The Minuteman

The D.C. police officer accused of drunkenly shooting at transgendered people has been punished at least twice before for alcohol-related incidents, records and sources said.

Charging documents released Monday described how Kenneth Furr crashed his Cadillac into another vehicle early Friday morning, stood on the hood of the victims’ vehicle and shouted, "I’m gonna kill all of you."

While he wasn’t on duty, he did commit this act with his service weapon.  Tell me, do they allow concealed carry or open carry within the capital for civilians?  Given the answer to that question I find this issue state sponsored.  Doubly so considering the egregiousness, bigotry, and down right viciousness of the incident.  The icing that sealed my decision on counting it even though he was off duty is that his punishment is only paid leave.

State Sponsored Criminal Count: 51

Because being a cop means you can assault anyone you don’t like and just get a paid vacation!

H/t to JayG who emailed me Robb’s post.  I saw it earlier today and starred it for tonight, but it makes it SOO much easier when people email them in.  So please, send me your submissions!  Not to mention you get bonus links from me! See, WizardPC sent it in too! 

Update: Phssthpok sent it in as well.  Good lord that was a hot one!

Ten years after Pearl Harbor, we had reduced Japan to a glowing pile of radioactive cinders and then rebuilt it and were buying cheap Japanese consumer goods by the shipload. Ten years after New York City was attacked by foreign enemies, all I see as evidence around Indy are a maudlin memorial being erected downtown, TSA probulators and porn-O-scans at the airport, and the occasional young man with an empty sleeve or trouser leg.

Dude, where’s my country?

Tam – National Hair Shirt

[I really wish I could still see a glimmer of the country I grew up in. That day did change everything, because believe it or not, despite the fact we got Osama, the terrorists won.

A great majority of the country felt that September 11th was the perfect excuse to sell their freedom, and the freedoms of their countrymen down the river. Only problem is that truthfully those freedoms aren’t negotiable or theirs to control. The correct response would have been to turn the middle east to a bed of glass while continuing on here at home like business as usual. Panicking the way our government and public did only served to make us slaves.

If you find Galt’s Gulch or a nugget of the country that was America, please let me know. -B]

We camped out at the Clearwater Casino to make our commute to Hell’s Gate marina that much easier since we needed to be there at 0700.  We rolled in, got our boat assignments and set about trying to find our boats.  I got pictures when I could, but sadly I usually ended up busy during the most exciting parts so there weren’t any pictures done.

This was a failure on many levels.  Some of the boats didn’t have their numbers up and finally in the end it was hop on any boat you can to get where you needed to go.  I never ended up on my originally assigned boat and in hindsight that was a good thing.  The boat I was assigned to didn’t have any EMTs on board, the one I ended up on did.  So in the event of an emergency the EMTs would have had a communications line they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

We rolled up the river and got on station on the high side of Wild Goose.  At about that time the race was actually starting.  I set up the antenna and radio and about that time a sheriffs boat came over.  Here’s why HAM radio will never die, he needed me to relay out messages for him.

With all their repeaters and radios he could not successfully communicate with his dispatch.  But alas, I couldn’t hit the repeater we were using.  I fell back on plan B.  Transmit on the repeater out put frequency and listen on the input, still couldn’t get a hold of anyone.  When that failed I tried simplex, and still there’s nothing.  The boats start coming by and thankfully there’s no real issues.

Finally I try calling out again on simplex and there’s AE7HR, the finish line, and he’s talking with someone else.  During a lull I call in and have him check me in with net control by relay.  It ends up that he had a shot into Heller Bar where we had another ham on a land station.  The land station had a straight shot into the repeater and net control.  We had communications!

We kept watching the boats go by and then we had a disturbing call.  There were only 14 boats and the finish line.  The cruncher was that the last boat had crossed the finish line.  I called in that we were going mobile since we had seen the boat go by.  Immediately we headed upstream searching for the missing boat.  It took a whole 30 seconds.

