse of SWAT, and also by our Marine combat veteran leadership who are outraged at what was done to this young Marine, as well as other veterans within our leadership, on behalf of all 12,000 official members of oath keepers who are current or retired military and police, and on behalf of all American veterans, retired police, and gun owners who are placed at risk by this dangerous policy precisely because they would react the same way this Marine did.
And we will petition the Governor, Attorney General, and Legislature of Arizona to conduct independent investigations into this Marine's death. We will present those petitions in person the next day, Tuesday May 31 in Phoenix, and we invite you to go with us to the Capitol of Arizona. We may also present a formal letter of grievances directly to Pima County Sheriff Dupnik. We are still sorting out the details of exactly what we will do in that regard.
What better way to honor our war dead and veterans this Memorial Day than to defend our Constitution and our God given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which is what they all fought, bled, and died for?
And yet those are the very freedoms that are now being taken away, and the Constitution they all swore to defend and gave their lives defending is now being trampled all over by corrupt oath breakers. Our Constitution truly hangs by a thread. If we don't step up and defend it, there won't be many more Memorial Days, and our Republic will fall.
We must stand against this policy that puts all veterans at risk of being shot by SWAT if their homes are searched, and we must honor the service and courage of this young Marine who simply did as any of us would have done by defending his family. And while there, we will also honor all other American warriors who have given their lives in defense of their homes, our way of life, and our Constitution. Let's honor the oath keepers of the past by standing as oath keepers now.
So, if you can at all make it to Tucson, please join us there to stand with us this Memorial Day, May 30, in Tucson.
This will be but the first salvo in a long campaign to fight this flawed policy, by placing the blame where it belongs - on the militarization of the police, on the trend to consider gun ownership the equivalent of a violent criminal record as justification for such SWAT raids to serve mere search warrants on gun owners who have no violent criminal history, and also at the feet of DHS and the Southern Poverty Law Center which have demonized both returning veterans and gun owners in general with their rhetoric of hate (labeling them "extremists' and potential terrorists) that lead to this killing and will lead to many more. We will make sure that this young man will not have died in vain.
Why This Rally Must Be Done in Reaction to the Killing of this Marine
I want you to imagine yourself in the same situation this young Marine veteran, Jose Guereña faced. What would you do if your wife woke you up by screaming that there are armed men outside. I think you would do as this young Marine did - you would grab your gun to defend your family. And then a few seconds later your door is busted in, and you come face to face with unknown armed intruders (not knowing if they are street criminal home invaders or police). You would be in the same situation this young Marine was in. And if it turned out to be a SWAT team, it is likely you too would be shot dead while you are trying to sort out whether those armed men are police - as Jose was likely doing, which would explain why his safety was still on.
Those of us who are trained know and understand that the only way your family is going to be safe from a criminal home invasion is if you step up and defend them, but if you do that, if you dare to arm yourself and defend your family against home invasion, if it turns out to be the police conducting a dynamic SWAT raid, you will be at risk of being shot on sight every time. You will die for simply defending your family.
And that's the problem with this policy of using a SWAT team just to serve a search warrant. Jose had a clean record - no criminal history. It wasn't like he had a long rap sheet of violent crime convictions. So, what was the reasoning for going in like a military counter-terrorism unit? The sheriff's spokesman, Lt. Michael O'Connor, said they do this when a suspect may be armed. So, they are telling us that whenever they serve a search warrant on any gun owner, this is how they are going to come in - with a dynamic entry by a heavily armed SWAT team a mere 15 seconds after pounding on the front door. Fifteen seconds is not enough time for you to get out of bed, figure out who it is, and then go answer the door, especially after your wife is screaming that there are armed men outside - are you really going to just stick your face in a window to see what's outside? Or are you going to react in a tactical manner, arming yourself and being careful about taking a peek outside? By that time, your door will be battered in and you will be face to face with unknown gunmen (and don't forget that many street criminals now impersonate police when they do home invasions). This is a recipe for disaster and death every time. Our New Mexico Chapter President, retired police officer Juli Adcock, wrote me to say:
"My utter sorrow simply cannot be expressed. It could just as easily have been my 26 year old son, a Marine Vet, with 2 babies and a wife."
She's right. It could have been her young Marine son, it could have been her, it could have been me, it could have been you - it could happen to any of us since we would all do the same thing he did in response to an apparent home invasion.
Oath Keepers Board member Rand Cardwell, a Marine Scout-Sniper combat veteran, agrees. He told me that the same thing would happen to him or to his son, who is a current serving Marine Scout-Sniper, or to his Marine son-in-law. All of them would react in the same way under those same circumstances. And he agrees that it is most likely this young Marine still had his safety on because he was trying to ID the threat before he fired, as he had been trained to do.
And Arizona Oath Keepers Chapter President Ray Epps, also a Marine infantry veteran, agrees that he would react the same way under those circumstances. And indeed, the same response was voiced by retired Las Vegas Metro Police Officer Dave Freeman, my Western US Vice President and National Peace Officer Liaison. Indeed, every current or former police officer (several with SWAT experience) or military service member I have asked has had the same opinion.
If the Pima County Sheriff's office were really concerned about avoiding this kind of near guaranteed firefight against a well trained gun owning veteran, they could have stopped him on the road on his way home from work. How hard would that have been? Just pull him over in a traffic stop, tell him they have a search warrant to search his home, and then conduct the search. But instead, they went in exactly as they would against a barricaded suspect with a long history of violence.
This policy is going to lead to more deaths, and especially among veterans, among retired police, and among any Americans who have had some training in defensive weaponcraft. Perversely, the better trained you are, the more likely you are to be shot by a SWAT team because you will not just curl up in a fetal position when your door is kicked in and armed men enter your home screaming obscenities. That only works on the untrained. It doesn't work on Marines, all of whom are riflemen first, or on any other veteran who has had combat arms training. Nor will it work on retired police officers, or on well trained citizens who have been to any high quality civilian shooting school such as Suarez International, Thunder Ranch, Gunsite, Front Sight, etc. The better trained you are, the more likely you are to be shot dead by a SWAT team because you won't freeze, and because you will react in a competent, effective manner to defend your family.
