16 posts tagged “crime”

Since this story won't go away....
The official arrest report is here.

First of all everyone is pissed off because Obama said the police department acted "stupidly".  The police held a press conference the other day basically saying he owed them and all police an apology because they're not stupid.  Okay first if you think he owes all police an apology for saying one act was stupid then you are stupid.  He never said all police are stupid, he never said that PD department is stupid, he never even said the cop involved is stupid.  He said they acted stupidly - the act of arrested Professor Gates was stupid.  And it was.

First off, the dude was away on a trip for a bit, he comes home and is having trouble with his door.  Ok my door can stick if it's closed up all day in the right weather.  No one in my neighborhood will call the cops on me if I have to push on it or if I have to go around to the back yard to get in my back door.

Two, if a cop shows up at my door when I've been inside apparently for at least a few minutes, totally unaware of anything going on outside, demanding I show him ID, in a decent neighborhood, for no obvious reason just show me ID?  I'd be a bit ticked and suspicious.  So when Gates is smart enough to call the PD himself to ask them um what?  You think the cop  doesn't then have a chip on his shoulder too?  Yeah right.  Cops are people too.  He's got some grumpy older guy now calling the bosses ranting about how he's pissed off that they're harassing him in his own home.  This cop's gotta be like oh wtf, great I've been called to a home of a "break in" to a house where the guy lives here, now he's yelling and screaming into the phone wanting the big bosses, etc.  Both Gates and the cop are ticked at this point. 

But no matter who you believe, NOTHING going on is an arrestable offense judging by what the cops wrote in that report.  Old guys being accused of breaking into their own homes are allowed to rant a bit, I've heard more of a ruckus from polite'ish neighbors and this is the middle of the day so a bit of a rant isn't a big deal as cops are trained to handle people who are ticked off.  Even if he was ranting about how you'd not heard the last of him, racist whatever, your mama (which I find hard to believe having heard how he speaks, but when mad who knows what people will yell), etc etc. you just walk away.  That guy isn't gonna run after you.  You say sorry sir, obviously the caller was mistaken.  Have a nice day.  Hell I've seen people in domestics in the past not get arrested for bigger/louder fights that actually turned physical later.  So no, you don't arrest him for being ticked off and we know you acted "stupidly" because the charges were dropped.

Ever heard the saying you can indict a ham sandwich?  That saying exists for a reason.  A DA can make a case with virtually no evidence to take a case to trial.   If they felt that the professor did ANYTHING wrong, they'd be pressing forward.  He could have been incredibly insulting to the cops, slightly loudly, that's not a crime.  They were on his property, a place he had a right to be, accusing him of something he didn't do and they'd realized that pretty early on. 

Assuming his report is the true version and he's being accused of racism, he trains other cops on racial sensitivity issues / how not to racially profile or something?  All of the more reason to very early on when they realized okay it's his house and maybe this woman who called had the best intentions but also overreacted in calling so now we need to end this and just get tell him we're sorry and get out of here.   We goofed, have a nice day sir, we're very sorry we were just answering a call, so sorry again, have a nice day.  But nope.  Still there bickering with the old guy with a cane in his home.  If that isn't acting "stupidly", I don't know what is.  I'm not saying the cops are racist.  Just stupid.  Trust me, if my grandpa were alive, he was very white and he'd have reacted the same damn way.

Also it seems this neighbor or passerby or whoever was watching the house the whole time right?   Since she was there when the cops arrived.  Well it's him and his driver -- yeah a old guy dressed nice enough with a cane and his  driver break into houses *eye roll*.  Now he finally gets into the house and his driver leaves.  Did she not see his driver drive off, etc?  Something about this whole thing stinks.  Nosy enough to watch two black guys with backpacks "breaking in" and to be there the whole time to wait for cops, but not to see the driver help him get his stuff in, and to drive off, while he stays in the house? 

Even if no one in this case was BLATANTLY racist, the caller was nosy enough to see only what she wanted to see then missed some really important stuff that would have shown it wasn't a crime.  The cops were stupid.  And put it all together and you got one big mess over umm no crime.

But hey the cop and the professor got invited for beer at the white house together, seriously.

Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in jail.  So a life sentence for ripping people off for $65 million.  Good.  Of course there's people who rape, etc that don't get sentenced that harshly and ruin lives just the same.  Hence I shall never get our justice system no matter how fascinating I find it.  Not one person submitted a letter on behalf of Madoff for his sentencing, not even family.   I suppose if I were his family I'd not want to write a letter saying what a great guy he is either.

I looked it up, I first mentioned the Jena 6 in 2007. And here we are in 2009.

Their case has now  ended with no contest pleas and reasonable sentences.  It's about friggin time.

