Follow-Up: The Tasing Of A Fellow Bro

Some of you might have read my post on Andrew Meyer, the kid that was tased at a John Kerry speech. Well, it turns out that he WILL NOT be facing any criminal charges for the incident. You can also read the story in the New York Times:

A University of Florida student who was shocked with a Taser after persistently questioning Sen. John Kerry won't face criminal charges and has apologized for his actions, his attorney said Tuesday.

Andrew Meyer, 21, yelled "Don't Tase me, bro!" as he scuffled with officers during the on-campus speech last month. In letters to the university, its president and the campus police department, he apologized, attorney Robert Griscti said.

"I made the decision to supersede the rules, and for that I apologize," Meyer wrote. "I should have acted calmer and obeyed the directives of the officers. If I had, none of the subsequent issues would ever have arisen."

Prosecutors had no immediate comment.

In case you didn't see the video, you can check it out below:

We must always be on the lookout for our fellow bro's out there.

Married Cops

I read this story in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning about a married couple that work together as partners in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. I have no idea what kind of cops they are, but the short article is great and they seem to work well together.

Question (In my best Dwight Schrute voice)!:

What would happen if one of the Officer's was accused of some sort of criminal wrongdoing...would his/her partner be able to testify against the other?

(Photograph by Brant Ward)

Dillonthekiller4

DILLONTHEKILLER4

I don't know if any of you have read about 14 year-old Dillon Casey a kid in Pennyslvania that was arrested for planning a Columbine style attack at his high school but you can read a little bit about him here (Yahoo News Story and AP Photo):

NORRISTOWN, Pa. - The mother of a 14-year-old who authorities say had a cache of guns, knives and explosive devices in his bedroom for a possible school attack was charged Friday with buying her son three weapons.

Michele Cossey, 46, bought her home-schooled son, Dillon, a .22-caliber handgun, a
.22-caliber rifle and a 9 mm semiautomatic rifle, authorities said. The teenager felt bullied and tried to recruit another boy for a possible attack at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School, authorities said. His mother was not accused of helping plot an attack, "but by virtue of her indulgence, she enabled him to get in this position,"
Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. said.

"This is not the best parenting I've ever seen and she needs to be held accountable," Castor said.

Oh, and yeah...he has a Myspace page...Dillonthekiller4. Yup, slightly creepy.

Dillon claims to be a member of the Imperial Cobra Army (I.C.A.) which apparently only hastwo members, him and some cute kid named Cassandra who claims to be from Argentina (but her friends and Myspace page don't really reflect it). Oh, and she also happens to have some unhealthy obsession with Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Kip Kinkel, and Seung Cho to name a few troubled killers in the past.

Here is their Mission Statement (From the I.C.A. Page) if you will:

Our cause is to overthrow the corupt and evil governments of today and bring about a new world order of tommorow, I, Commander Dillon am the leader. We belive in violent death to all undesirables (drug dealers, murderers, rapests, child molestors, and so on) includeing torture, we belive that the way our earth curently is, is unexptable, and must end before it ends us, and that the military draft should be restored, I will add more about us later . what do you think of our ideolagy so far?

PEACE THROUGH POWER, PEACE THROUGH POWER, PEACE THROUGH POWER!!!! HAIL TO THE IMPERIAL EMPIRE!!!!

I like the kids go get em style, but I definitely feel like he takes it a smidgen too far. I do feel sorry for the kid but thankfully nobody got hurt, hopefully he is able to get a little therapy and maybe even some meds wherever he ends up getting sent. This is the crap that makes me happy I'm not a parent, I guess I don't want to be 50% responsible for a kid like this...ever.

Not So Anonymous From The San Joaquin Superior Court

Generally, I don't do a lot of snooping on the people that come to my simple and boring blawg UNLESS they start posting nasty, hateful shit. You want an example?

Today at 3:28pm, I received a comment on my recent post about Shelwanda Riley:

Anonymous said...
Good Police Work. This is what we pay the cops to do, to get feral creatures like this off our streets and into jail.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007 3:28:00 PM

Not very nice huh? Of course calling a 15 year-old girl feral is not the worst thing in the world but I would consider it a tad bit disrespectful...something I've been guilty of in the past (being disrespectful) BUT since this is MY blawg, I feel like its okay to call people out on their shit. So her is a big HELLO to the anonymous poster at the San Joaquin Superior Court (Stockton, California)!

Here is a screenshot of the visit by the poster that made the disrespectful comment. You'll notice that the poster was on a computer with the IP Address of 207.212.105 which goes to the San Joaquin Superior Court.