And such use of SWAT is not confined to search warrants in drug investigations. Tea Party founder Walter Reddy recently had a SWAT raid conducted on him by his local police department, based in part upon an unsubstantiated FBI statement that Reddy was a "person of interest" in a domestic terrorism investigation. The local SWAT Team executed a search and seizure warrant, seizing all of his guns. He was never charged with a crime, and yet his guns were taken for a year. You can read the details here:
As egregious as has been the lack of due process in Reddy's case, the most dangerous aspect was the use of a SWAT team on him to merely serve a search warrant. Reddy is fortunate that he did not end up like this young Marine in Tucson. What was the basis for using SWAT on Reddy to serve this warrant? It wasn't drugs. Aside from the mere fact that he is a gun owner, it could only be his political activities. Reddy is the founder of Committees of Safety and a known "patriot" leader who helped orchestrate the first modern Tea Party event in Boston, on December 17, 2007, and is now working on an alternative money system, with his "Sovereign State Depository, Inc." which was recently incorporated in Delaware and is being designed to help the dozen or so state legislatures that have passed gold and silver resolutions in the past year to find a way to make commercial transactions in units of gold and silver. Such a dangerous man!
As I have said many times before, that is precisely the kind of heavy handed, dangerous use of SWAT that Southern Poverty Law Center and others of their ilk would like to see done to all of us, for merely defending the Constitution and advocating for constitutional government.
This policy of using SWAT to serve search warrants on gun owners simply because they are armed, and where there is no long history of violent crime, has got to stop. I think taking a stand over the use of SWAT against this young Marine in Tucson is a good place to start. And we also need to demand some answers from Pima County Sheriff Dupnik about exactly why this young Marine was left to bleed out while paramedics were prevented from treating him
for an hour and fifteen minutes. Jose would have had a better chance if he had been shot in Iraq, where a corpsman would have braved enemy fire to treat him.
As we head toward Memorial Day, I find it disgusting that this young Marine survived two tours in Iraq and returned home to a family who was no doubt relieved and grateful to God that he had survived war, only to be gunned down in his own home, by his own government. As a veteran, I am just plain ticked off. But also as the Founder of this organization, I am convinced that we Oath Keepers veterans need to step up with as much resolve as we expect the current serving to do. We ask them to "steel their resolve" to do what's right by their oath. We veterans need to do the same, and we Oath Keepers need to take the lead on encouraging other veterans and veterans organizations to step up.
And as for any concerns about not knowing all the facts in this case, what is at issue is the policy of using SWAT to serve a search warrant on a veteran with no criminal history that is at issue here. The facts related to that decision are clear. And it is that practice that is being used across this nation, in direct conflict with our right to bear arms and our right to defend our homes. And that policy will lead to more deaths, and it must be stopped. That is the point, not any ultimate outcome in this particular case - and since the Sheriff's office has sealed all documentation and is now refusing to answer any further questions, it will be months or perhaps even years before all facts are known in this particular case. By then, people may have forgotten all about it. So now is the time to step up.
At this Memorial Day rally, we will conduct ourselves in a professional manner that does due honor to the dead, due honor to our Republic, and due honor to this young Marine's service. Just like during the 912 March in DC, where there was not a scrap of paper on the ground after a million people were done speaking their minds, we will conduct ourselves in such a manner as to not give the domestic enemies of the Constitution a leg to stand on. Liberty is preserved by four boxes of freedom. Let's use the first box, the soap box, by exercising our right to freedom of speech, assembly, and our right to petition government for a redress of grievances. Conduct yourselves with honor and due respect for Memorial Day, but let's do send a firm, resolute message that we will not let our Constitution be destroyed, and we will not let our children's heritage and birthright of liberty be stolen. Not on our watch!
For the Republic,
Stewart Rhodes
Army Airborne veteran and Founder of Oath Keepers
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2011/05/...-walter-reddy/
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2011/05/21/oath-keepers-to-rally-in-tucson-on-memorial-day-over-death-of-young-marine-veteran/
PA Police Over-Reaction To Open Carry
Philadelphia Police Threaten To Kill Open Carrier
Audio Only =
Take A Gun To A Knife Fight?
Always Carry A Pistol To A Knife Fight
November 29th, 2010
- GRAFIC PHOTOS BELOW!!!
ALWAYS Carry a pistol to a knife fight!
Ever wonder why cops shoot people armed with knives, broken bottles, glass shards, etc.?
If an experienced knife fighter gets in close, you may not have the opportunity to use the handgun before he can do damage.
Remember the 21 foot rule?
Well, don’t forget the “Ego Rule”…….
These photos are of an officer trained in hand-to-hand combat.
The officer figured that due to his size and fighting skills, he could disarm a knife wielding aggressor.
Here is why I am forwarding these on.
To all the idiots out there who always say, “Why did the cops have to shoot him? He only had a (insert your choice of weapons here, i.e. knife, bat, club, whatever). He didn’t have to be shot.
To that, I respond, “tough crap … shoot ‘em”.
If an officer tells you to drop your weapon, just drop it.
If you’re a retard, stupid, on crack, mental or just “scared”… too bad. No one deserves what this cop got for just doing his job. If you got a knife, then you should go down… period.
This is vivid proof of how deadly people who are “only armed with a knife” can be. Some of the public think that officers should try to disarm someone armed with a knife but anyone who has had training in knife fighting will tell you – even if you win you are going to get cut. Keep this in the back of your mind when confronting someone armed with an edged weapon.
HAVE I MADE MY POINT? A picture is worth 1000 words so let this sink in. If a cop tells you to stop or put down your weapon and you don’t, I say he should be able to shoot. I know damn well that if a cop tells me to stop what I am doing, I am going to stop right away. The only people who don’t have something to hide and I say shoot the idiots.
http://rollinsd.com/dont-carry-a-knife-to-a-gun-fight/
2010 Most Deadly Year For Cops
“Cop Killer” 2010 Proves to Be Most Deadly Year For Police Officers
If you remember the uproar that Ice-T’s rock group, Body Count, caused with their incendiary track “Cop Killer” then you can be sure that somehow, someway, the significant rise of police deaths will be tracked back the urban community.