Boat 312b had blown a valve just after passing our location.  He was able to limp downstream under minimal power on his own.  We then reported to the start finish line since my boat captain had some business with some of the other captains.  While there I was transferred to the start/finish boat.  Ends up AE7HR was across the river and down stream.  In hind sight I shouldn’t have left the boat I was on since it left the EMTs without communications and the boat I moved to didn’t have any other safety personal.  This time around all I did was relay when boats crossed the start line for their return leg back down stream.

After the last boat was headed down stream we went to pick up AE7HR and his equipment.  The Start/Finish boat now became the sweep boat.  We moved down river making sure all racers were safe and off river before we passed.  There were two boats that were dead and towed to Heller Bar.  After which we went screaming down stream with me calling into net control demanding a meeting after to discuss the upstream failures and discuss solutions for tomorrow.

All things considered it could have been much worse and this was the first time the race had been run on the Snake since 1992.  None of the ops were familiar with the propagation of the area and it was a royal learning experience.  While we all admitted it could have been better, none of us were surprised at issues considering the fact it was the first time we had done it here.

We had an end of the day BBQ with beer and brauts at one of the local Ham’s place of abode.  We had nice discussions and got to know each other better since some of us had never met before.  One apologized to me since when I first came on the radio he and no clue who I was and though I was some boat captain that was also a ham and was wanting to dish out some crap.

We helped move a firebox for the ham and chatted for another couple hours.  Eventually the wife and I left and headed for the store to grab Gatorade, Water, and a few other things necessary for the next day.

When we arrived Friday night we were told to just grab a spot in the camping area.  We grabbed a spot out of the way so we would bother people in the morning since we had to wake up early.  At the same time we tried to isolate it from the noise of the road and highway.  When we got home Saturday night someone parked their camping trailer in front of the tent.  I was a bit annoyed but was exhausted and didn’t feel like becoming a total prick.  The wife and I called it a night and headed to bed.  It was a good thing because I had no idea what laid ahead for me tomorrow.

I did not see a single reason in that video for the use of force.  (Not to mention the videographer is a douchebag.)  A Taser is not the correct level of force to get someone to comply with a verbal command.  It is the sign of a lazy cop who believes that over escalation of force is the solution to his problem.

But that’s not all folks because the situation gets even better.

In the video, the man allegedly refused to comply with the officer’s commands to put his hands down, according to a woman in the video who saw the incident. The man taking the video stated several times on the video and to the officer that the man who had been stunned was mentally challenged.

The reason for the arrest was the following:

The 41-year-old Prescott Valley man was arrested and originally charged with felony resisting arrest and misdemeanor using abusive language to provoke, according to the police report.

Let me translate for those of you who do not understand the full meaning of those two quotes above.  I have a nice video that will help explain it.

State Sponsored Criminal Count: 50

Because the use of force is totally justified when someone is being verbally abusive.  It’s also a reason to arrest someone, can’t have those serfs stepping out of line.

Update: After reading the article I found there’s no question there was a need for lawful contact given the person’s behavior. However, the taser was still well beyond the level of force necessary to make the suspect compliant.

KOB Eyewitness News 4 has obtained surveillance pictures of a State Police officer having sex with a woman on the hood of a car in broad daylight.

He was on duty at the time of the incident.  He was in uniform.  The only thing is he didn’t really break any laws other than maybe some decency laws.  It’s grey, it’s not clear cut, but certainly since tax payers were paying him to do his job, it’s a problem.

Dr. Joe’s cure all is quite an effective remedy, however there is a time and place for it.  I must say though I started laughing when I saw it was the New Mexico State Patrol.

My dad hated the New Mexico State Patrol with a passion.  After getting out after his first tour he was driving to California and had everything he owned in his car.  He pulled over into a rest stop in New Mexico to get some sleep.  A police officer woke him up asking him what he was doing.  Asked for ID and then ran my dad.  Please note, my dad was in the Navy, and had a clearance due to his job.  When they ran him there was a hold, with no indication as to why.  The promptly arrest my dad, tow his car and throw him in a cell.  Back at the station they tear his car apart.  Seats, interior and all.  About two hours later they get a call from NCIS asking about my dad.  The conversation went like this evidently:

NCIS:“Is Mr. TOMM being held against his will?”

