SSCC #367–Lake County FL

Lake County Sheriff’s Office deputies shot and killed a man they assumed was an attempted murder suspect on Sunday, but they now know they shot the wrong man.

This is going into the count because the deputies were ultimately responsible.  They went to the wrong house.  It was their job to verify they were at the proper address prior to initiating contact.  Further it was their job to properly identify themselves.  Not that it would really help much because I’m not going to believe someone at OH ‘Dark Thirty when they’re claiming to be the cops.

Further the only people we have left to tell what happened are the officers themselves.  It is only their side of the story we are hearing and it could be they embellished it specifically to ensure they would remain “justified”.

The fact is as long as we have qualified immunity, innocent people will continue to die from deputies half-assing their police work.  Why should they do the job proper and right when Qualified Immunity will shield them from their gross negligence.

Let this be a serious lesson in NOT opening the door at bum fuck thirty in the morning.  I find it interesting though that the victim supposedly had his gun pointed at them and neither of them was shot as the victim returned fire.  I think this is a classic case of the victim armed himself and the officers felt that made them justified in shooting him.

State Sponsored Criminal Count #367: Officer John Doe

Because doing your job right is too much work when you don’t have consequences if you screw up.

via RobbHis discussion on it is here.

Looks Like Somebody’s Got A Case Of The Monday’s

See the disclaimer as always.  But I had to admit I laughed about the following:

Heck none of us could figure out how the hell he was so effectively able to jump the curb, both front and rear, and make it through the bushes.  Even more entertainingly, it appears they had left their car to go in to work.  I guess they just figured they’d take care of it later.

Most entertainingly though was the email sent out about it:

Hello,
There is a white Buick License Plate XX XXXXX that has gone over the parking lot curb into the bushes just above XXXX. Facilities has been notified as well.

I love how it was the equivalent of, “You Left Your Lights On.”.  I put my truck into a ditch, but at least it made sense with it being wet clay.  This was a paved parking lot with a curb and everything.  The WTF factor is strong with this one.

Here’s more pictures:

Yet Another Lesson in Wild Animals

When you are in the wilderness you are not in a Disney movie.  The animals do not think of you as their friend.  You are either food, a threat, or something to be watched.  So with those things in mind, if traveling in the wilderness you need to be ready to deal with animals that may find you a nice dinner.

A 43-year-old professor says she fought off a grizzly bear that stalked her and her nieces by throwing everything she had at it – including a package of macaroni and cheese.

This woman though isn’t alone in her mistaken belief, preview this list of incidents previously discussed here:

So yet again we have the oh so familiar incident where a couple of people.  I think my favorite was she used bear spray and it continued to charge.  I think this is the money quote:

“All I could think about was this bear is so close to me I can see its teeth,” she said. “I could have kissed it. I wished I had a gun.”

Carry your damn guns.  You never know when you may need it, two and four legged varmints are both dangerous.

h/t Mad Rocket Scientist

SSCC #366 – Henrico County

A bereft Henrico County family says its son died near Cool Lane, robbed of his life and $15.

“He’d taken the bus up to my place to borrow the money last night; he just wanted a video or something,” said Henry Hamiel.

I already hear you asking how this could be a state sponsored criminal, it starts off as an everyday crime.  The police weren’t involved and were merely investigating the death.

The unidentified officer and a detective had arrived at the home to notify family members that Ellerbe had been killed. His body was discovered shortly after 6 a.m. Wednesday, face down near an alley.

The pitbull ran from the backyard of the home toward at least one officer, who pulled his weapon and shot the dog in the home’s front yard, according to Ellerbe’s sister, Latoya.

“They had told me my brother was dead and I’d come out back to cry on the porch and Tiger must have heard them. He ran into the front yard and the officer shot him,” LaToya Ellerbe said.

Let me get this straight.  A young man was killed, over the money in his wallet. You travel to the home to inform the family, and then to add insult to injury, you shoot the young man’s dog.  You shoot his dog, YOU SHOOT HIS !@#$ING DOG.  (Stops and spends 5 minutes saying woosah, remember the pressure points).

What in the name of god were you thinking.  Maybe you should back off, yell up to the house, even try calling them on the phone.  This is the 21st century, you do have a phone don’t you?

No instead you walk up to the house, invading the dogs territory, you see it running at you, and assume it is going to attack you.  You then plug the dog with a couple new holes with a lead slinging instrument and then tell the family, “Your son’s dead. BAM BAM, oh was that his dog?  Yeah, you’re gonna need to bury him too.”

If I walk up to someone’s house and someone’s dog runs at me, I don’t just get to shoot it and claim self-defense, neither does the mailman.  So why do these people get a sudden free pass to shoot any dog they want.

State Sponsored Criminal #366: Officer John Doe*

Because the correct way to inform someone that their son is dead is by shooting the boy’s dog first.  Nothing say’s I’m sorry for your loss than killing the family pet.

h/t Patrick at Popehat

*If you find it contact me, I want his name for the count.

Repeat After Me…

Anything I do or say on the internet, despite any internal belief said discussions or pictures are “private”, could be provided to law enforcement to aid in prosecution against me. Just because I don’t have Facebook, Google, or any other company in my friends list doesn’t mean they won’t monitor what I say.

You did repeat it right?  If not, go back and repeat it.