Two officers in a remote Alaska town were ambushed as they chatted on a street. A California officer and deputy were killed by an arson suspect with a high-powered rifle as they tried to serve a warrant. Two other officers doing anti-drug work were gunned down by men along a busy Arkansas highway.
These so-called cluster killings of more than one officer helped make 2010 a particularly deadly year for law enforcement. Deaths in the line of duty jumped 37 percent to about 160 from 117 the year before, according to numbers as of Tuesday compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a nonprofit that tracks police deaths.
There also was a spike in shooting deaths. Fifty-nine federal, state and local officers were killed by gunfire in 2010, a 20 percent jump from last year’s figures, when 49 were killed. The total does not include the death of a Georgia State Patrol trooper shot twice in the face Monday night in Atlanta as he tried to make a traffic stop.
And 73 officers died in traffic incidents, a rise from the 51 killed in 2009, according to the data.
Craig Floyd, director of the Washington-based fund, said the rise in fatalities could be an aftershock of the nation’s economic troubles as officers in some communities cope with slashed budgets.
We salute all the men and women who work tirelessly, and for little pay, to make sure that our streets are as safe as possible. Clearly all cops aren’t good cops and to those crooked, racist, a**holes, we say…protect your neck, Karma is a b*tch!
http://thestatechamp.com/index.php/2010/12/%E2%80%9Ccop-killer-2010-proves-to-be-most-deadly-year-for-police-officers/
Police Shooting Deaths Spike Nationwide
"Cops are not going to be pigeons, they're not going to be waiting to be picked off."
By Andrew Maykuth and Barbara Boyer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
November 13, 2007
PHILADELPHIA — There are no moratoriums on shooting at police officers.
Just three days after the city buried Officer Chuck Cassidy in an emotional civic funeral, the bullets were flying at police again in Grays Ferry on Saturday when officers tried to break up a fight.
No officer was injured, though one gunman was wounded when police returned fire. But the latest shooting is an example of what experts say is an alarming reversal of a long decline in law-enforcement officers' being targeted and killed.
Not only have more police officers been shot at or threatened with guns this year, but experts say more are being targeted in a deliberate fashion, as Cassidy was -- with close shots to the head.
"Something has transformed the mentality of these inner-city kids that killing a police officer is just the price to be paid for doing business of dealing drugs or robbing a store," said Hubert Williams, president of the Police Foundation in Washington.
"We're seeing more and more of this kind of thing," said Williams, a former police director in Newark, N.J. "They're deliberately shooting for the head — they know the police wear body armor."
So far this year across the country, 63 officers have died from gunshots, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a total up 40 percent over the same time last year.
Including the Saturday night shooting, there have been 72 incidents so far this year in Philadelphia in which people pointed guns at, fired at, or shot police officers, surpassing the entire-year totals of the three previous years.
The rise in police shootings prompted Gov. Rendell and House Speaker Dennis O'Brien to call for legislation that would mandate a minimum 20-year sentence for anyone who shoots at a police officer, whether the bullet hits or misses.
As the shock from Cassidy's death subsides, Philadelphia police are closely analyzing the events leading up to his killing, along with other recent shootings of officers that have put the force on high alert.
"We have to Monday-morning quarterback any time something like this happens," said Chief Inspector William Colarulo of the Internal Affairs Unit. "That's the only way we learn."
With an increasing number of police officers shot locally and nationally, and Mayor-elect Michael Nutter promising more aggressive police action to quash violent crime, Philadelphia may face more wrenching weeks like the one that passed with Cassidy being buried the day after the alleged killer, John Lewis, 21, was arrested.
Could Cassidy's shooting and others have been prevented with more training or different policies? Or has gun violence become so prevalent, and criminals so cavalier, that more police casualties are simply the inevitable price to be paid?
"There's really not much more we can do," said John J. McNesby, president of Lodge 5 of the Fraternal Order of Police. He said training is excellent and police are acting aggressively but responsibly. The problem, he said, is a tolerance of guns.
"What we need to change is the people out there carrying guns," he said. "If there's any pattern, change that pattern, and it would be a lot safer for the officers and the community."
Officers are trained to expect the unexpected.
"We teach the recruits how to handle themselves in a number of situations, but you can never prepare for something like this," said Chief Inspector Jose M. Melendez, head of the department's training bureau.
Going into this year, police deaths nationwide were at modern lows -- far below 1973, when 134 officers were killed feloniously in the line of duty, according to the FBI. Last year, the FBI said, 48 officers were killed, including Gary Skerski, the Philadelphia officer who was shot in the face when he interrupted a robbery in progress.
Before Skerski's killing last year, the Philadelphia Police Department had gone 10 years without losing an officer to gunfire in the line of duty. The last decade was relatively peaceful compared to historic numbers of attacks on police -- in six separate cases in 1919, assailants shot and killed seven Philadelphia police officers, including one whose body lay at Ninth and Christian Streets for nearly a half-hour until a tipster finally called the station house.
This year's violence bears a disturbing resemblance to the past. Cassidy was the fourth Philadelphia officer shot in two months. One of the other officers shot, Brian Decoatsworth, received a close-range blast from a sawed-off shotgun. He lived because the gunman used birdshot rather than more lethal ammunition.
There was also the ambush killing last month of two retired Philadelphia police officers, Joseph Alullo and William Widmaier, who were working as armored-truck guards.
Law enforcement believes it is under fire.
"What happens is that cops are not going to be pigeons, they're not going to be waiting to be picked off," said Williams, the Police Foundation president. "It's going to influence the force mentality, and they end up ratcheting up the force."
A more aggressive police response, he said, can undermine community support.
Williams called for the federal government to step in to get more guns and violent gang members off the streets.