Hopefully the hateful post was NOT done by one of the fantastic state employees that we deal with everyday who would have access to a Court Computer (operated by the state of CA): Judges, Court Clerks, Court Administrative Staff, A few Bailiff's, and maybe even a few Attorney's! Let's HOPE that one of few my regular readers (who I may have exchanged emails in the past) who happens to work as at the Administrative Office of The Courts doesn't check the ISP Address to find out exactly what computer was posting this not so nice verbal attack.

Have a great day my not so anonymous state employee from Stockton, CA!

Taser Technology

I've never a fan of the Taser Technology. Well, let me clarify that. I've never been a fan of the Taser because of its ease of abuse by law enforcement. Never to let go of a perceived new thing, companies out there have developed...Wireless Taser's.

Fan-Fuckin-Tasic.

Bad Cops

Well, I don't think I need to tell you all how I feel about the incident involving the Fort Pierce Police Department Officer that punched and pepper sprayed a 15 year-old girl for violating curfew.

My reasoning is very simple. You have a 6' 3", 255 lb police officer working on the force for a while who should know better. He decides to handcuff some 5'9" (100lbs at most) kid for violating curfew and then pussyfoots around, pushing her against the car and not getting serious about getting her free hand behind her body to attach the cuffs. Whatever his reasoning for handcuffing her he should have just DONE it. Instead, he gets bitten by a girl who is clearly freaked out...and rightfully so.

I just have a hard time believing that an officer of his size was having so much trouble detaining her AND the punch (however unnecessary) should have been enough to get her to submit and detain her.

I didn't realize that there were so many chowder heads with the ability to work a computer keyboard out there when I made my last post. There have been a lot of great responses but I can tell you that I've never approved at least 13 comments made by people who are fucking twisted. The truth is I'm very open to almost all comments made by readers EXCEPT for the ones that involve violent acts against children AND negative comments about anyone's race.

So, lets save the hate for your KKK and Aryan Brotherhood meetings...I just want to keep it a least a little bit civil here.

Don't Break Curfew...OR ELSE!

This is an EXTREMELY disturbing video of a 15 year-old Florida girl (Shelwanda Riley) being handcuffed for A CURFEW VIOLATION by Fort Pierce Police Officer Dan Gilroy (Here is his Myspace Page). Riley was acting like a 15 year-old kid when she started bawling and screaming and then...well, it gets bad.

Just check it our for yourself:

I think I've decided that Florida has taken the title from California for having crazy shit happen with their law enforcement. It's disturbing to watch the cop handle her the way he does, its disturbing to watch him punch her in the face, and its disturbing to watch him pepperspray her but nothing comes quite close to the majority of morons that commented on how the officer did the right thing.

I could almost say the officers actions would have been appropriate with someone that had just assaulted another person or at least done something a little more serious than breaking curfew.

I just don't get it.

The Bite

The Punch

The Spray

Watch the video...is anyone else outraged at this cops actions?

Ahem...Attention All Gambling Blawgers!

Woohoo! It's that time of the year again!

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 4663196

I was blown out last year by some EXTREMELY stupid plays but this year...I am ready!

Public Defender Investigator Interns

I looooove using the Google Alerts feature on Google. Its a great way to get news stories delivered to you daily that match search terms that you set-up on your own. It's like having your own personal researcher that works 24 hours a day and delivers a report to you every morning.

I set it up to send me news stories involving Public Defender Investigators, which is how I often get a lot of the topics that I end up blogging about. Why am I explaining this to you? Well, this morning I received a great story that appeared in TCPalm.Com (an online and subscription newspaper out of Florida) written by Derek Simmonsen. The story was about an intern program being run by Private Investigators and the Chief Investigator for 19th Judicial Circuit Public Defender's Office in Florida:

The Public Defender's Office holds several of these training sessions a year, led by private investigators Kreyling, Brandon Perron and Sandy Warner, chief investigator for the Public Defender's Office.

Over the course of the four-month program, a group of about 15 students learns how to conduct interviews at the jail and with witnesses on the street, take photos of crime scenes, read and analyze police reports and conduct surveillance. As part of their training, they take on real assignments from assistant public defenders and actually play a role in criminal cases.

Public Defender Diamond Litty said with 21,000 cases in 2006 — and only one-full time and one part-time investigator on staff — the interns are a tremendous help, allowing paid staff to work on more serious cases. Since the program began 14 years ago, interns have donated more than 100,000 hours of investigative time and the program has been presented to other public defender offices around the state.

This program sounds so friggin cool! I can't even begin to tell you how many emails I get from people who want to break into this line of work asking for tips and just a little direction...neither of which I'm very good at.

I'm thinking a program like this in California would be a fantastic opportunity for both the interns and the Public Defender offices that are severely understaffed. Do any other counties (regardless of what state you reside) have programs like this that I can refer people to?