I said Blago shouldn't appoint anyone to that seat.  I said Burris might be a great man but because Blago appointed him too bad I didn't trust the whole thing.  And HA!  I was right.  He's on tape looking like a sleaze bag, Oopsie.  His defense?  Well yes I was saying I wanted to help the governor raise money and do it in a name other than my own so that it wouldn't look like I was trying to buy the seat, but I didn't DO it.  People fund raise for each other all of the time, that's politics and as long as you follow the rules it's legal.   What they don't do -- They don't get caught on tape saying I'll do that fund raising in someone else's name because I want this seat that's -- what?  Ohh yeah, for sale.    Career over.   Even if you're not kicked out, you'll never be re-elected, oh wait you weren't elected in the first place.

Oh and while I'm here, will the next person who plans to stage a fake crime say white guys did it?  Why is it always black guys being blamed for fake crimes?  Or for real crimes that the person who did them wants to blame on someone else.   What did you think only blacks commit crimes?  That's funny because your white ass is now in jail isn't it?  I hope you enjoyed your trip to Disney World while you sent cops on a wild goose chase looking for some poor woman and child who had been taken randomly off their streets.

Former Governor I can never remember how to spell his name has been indicted on 19 counts.

I can't wait for that trial, you know he's gonna testify.  What a show that'll be.

He's at Disneyworld.  I'm gonna put on that Dizkneeland song now.

Police say the murder of Adam Walsh is now solved... It only took 27 years and the suspect is dead.  I was a kid when this happened but I remember the story because of the tv movie, the fact that it changed how we deal with missing kids in this country, and of course the fact that John Walsh went on to help others with America's Most Wanted.  I'm glad they finally got an answer...  They deserved it long before now.    

There's too many links to list, so I'll just say this...
No matter who you plan on voting for, voting is your right.
No one is allowed to tell you otherwise.
Letters and fliers that even hint you vote on a different day from the rest of us?  BULLSHIT.
Letters and fliers that say you'll lose your scholarship, be arrested, etc if you show up to vote?  BULLSHIT!
Someone shows up at your door or calls you trying to claim your registration isn't valid?  BULLSHIT!
Someone calls you or shows up at your door trying to do you a favor by taking your ballot for you?  BULLSHIT, mail it yourself or drop it off at an official ballot drop spot yourself!
This stuff is already starting and it is NOT LEGAL.

People doing things are breaking the law and trying to suppress votes. 
If you're a registered voter you have a RIGHT to vote.
Anyone trying to prevent you from voting is a criminal.

If anything fishy happens to you re: your vote or you witness anything fishy at polling places call the election protection hotline: 1-866-OUR-VOTE to report it and then vote anyway, and if you feel actually feel so threatened that you're afraid then hell call 911.  Seriously, I can't say this strongly enough voter suppression attempts are already being documented, it's not some myth, it's not just some Florida thing, or some thing that happens in "certain" places, it's real, and if someone tries any of it with you? DO NOT LET THEM!  Report it, fight it, and VOTE!

VOTING IS YOUR RIGHT.     

McCain campaign staff pushed hoax to media, including that the B carved on woman's cheek was for Barack.  So, I didn't see this story on the news yesterday because as far as I can tell MSNBC didn't cover it until it came out today that umm that hey there's this big fishy story.  CNN didn't cover it.  Fox did.  And Rick Sanchez of CNN called them out on it.  I don't blame the McCain camp for his psycho supporter carving herself up and blaming a big scary non-existent black man, changing her story a million times, etc.  But I do blame them for feeding it to the press.  Feeding them info the police weren't   And the police weren't because they felt she was lying -- HELLO the B was backwards like ohh yeah she carved it herself while looking in a mirror, not to mention basically every detail of her story didn't hold up  - She wasn't even at that atm, we got these fancy video camera things now.

And why would the McCain camp feed the story to the press anyway?  Let's say the story had been true.  Obama wouldn't have had anything to do with it. We've seen him calm his crowds in seconds if they so much as boo McCain's name.   Look at the percentage of Obama supporters who are anti-war, etc.  You think we're all hippie tree hugging liberals and  yet you think we're gonna cheer a man beating a woman and possibly raping her (that was in some of her stories and not in others).  Remember I've been bashing Palin for Wasilla's policy of making rape victims pay for rape kits themselves in criminal investigations.  I believe rapists should be locked up and the key should be thrown away,  I've never heard of a one time offender and have been very vocal about my own experiences so no I wouldn't have been ok with this.  As for linking it to a candidates supporter?  I've been calling for crowds to be good.  For peace.  For no beating each other up.  I'm sure as hell gonna denounce crime, even if it were by an Obama supporter, it was violence and it was RAPE, DUH.

No you pushed THIS story so hard, without it being investigated yet,  because look big scary black Obama supporter beat up a white woman in an area I'm told race can still  play a factor maybe more than in some other areas.  Making a sexual assault story a campaign story is sick.   Seriously I can see people beat up at rallies being a story on either side.  Woman raped at an atm?  w00t run to the press we got us a anti-Obama campaign story?  That's fucking sick.