"The federal government has been so totally focused on international terrorism, they're not watching urban violence," Williams said.
Philadelphia police are analyzing the most recent shootings to determine whether a new approach is needed.
Officers receive annual in-service training — including one day on the firing range — and are retrained in officer safety every several years.
During in-service training, Colarulo said, officers view videotapes of police who are wounded or killed in the line of duty, usually from cameras mounted on squad cars. Although difficult to watch, Colarulo said, the tapes provide valuable lessons.
It's too early to know whether the dramatic surveillance tape from Cassidy's killing on Oct. 31 will be used as a training tool, but it has been analyzed closely by commanders.
Those who reviewed the video said Cassidy appeared to follow procedures, but never had a chance.
A bystander told Cassidy that "something" was happening in the doughnut shop on North Broad Street — it could have been a disturbance. Cassidy believed it was enough of a threat to unholster his Glock semiautomatic, which he was pointing at the ground when he entered.
As Cassidy, 54, entered the store, the stocky robber wearing a hooded sweatshirt, alerted by a ringing door bell, fired a shot at the veteran officer. Cassidy was beginning to raise his gun when he was hit.
It's a "cop's worst nightmare" to interrupt a robbery, said Capt. Charlie Bloom, a 30-year member of the force.
It was over in an instant. Cassidy died the next day.
By training, officers can use deadly force only if they believe they must protect themselves or another "from imminent death or serious bodily injury." They may not fire if it will "unnecessarily endanger innocent people."
They must also consider retreating: "It is often a tactically superior police procedure rather than the immediate use of force," the department instructs officers.
Colarulo said that most disputes end abruptly with the arrival of a uniformed officer. But a robbery in progress is the biggest threat -- the assailant may size up an officer before the officer is able to assess the situation.
Chief Inspector Anthony DiLacqua of the Patrol Bureau said policy and safety are also addressed daily during roll call, when officers are reminded to keep alert even during the routine motor-vehicle checks or when checking businesses, as Cassidy was doing.
Officers need to be particularly alert when making routine pedestrian stops, he said.
"Any one of those," DiLacqua said, "could turn bad. Any one of them."
Read the P1 News Report: Police nationwide seeing more violent attacks
http://www.policeone.com/patrol-issues/articles/1627695-Police-shooting-deaths-spike-nationwide/
Thank God, there aren't too many Rhodes' Scholars involved in cirme these days!
what an idiot....
Tenn. Driver Passes Out - Meth Lab in Back Seat
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP) -- Police say a driver passed out in his car at a Tennessee gas station while a batch of methamphetamine was cooking in the back seat.
An employee at the gas station in Murfreesboro, about 30 miles southeast of Nashville, called police because the car was sitting at the pump for about an hour on New Year's Day.
Police say a chemical process to make the drug was in progress. Some meth-making ingredients can be explosive.
Murfreesboro Assistant Fire Chief Allen Swader told The Daily News Journal that gas pumps were shut off as a precaution.
Thirty-one-year-old Nathan E. Beasley is being held on a $15,000 bond on charges of driving under the influence, driving on a suspended license, reckless endangerment and manufacturing meth. No attorney was listed in police records.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/03/tenn-driver-passes-out-meth-lab-back-seat/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_more_news_carousel
Good for her, We The People need top start taking care of ourselves; it's the only thing these assholes understand. They sure as hell are not afraid of the cops, the courts, or doing time; but a possible gun, knife, club or good old self-defense physical retaliation will get their attention; these people are usually chicken-hearted bullies that count on passiveness. I'm sure his pals will think about his stabbing before their next attempted assault; we have become way too passive, and way to dependent on the man for protection. It’s up to us to protect and defend us; that’s the bottom line. When we lost tract of this fact the bullies became bolder and bolder. JMO
Woman kills harasser: cops
By C.J. Sullivan and Matthew Nestel
Last Updated: 11:11 AM, December 25, 2009
Posted: 2:48 AM, December 25, 2009
A woman fatally stabbed one of a group of men hassling her in Queens last night, authorities said.
After the men confronted her on a Long Island City street, she ran down to the 21st Queensbridge F-train station to get away. But they caught up with her on the mezzanine level, cops said.
When they continued to harass her, she stabbed one of them, police said.
His friends chased her down to the platform, where she escaped into a train whose doors were closing. Meanwhile, the 29-year-old man she had stabbed crawled back up to the street, where he died.
"I cried when they told me he was dead," said a relative who asked to remain anonymous. "Killed on Christmas Eve. It's such a shame."
Police said the man had a long police record, most of it for drug offenses.
A woman, who said she was the man's aunt, said she's raising his daughter because he lived in a shelter.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/woman_kills_harasser_cops_kpShoTEf51izpU5rE5loKP
Cool magazine and website:
American Cop & its website - http://www.americancopmagazine.com
The man's business card had printed on it SoA on it, meaning Servant Of Allah:
He was proselytizing to our returning service personal, he made 20-phone calls to a Al Qaeda recruiter, who used to be the leader of his Mosque, and we knew this! Why in the hell are these people getting being overlooked? What the muck is all this PC crap doing for us?
I've worked on many military base over the years, serving all Naval,Air,USCM and Army, last one was in DC at the war college.. A full inspection of vehicle and verification was adhered to each time, so not sure what the deal was as far as having personal weapons on base but this individual was an officer, thats an area that needs to be addresses with regard to at risk personell in which case this person had been labeled.
Whoever made this mucked up decision. Including any civilian persons involved, be it congress or senate, Fire Their Ass!!! It's getting pretty damned embarrassing to be a US Citizen these days. The disarming of country is out of hand and not only needs to be stopped, it's needs to be reversed.
constant state of readiness..
Absolutely ONE !! So who gets Fired or demoted to pfc at the Army?