NMSP: “Yes, he’s currently been placed in a cell and is under arrest.”

NCIS: “Why?”

NMSP: “Because there was a hold and we assumed he was a criminal”

NCIS: “You will release him immediately, that hold was to guarantee that he was not being placed under duress or pressed for information.”

They then let my dad go, with his stuff scattered to hell and gone and his car still disassembled.  From that day forward my dad would stop at the New Mexico border, piss on the state, and then drive non-stop to the other side.

Because ultimately the sole purpose of being in the state patrol is to fuck someone, either literally or figuratively.

When they found Rice wasn’t home, they asked an obliging employee of the complex to open up the apartment without her consent. Once inside, they raided the gun rack, making off with 13 firearms worth around $15,000. The only problem: They had no apparent reason to.

This woman had broken no laws.  The weapons were legally owned.  The police confiscated them without warrant.  Then when she requested they be returned, they demanded there be a court order.  May Mrs. Rice’s attorney  send the city of Lakewood into receivership.

This isn’t the first time that police have gone shopping for new firearms using someone’s personal property as the store.

State Sponsored Criminal Count: 49

Because really being a cop just allows you to shop through other peoples property.  The law is just for everyone else to follow.

H/t Dave Hardy

Many might ask the following question.  Why would you ever strap a turbine jet engine to a boat to drive a jet pump?  The answer is the most simple of all answers, because you can.  There is a second part of this answer though.  Because it’s awesome!

The wife and I volunteered to help the local ARES group do the communications for “Thunder on the Snake”.  What the hell is that you ask?  It is a 30 mile (one way) white water jet boat race.  Until I got the email asking for help, I didn’t even know about the sport.  Now I firmly believe NASCAR is for pussies.  I apologize for some of the pictures not being the sharpest.  My safety boat got on station as the race started.  I had to spend time getting the radios operational and didn’t have a chance to even look at my camera before the first boat showed up.  Didn’t have the lens I would have use and didn’t even have chance to glance at the camera settings before he was on top of us.  Here’s the first boat, on the first leg, of the first day.

Yes that’s the turbine powered boat also pictured at the very top.  As you can see he got some air, but so what right?  Well here’s what happened when he came down.

So what, it’s just water right, I mean how bad could it really be?

That first boat ran the ~30 mile leg in 16 minutes.  Their average speed was over 110 miles per hour.  How did the little boat do that?

Overall the race was quite interesting and I’m sad I didn’t discover the sport sooner.  The world champion ships are coming to Lewiston this year, sadly though they are in April.  You know what else is in April, it starts with a B, and is down right the most fun you can have this side of the Mississippi.  My goal is to have about 3 weeks of vacation saved up by then since they won’t overlap.  Not to mention the fact that they’re bringing the races back and making it an annual event.  As a ham, I will be there to help with safety it’s no question this sport is dangerous and I’ve been told that one of the only reasons that these guys still race is because the safety net ham operators give them.  They may be crazy but suicidal they are not.

I’m posting the decent pictures that I took without labeling them.  I wanted to go through and label them by each boat.  Laziness won considering how tired I am.  Expect another post in the near future detailing the adventures of the ham radio operators north of Heller Bar and the adventures of safety boat #15.

As for my NASCAR comment:

When Dray asked why the men were being arrested, he said the officers replied, “for lack of common sense.”

No charges were filed against the boaters.

Honestly I would have probably done the same thing.  Seriously how often do you get to go down the main street of any town in a raft!?  Lacks common sense, unless the current was unbelievably swift, what’s the problem.  Yeah there are snags and what have you, but as long as they stay in the raft they should be relatively fine.

These cops are puritans and nothing more.  They think their badge allows them to regulate the activities of others.  Evidence is provided in the reason they were being arrested.  I hope that some lawyer goes after those officers for that.

State Sponsored Criminal Count: 48

Because it’s the job of the nanny state to arrest anyone doing something they think is outside the realm of common sense.