Kudos to the PD for handling it correctly.  But the McCain staffers who fed this story to the press and the press and pundits who were out there yelling yesterday yeah look a big black man Obama supporter, we told you he's bad, his supporters are bad, etc.... look what he did to this poor white woman for supporting McCain, they should be ashamed.  The PD wasn't releasing that info because THEY believed she was lying and believed it could cause a national incident and you just went out there and tried to create that incident yourself. 

I find it repulsive they'd use a potential rape victim this way.  I find it repulsive the woman lied about being raped, did the whole "race baiting" thing.  The whole thing is just so wrong on every level and everyone involved, including the McCain camp TRYING TO USE THIS STORY as a Anti-Obama story... I... um... I seriously want to throw up. 

Yeah in case you haven't already heard (sorry I'm sick'ish and behind in my blog reading this week), it's official.  Ok it's bad enough she's against choice even in rape cases of well let's face it kids... But as mayor of Wasilla, she thought it was fine and dandy for the city to charge rape victims for rape kits in the criminal cases.

I've been rather open with the fact that I was raped at 14.  I didn't have to undergo a rape kit because like so many women I didn't report it.  Not right away anyway.  I did however become a very troubled teen.  I suffered from emotional problems you can't even begin to imagine.  Trust issues.  Men... well... I was suicial on and off for years.  And about a year later when my mom took me to a home for kids like me (not to make me live there, but because they offered counseling services) we never got past the initial questioning because I answered honestly the rape question -- yes.  And no to the part about did you report it.  They, by California law, had to.  It did go to court, not as a rape charge but as a Statutory rape charge. The DA informed me that a week after it happened to me he had been in court for an almost identical situation, in fact if mine had happened later he'd have been in much worse trouble -- but it happened on Valentine's Day so I remembered the date clearly. 

Because I was minor the record was sealed.  The courtroom however was open. Yeah, I had to testify in open public court as a teenager about losing my virginity in a rape.  I thought I blocked what he looked like out of my head, the DA told me everyone says that and then recognizes them soon as they see them in court.  She was right.  I felt sick, saw him first thing in the crowded room when we walked in -- he was in the back of the room by the door. That was just the prelim though, luckily he plead no contest so I didn't have to go to court a second time for a full trial but did get bullied by his lawyer anyway.  When I got the letter announcing that I could give a victim impact statement at the sentencing, there was a universal HELL NO from my family and friends.  I was that much of a mess from just seeing him at the Prelim.  They knew I couldn't go through it again, they were right, and so I didn't go give a statement at the sentencing  hearing -- most importantly never saw him again.

Palin has no clue what her idea of policies about women could do to women.  The way she treated or would treat women girls would have been the final straw. Had things gone a little differently when I was 14 (had I been a bit braver and reported it right away and gotten a rape kit done or had I gotten pregnant) and had there been a Palin around  I can guarantee, without a shadow of a doubt,  there would be no me here writing this now.  She's dangerous to women, seriously.

I don't care who put that rape kit policy into place -- as a woman who came out in this election screaming I am woman vote me, she should have been screaming out for women as mayor too.  In a town that size, you know everything -- ESPECIALLY AS MAYOR... A woman wouldn't even have to report a rape for everyone to know... Trust me I've lived in towns that size.  She had to know that her police officers were charging rape victims for those kits.  It's the state vs the rapist.  As a victim you have NO rights.  Why wasn't she crying out in outrage little miss I was "against the bridge" was apparently also against victims getting justice?  Did she make people pay for the cops fingerprinting their houses if there was a robbery?  You don't make the VICTIM pay for the criminal investigation.   

And that is why I'd never vote for any ticket that would put this woman on it... EVER.  Sexism?  Yeah SHE'S sexist, she clearly hates women.  I don't care what HER religious views are, but I've no doubt that she'd make them law if given the opportunity.   Whether she CAN make them laws or not isn't even the point, she wants to.  I believe that with all of my heart.  Wanting to scares me enough.   Under normal circumstances *I* would never have an abortion.  But that 14 year old me, in that circumstance, would have.  And IF there is a God, I'd like to think he/she would have understood and it would have been between me and said God.... not between me and Palin.  And there are 14 yr old girls now who will go through that and won't be as "lucky" as I was, they WILL get pregnant  and I don't want Palin possibly taking over the country when there is even the slight possibility of her doing things that could  affect their rights to choose how they handle it.  Because I didn't get pregnant and I didn't have a rape kit done, but it did in its own way almost kill me, truly.   And Palin's ideas of how the world should be are dangerous to those of us who believe otherwise and who have been through and lived through things -- things we had to deal with in our ways, our ways, not hers.   I'm rambling now, I have a point... I'm losing it... but yeah...

I'm going to bed before I growl more.