I'd like to know what the thinking is on having our service personal unarmed on the bases. These people can't be trusted with a gun? Are not our military bases to be in constant ready?
you know what that guy did besides kill those folks AT FORT HOOD ARMY BASE?
he showed the world how easy it was
THATS THE CONCERN
I hope the above comment inspires law enforcement
and military alike in America to wake up, stay alert,
keep safe. That even government housing areas
need better security because you can't
always count on the
hiring process to eliminate danger.
Law Enforcement Alliance of America
(LEAA): http://www.leaa.org
Cop Attackers & Their Weapons
New Findings from the FBI about Cop Attackers & Their Weapons
(From the Force Science News provided by The Force Science Research Center.)
NOTE: (This page contains 3rd party commentary from The Force Science News, entitled, "New Findings from the FBI about Cop Attackers & Their Weapons." Feel free to send your commentaries to help@stoppingpower.net for review and possible posting.)
New findings on how offenders train with, carry and deploy the weapons they use to attack police officers have emerged in a just-published, 5-year study by the FBI.
Among other things, the data reveal that most would-be cop killers:
* show signs of being armed that officers miss;
* have more experience using deadly force in “street combat” than their intended victims;
* practice with firearms more often and shoot more accurately;
* have no hesitation whatsoever about pulling the trigger. "If you hesitate," one told the study’s researchers, "you’re dead. You have the instinct or you don’t. If you don’t, you’re in trouble on the street..."
These and other weapons-related findings comprise one chapter in a 180-page research summary called "Violent Encounters: A Study of Felonious Assaults on Our Nation's Law Enforcement Officers." The study is the third in a series of long investigations into fatal and nonfatal attacks on POs by the FBI team of Dr. Anthony Pinizzotto, clinical forensic psychologist, and Ed Davis, criminal investigative instructor, both with the Bureau’s Behavioral Science Unit, and Charles Miller III, coordinator of the LEOs Killed and Assaulted program.
"Violent Encounters" also reports in detail on the personal characteristics of attacked officers and their assaulters, the role of perception in life-threatening confrontations, the myths of memory that can hamper OIS investigations, the suicide-by-cop phenomenon, current training issues, and other matters relevant to officer survival. (Force Science News and our strategic partner PoliceOne.com will be reporting on more findings from this landmark study in future transmissions.)
Commenting on the broad-based study, Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Research Center at Minnesota State University-Mankato, called it "very challenging and insightful--important work that only a handful of gifted and experienced researchers could accomplish."
From a pool of more than 800 incidents, the researchers selected 40, involving 43 offenders (13 of them admitted gangbangers-drug traffickers) and 50 officers, for in-depth exploration. They visited crime scenes and extensively interviewed surviving officers and attackers alike, most of the latter in prison.
Here are highlights of what they learned about weapon selection, familiarity, transport and use by criminals attempting to murder cops, a small portion of the overall research:
Weapon Choice:
Predominately handguns were used in the assaults on officers and all but one were obtained illegally, usually in street transactions or in thefts. In contrast to media myth, none of the firearms in the study was obtained from gun shows. What was available "was the overriding factor in weapon choice," the report says. Only 1 offender hand-picked a particular gun "because he felt it would do the most damage to a human being."
Researcher Davis, in a presentation and discussion for the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, noted that none of the attackers interviewed was "hindered by any law--federal, state or local--that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. They just laughed at gun laws."
Familiarity:
Several of the offenders began regularly to carry weapons when they were 9 to 12 years old, although the average age was 17 when they first started packing "most of the time." Gang members especially started young.
Nearly 40% of the offenders had some type of formal firearms training, primarily from the military. More than 80% "regularly practiced with handguns, averaging 23 practice sessions a year," the study reports, usually in informal settings like trash dumps, rural woods, back yards and "street corners in known drug-trafficking areas."
One spoke of being motivated to improve his gun skills by his belief that officers "go to the range two, three times a week [and] practice arms so they can hit anything."
In reality, victim officers in the study averaged just 14 hours of sidearm training and 2.5 qualifications per year. Only 6 of the 50 officers reported practicing regularly with handguns apart from what their department required, and that was mostly in competitive shooting. Overall, the offenders practiced more often than the officers they assaulted, and this "may have helped increase [their] marksmanship skills," the study says.
The offender quoted above about his practice motivation, for example, fired 12 rounds at an officer, striking him 3 times. The officer fired 7 rounds, all misses.
More than 40% of the offenders had been involved in actual shooting confrontations before they feloniously assaulted an officer. Ten of these "street combat veterans," all from "inner-city, drug-trafficking environments," had taken part in 5 or more "criminal firefight experiences" in their lifetime.
One reported that he was 14 when he was first shot on the street, "about 18 before a cop shot me." Another said getting shot was a pivotal experience "because I made up my mind no one was gonna shoot me again."
Again in contrast, only 8 of the 50 LEO victims had participated in a prior shooting; 1 had been involved in 2 previously, another in 3. Seven of the 8 had killed offenders.
Concealment:
The offenders said they most often hid guns on their person in the front waistband, with the groin area and the small of the back nearly tied for second place. Some occasionally gave their weapons to another person to carry, "most often a female companion." None regularly used a holster, and about 40% at least sometimes carried a backup weapon.
In motor vehicles, they most often kept their firearm readily available on their person, or, less often, under the seat. In residences, most stashed their weapon under a pillow, on a nightstand, under the mattress--somewhere within immediate reach while in bed.
Almost all carried when on the move and strong majorities did so when socializing, committing crimes or being at home. About one-third brought weapons with them to work. Interestingly, the offenders in this study more commonly admitted having guns under all these circumstances than did offenders interviewed in the researchers' earlier 2 surveys, conducted in the 1980s and '90s.
According to Davis, "Male offenders said time and time again that female officers tend to search them more thoroughly than male officers. In prison, most of the offenders were more afraid to carry contraband or weapons when a female CO was on duty."
On the street, however, both male and female officers too often regard female subjects "as less of a threat, assuming that they not going to have a gun," Davis said. In truth, the researchers concluded that more female offenders are armed today than 20 years ago--"not just female gang associates, but female offenders generally."