What am I talking about I hear you ask.  This is what I’m talking about.

Facebook and other social platforms are watching users’ chats for criminal activity and notifying police if any suspicious behavior is detected, according to a report.

First if you’re surprised by this, do not take this the wrong way, you’re a gullible idiot.  I have a nasty habit of being blunt and straight forward, and I do not understand how people could think something said on Facebook could be considered “private”.

Here’s the thing, social media predominately relies on servers and infrastructure provided by someone else.  Anything you send to that server can be seen by them unless it is encrypted by you before transmission.  If you encrypt your data though, only those with the key will be able to read it.

That said, even your friends list should be considered suspect.  The digital world is not like the real world.  It anonymity, which is a strength I love, can also be used against you.  Neither of the two articles linked here should be considered surprising to anyone who is really aware of how the internet works.

I’ve had some friends tell me that Email is less secure than Facebook or other messaging services.  Yes I had to pick my jaw up off the floor after that one.  The wonderful thing about Email is you can easily add encryption and signatures.  You can’t do much about any middle host that stores the email while in transit.  They could decide to store a copy indefinitely.  What’s to stop Facebook from doing the same?  Your message can be stored by any router in between, and their systems can record and permanently store the entire conversation.

Here is my final lesson on the internet for today.  The internet is a giant mesh where anyone in the middle of the mesh can see what you wrote.  Doubly so when you’re primary point of contact is a service in the middle of that mesh.  To think that they wont look at what you’re saying is not just naïve, but stupid.  Especially since they can just use software to monitor for conversations that need to be red flagged.

Nothing, I mean NOTHING, you put on the net should ever be considered private.  Even if you create a private part of photo-gallery.  If someone compromises access, those private pictures are now in the wild, and odds are some will profit off of them.

*Red Team Hat On*: Me thinks I’m going to need to have a bunch of conversations with my friends involving explosives and other “suspect” behavior.  I loves me some false positives, quickest way to destroy any system.

SSCC #365 – Martinez

“He let himself in and actually came through the house and into my bedroom. And yelled at me to wake me up, to let me know that I needed to come back outside and sign the violation notice.”

He was fired, but not for trespassing or breaking and entering.

Vowell was originally put on administrative leave, but was fired Monday after a review by county officials.

“It was a violation of policy as it relates to entering a house without permission and making a false statement to a supervisor,” County Development Services Division Director Richard Harmon told a local newspaper.

I suspect that he was mainly fired for lying to his supervisor, not because he entered a house without permission.  The home owner currently isn’t sure if she is going to press charges.  She should for no other reason that to actually hold him accountable.

Accountability is what is missing from society today and by god it needs to be brought back.

State Sponsored Criminal #365: Jimmy Vowell

Because when uncle Sam is cutting your checks, you can just walk into a woman’s house and up to her bedroom.  Ain’t nothing wrong with that, who know you might get a free show!

h/t Jay G and Uncle.

SSCC #361 – IMPD

Via Roberta X and Tam I stumbled across another in a reoccurring theme out of IMPD.

A 35-year veteran of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department faces preliminary misdemeanor charges of operating a vehicle while intoxicated and failure to stop after an accident resulting in injury after a suspected hit-and-run Monday afternoon.

While this patrol monkey was off duty, the department history, especially this shining incident causes me to include this in the count.

State Sponsored Criminal #361: Michael J. Rinehart

Because drinking and driving is only a problem when you don’t have the seal of anointment placed upon your collar.

 

I’ve Had Better Days

So, today wasn’t exactly one of my best days.  I didn’t listen to instinct.  I was taking back roads to the match today and there were thunderstorms last night.  Yeah, wet clay isn’t fun to drive on.  Doubly so when it is like driving on ice and that’s pretty much exactly what happened.  All I will say is the truck is fine, a bit muddy on one side, and need of a visit to Les Schwab’s for an alignment and suspension check.

Now, I have had many people tell me that Ham Radio is pointless.  Just pick up and use your cell phone.  I was merely 12 miles outside of Moscow Idaho, an urban center.  Yeah, guess what didn’t work worth a damn and what got a tow truck sent in my direction with a winch.

If you said cell phone, you lost, it was my Ham Radio.  Cell had 0 signal.  Tow truck showed up about 45 minutes later and I showed up to the match 50 minutes after it started.  Luckily I was still able to shoot, not only that but first stage I shot everyone’s comment was I need to do something like that before I shoot.

What do you mean I hear you ask?  Well I shot the first stage in 5.11 and aced it with the exception of a single charlie. Compare that to our local Masterclass shooter who did it in 5.85 and was mainly in the charlie bracket.  I was quite pleased with myself.

I did OK on the classifier, which was a fixed time stage with a mandatory reload.  I was quite pleased with myself that I only wasn’t able to make one shot during the reload string.  There was another stage that was actually a blast.  It was a bunch of running and gunning.  You started with your mags and gun down range on two different barrels with the gun unloaded.  Adam (the Masterclass) shooter did a move to load the magazine in the gun straight out of Zombie Land.  I will post the video later.

It was a fun day for the match.  Overall I really am pissed for not listening to my instinct with regards to navigation.  Thankfully at most it’s going to cost me an alignment.  I’m taking the rest of the night off, I’m kind of feeling really stupid right now for that dumb mistake.