Shooting Style:
Twenty-six of the offenders [about 60%], including all of the street combat veterans, "claimed to be instinctive shooters, pointing and firing the weapon without consciously aligning the sights," the study says.
"They practice getting the gun out and using it," Davis explained. "They shoot for effect." Or as one of the offenders put it: "[W]e're not working with no marksmanship... We just putting it in your direction, you know... It don't matter... as long as it's gonna hit you…if it's up at your head or your chest, down at your legs, whatever... Once I squeeze and you fall, then... if I want to execute you, then I could go from there."
Hit Rate:
More often than the officers they attacked, offenders delivered at least some rounds on target in their encounters. Nearly 70% of assailants were successful in that regard with handguns, compared to about 40% of the victim officers, the study found. (Efforts of offenders and officers to get on target were considered successful if any rounds struck, regardless of the number fired.)
Davis speculated that the offenders might have had an advantage because in all but 3 cases they fired first, usually catching the officer by surprise. Indeed, the report points out, "10 of the total victim officers had been wounded [and thus impaired] before they returned gunfire at their attackers."
Missed Cues:
Officers would less likely be caught off guard by attackers if they were more observant of indicators of concealed weapons, the study concludes. These particularly include manners of dress, ways of moving and unconscious gestures often related to carrying.
"Officers should look for unnatural protrusions or bulges in the waist, back and crotch areas," the study says, and watch for "shirts that appear rippled or wavy on one side of the body while the fabric on the other side appears smooth." In warm weather, multilayered clothing inappropriate to the temperature may be a giveaway. On cold or rainy days, a subject's jacket hood may not be covering his head because it is being used to conceal a handgun.
Because they eschew holsters, offenders reported frequently touching a concealed gun with hands or arms "to assure themselves that it is still hidden, secure and accessible" and hasn’t shifted. Such gestures are especially noticeable "whenever individuals change body positions, such as standing, sitting or exiting a vehicle." If they run, they may need to keep a constant grip on a hidden gun to control it.
Just as cops generally blade their body to make their sidearm less accessible, armed criminals "do the same in encounters with LEOs to ensure concealment and easy access."
An irony, Davis noted, is that officers who are assigned to look for concealed weapons, while working off-duty security at night clubs for instance, are often highly proficient at detecting them. "But then when they go back to the street without that specific assignment, they seem to 'turn off' that skill," and thus are startled--sometimes fatally--when a suspect suddenly produces a weapon and attacks.
Mind-set:
Thirty-six of the 50 officers in the study had "experienced hazardous situations where they had the legal authority" to use deadly force "but chose not to shoot." They averaged 4 such prior incidents before the encounters that the researchers investigated. "It appeared clear that none of these officers were willing to use deadly force against an offender if other options were available," the researchers concluded.
The offenders were of a different mind-set entirely. In fact, Davis said the study team "did not realize how cold blooded the younger generation of offender is. They have been exposed to killing after killing, they fully expect to get killed and they don't hesitate to shoot anybody, including a police officer. They can go from riding down the street saying what a beautiful day it is to killing in the next instant."
"Offenders typically displayed no moral or ethical restraints in using firearms," the report states. "In fact, the street combat veterans survived by developing a shoot-first mentality."
"Officers never can assume that a criminal is unarmed until they have thoroughly searched the person and the surroundings themselves." Nor, in the interest of personal safety, can officers "let their guards down in any type of law enforcement situation."
http://www.stoppingpower.net/commentary/comm_cop_killers.asp
I don't believe her bullshit about budget cuts for one minute.
Sheriff Joe stripped of ICE agent status
Associated Press
PHOENIX — An Arizona sheriff known for aggressively cracking down on illegal immigration has been stripped of some of his special power to enforce federal immigration law, and he claims the Obama administration is taking away his authority for political reasons.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose office faces racial profiling allegations over crime and immigration sweeps in some heavily Latino areas of metro Phoenix, said officials from Washington won't let him renew a deal that let his deputies make federal immigration arrests.
"Let them all go brag that they took away the sheriff's authority. Let them all do that. That doesn't bother me. I don't have an ego. I will continue doing the same thing," the Republican sheriff said, noting he can still enforce state immigration laws. "What has changed, other than the politics and the perception emanating from Washington?"
The U.S. government, which does most of the nation's immigration enforcement, is changing its rules for allowing local police to enforce more expansive federal immigration laws. Nationally, more than 1,000 local police and jail officers have been granted the power since 2002 to make immigration requests and speed up deportations.
Arpaio has more officers with the special powers than any other local police agency in the country. For more than two years, 100 of his deputies have made immigration arrests and another 60 jail officers have identified inmates who are illegal immigrants.
Even though federal officials declined to let the sheriff keep making immigration arrests, Arpaio last week renewed a deal that will let his jail officers determine inmates' immigration status.
Arpaio said federal officials offered no explanation of why his powers were cut in half.
Vinnie Picard, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which grants the special powers, declined to comment on the curtailment of Arpaio's powers or whether any of the other 62 participating local agencies across the country have been denied renewals.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement will make no final decisions on the agreements until Oct. 14, which is the deadline for renewing the agreements. So far, at least three agencies have dropped out of the program.
Giving federal powers to local police helps supplement the small staff of federal agents who enforce immigration laws in the country's interior, said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors tougher immigration enforcement.
He said it's hard to tell whether the limits on Arpaio's authority will extend to other agencies and would hamper the movement for local police to confront illegal immigration.
"I suspect there is some effort there to send a warning to other police departments: Don't get too aggressive with this, because we will yank it out from under you," Mehlman said.
Joan Friedland, immigration policy director for the National Immigration Law Center, said the federal government wasn't making a serious attempt to rein in Arpaio, because his jail officers still have the power to question jailed people about their immigration status.
"All he has to do is get people to the jail, rather than being able to question them about their immigration status on the street," said Friedland, whose group advocates for low-income immigrants.
For his part, Arpaio said he plans to continue cracking down illegal immigration by enforcing state laws that prohibit immigrant smuggling and ban employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
Arpaio said his deputies can still detain suspected illegal immigrants who haven't committed state crimes, as long as his officers call Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to pick them up.
Critics say some of Arpaio's deputies racially profiled people during immigration sweeps. Arpaio maintains that people pulled over in the sweeps were approached because deputies had probable cause to believe they had committed crimes.
His office is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice over allegations of discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures.
A September 2008 audit by Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the relationship between that agency and the sheriff's office was good, but noted that most rank-and-file patrol deputies who had the special training and who weren't part of a special smuggling unit had rarely used their federal powers, because they didn't have the experience - or didn't want to take the time - to process illegal immigrants.
The review also noted that the local FBI office received no complaints against officers with the special training.
Arpaio's approach to immigration has frustrated other public officials.
The mayor of Mesa complained in 2008 that Arpaio didn't warn his city of raids by deputies who were looking for illegal immigrants working at his city's library and City Hall.
And as Arpaio's sweeps began to draw heavy criticism in 2008, then-Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, cut off immigration enforcement dollars to his office.
Napolitano, who as the country's homeland security secretary now oversees the federal government's immigration agencies, had said it wasn't an attempt to change Arpaio's approach to cracking down on illegal immigration. Rather, she said the funding was reallocated to try to clear a backlog of thousands of outstanding felony warrants across the state.
http://www.policeone.com/border-patrol/articles/1951835-Sheriff-Joe-stripped-of-ICE-agent-status/
-------------------------------------------------------------
I have only one word in response to this - "OBAMA"
Cool - Thanks Jeffrey 254
Idiot Investigators cuffed him in front, obviously-trying to be nice to him. Bullshit - the guy didn't deserve nice treatment. Now these two guys will wear this the rest of their life. They're lucky to be alive. Bet they cuff these buttheads behind their backs from now on.
They'll probably be lucky to keep their jobs.
Glad they caught him - especially with relatively minimal collateral damages.
Well at least they caught the guy.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1779229,CST-NWS-escape19.article
Prisoner Disarms Officers, Steals Pants From One
Chicago Tribune via YellowBrix
September 18, 2009
CHICAGO – A violent “career offender” from Elk Grove Village remained at large late Thursday, fleeing a future that looked bleak even before he overpowered two guards, took their guns and triggered a manhunt across the northwest suburbs.
Robert Maday, 39, was facing more than 25 years behind bars as he was driven, hands and legs shackled, in the rear of a sedan from the Kankakee County Jail to the Rolling Meadows Courthouse. In recent months, he had pleaded guilty to a litany of state and federal robbery charges.
But just miles from the courthouse, Maday got the better of two Cook County state’s attorney investigators and escaped, setting off a daylong search that stretched into the night as police used tracking dogs and helicopters and residents remained on edge.
Late Thursday, investigators said they thought that Maday was still in the area and cautioned residents that he is “extremely armed and dangerous.”
“We have reason to believe he is still in the area and we are concentrating our search in the northwest suburbs,” said John O’Malley, chief deputy of the U.S. marshal’s office in Chicago.
Maday managed to get the gun from the officer next to him as they were driving on Interstate Highway 90 and approaching Arlington Heights Road about 9:45 a.m., said Ralph DeWitt, chief investigator for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.
Maday threatened to kill the men, so they complied with his order to pull over in the parking lot of a Meijer store in Rolling Meadows.
“He threatened them both with death and had them drive off the road,” said DeWitt. “This has been a horrendous experience for the investigators.”
Maday handcuffed the investigators inside the sedan and traded his orange jumpsuit for the pants and shoes of one of the investigators, DeWitt said. He went into the store with the wallet and money of one of the men and purchased clothing and water. While inside, the men escaped using a hidden handcuff key.
When Maday left the store and saw that the officers weren’t in the car, he stole a woman’s Mazda SUV at gunpoint and raced off, only to abandon that vehicle a short time later in the parking lot of a Boston Blackie’s restaurant at 222 E. Algonquin Rd. in Arlington Heights.
http://policelink.monster.com/news/articles/122456-prisoner-disarms-officers-steals-pants-from-one
Councilman’s Daughter: ‘I’ll Have You Fired’
The Baltimore Sun via YellowBrix
September 17, 2009
BALTIMORE, Md. — After days of public displays of profanity and abuse – in Congress, at the U.S. Open tennis championships, during the MTV Video Music Awards – news came Wednesday of another such incident closer to home.
Baltimore County police released details of the arrests of two women accused of dispensing an obscenity-laden tirade against a police officer who pulled them over Monday night in Randallstown after noting that a rear light on their car was not working.
The driver, Kelli Dorschell Oliver, 40 – whose father, Baltimore County Councilman Kenneth N. Oliver, pleaded guilty in July to two counts of campaign fund violations – was charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and second-degree assault after the police officer reported that she had bitten, scratched and kicked him as he tried to place her in handcuffs.
The passenger was Talaya R. Kirkland, 22 – Kelli Oliver’s niece and the councilman’s granddaughter – who was charged with obstruction and disorderly conduct for her role in the confrontation near her Greens Lane home.
Reached by telephone Wednesday night, Kelli Oliver would not comment on the arrest and referred questions to her attorney, whom she would not name. Kirkland could not be reached.
The officer, Gregory Graves, wrote in a report that as he approached the women in the Mitsubishi he was “immediately met with yelling and attitude over the traffic stop from both the driver and passenger.” Kirkland, he wrote, called him a “pig,” using an expletive as an adjective, and things escalated from there.
“Oliver exploded in anger, and said she wanted my badge number and supervisor’s name,” Graves wrote. “She stated she would have me fired in the morning.”
Kirkland took up that line, telling the officer “she is a relative of County Councilman Kenneth Oliver, and that he would get me fired,” the report said.
As Graves and another officer attempted to cuff Oliver, “she began kicking, scratching, screaming, and kicked my shin,” Graves reported.
The fracas became a public spectacle, the officer observed, in that “numerous vehicles were stopping on Old Court Road to witness the events.”
Even after being cuffed, Graves said, Oliver “refused to get up, and we had to carry her to a police vehicle.” The officer said he suffered “multiple injuries” in the melee and that Oliver was also injured.
Both women were freed on bail and are to appear before a judge on Nov. 18.
http://policelink.monster.com/news/articles/122358-councilmans-daughter-ill-have-you-fired
Virginia Police to Have Citizens Run Radar
September 19, 2009
LEESBURG, Va. – Residents fed up with speeders whipping through their neighborhood will now be able to do something about it.
In Leesburg, police are teaching concerned residents how to operate a radar gun.
“We’re not out encouraging any traffic vigilantism,” Leesburg Police Lt. Jeff Dube says.
“The citizens are not authorized to make traffic stops, to flag people over. They’re not issuing citations. They’re just there to monitor speed.”
Neighbors will work in pairs, with one person operating a radar gun while the other writes down the license plate.
“The operator and their partner will record the vehicle description, write down their tag number and how fast they were going, and return the log sheet to us and that’s when we’ll send out the warning letters,” Dube says.
A warning letter will be sent to the driver notifying them that a radar caught them and asking them to obey speed laws.
If the speeding continues, “we’ll send out officers to actually run radar and write citations, if necessary,” Dube says.
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http://policelink.monster.com/news/articles/122488-virginia-police-to-have-citizens-run-radar
That freaking perp had 29 convictions for various crimes including B&E, and they're holding this student in custody?
They should give him the key to the city for getting rid of this vermin!
Hopkins student kills intruder with samurai sword, police say
Off-campus house was burglarized Monday; suspect recently freed from county jail
By Liz F. Kay and Brent Jones
Baltimore Sun reporters
2:45 PM EDT, September 15, 2009
A Johns Hopkins University student armed with a samurai sword killed a man who broke into the garage of his off-campus residence early Tuesday, a Baltimore police spokesman said.
According to preliminary reports, a resident of the 300 block of E. University Parkway called police about a suspicious person, department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. An off-duty officer responded about 1:20 a.m. to the area with university security, according to Guglielmi. They heard shouts and screams from a neighboring house and found the suspected burglar suffering from a nearly severed hand and laceration to his upper body, he said.
The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene. Based on the initial investigation, the student killed the man with only one strike of the sword, according to Guglielmi. The medical examiner will make the final determination, he said.
The student told police that he heard a commotion in the house and went downstairs armed with the sword, Guglielmi said. He saw the side door to the garage had been pried open and found a man inside, who lunged at the student. There was no indication that the suspected burglar was armed, however, according to Guglielmi.
Burglars had already stolen two laptops and a Sony PlayStation from the student's home Monday, Guglielmi said.
Dennis O'Shea, a spokesman for Johns Hopkins, said all four residents of the house are undergraduate students at the university. Police had released three of the roommates by Tuesday afternoon. The student who wielded the sword remained in custody while investigators worked to corroborate his story with evidence and witness statements. Police have not released the name of the residents, but department sources identified the detained student as John Pontolillo, 20, of Wall, N.J.
The city state's attorney's office will determine whether to press charges, Guglielmi said.
Police have also not formally released the name of the suspected burglar, but a department source identified the man as Donald D. Rice, 49, of the 600 block of E. 27th St. in Baltimore. Guglielmi said the suspect had 29 prior convictions for crimes such as breaking and entering, and had been released Saturday from the Baltimore County Detention Center after he was arrested by county police in August 2008 for stealing a car in Baltimore. Rice was found guilty in December on one count of unauthorized removal of property, and he was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Michael Hughes of the 3400 block of University Place, about a block away from the scene, said he was working at his home when he heard screams shortly after 1 a.m.
"I could hear the fear in the voice, and I could tell someone was scared," said Hughes, 43, who works for Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Hughes said he called police and could hear sirens as he was on the phone. He walked over to the crime scene shortly after.
"The body was near the garage. And I watched them carry the sword out. The whole thing was surreal and totally bizarre," Hughes said.
By Tuesday afternoon, two pools of blood remained on the ground a few feet away from the door to the garage, which is not connected to the home. A door to a wooden fence surrounding the back yard was broken, allowing the scene to be viewed from the sidewalk.
The three-story house has five bedrooms and two bathrooms, according to Diego Ardila, a junior at Hopkins. Ardila said he lived in the house during the summer and was a roommate of two of the people that currently live there.
Ardila, 19, said one of the roommates owned a samurai sword and generally kept it in his room. Ardila described the student as somewhat outgoing, although they did not speak frequently.
"He kept the sword on top of his cabinet," Ardila said.
Five people lived at the house during the summer, according to Ardila, who now lives a few blocks away.
"You don't expect to hear that someone you know killed a guy with a samurai sword. From what little I know of him, he wasn't some guy going out to kill," Ardila said.
Guglielmi said it is legal to possess a sword in Baltimore, and "individuals have a right to defend their person and their property." But the police spokesman said he was not in a position to comment on whether it was appropriate to use a sword, baseball bat or other means of defense.
Rice was arrested Sept. 25, 2006, for operating a stolen vehicle. Inside the vehicle, police found a camera bag with video tapes that had been taken from a home in the 200 block of E. University Parkway, which was ransacked a month before when someone broke in through a back window, according to court records. The intruder stole luggage, a laptop computer, a video camera, two digital cameras, and the black camera bag.
Rice was charged in both incidents, and received five months in jail -- or time served -- for the theft, court records show.
On Dec. 14, 2007, police on patrol in the 400 block of E. 27th St. saw Rice, who the officers wrote looked suspicious and was fumbling with something in his jacket pocket, court records show. When an officer approached, Rice pulled a loaded Rohm .22-caliber handgun, which the officer was able to grab.
Rice was charged with several weapons charges, but prosecutors dropped the case in Circuit Court in July 2008 after one of the officers -- who was deployed overseas with the military -- could not attend a court hearing, according to the state's attorney's office.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-sword0915,0,4027961.story
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