Gangsters in Blue

A jury in Colorado has acquitted a man who organized poker tournaments at a local bar on charges of illegal gambling, apparently agreeing with his defense that poker is primarily a game of skill, not chance.  Last month, a judge in Pennsylvania came to the same conclusion, exonerating a man of gambling charges for running $1-$2 Texas Hold ‘Em games out of his garage.

I’d rather see states do away with gambling prohibitions altogether (or, more accurately, to lift the states’ monopoly on gambling), but the outcomes in these cases are exactly right. The fact that professional poker players even exist (as opposed to, say, professional slots or roulette players) is proof that the game is driven more by strategy and skill than by luck.

This month, another state judge in South Carolina will rule on the same question. In that case, Police sent a wired informant with marked bills to break up the $20 buy-in game run by Mount Pleasant resident Bob Chimento and his college buddies. Generally speaking, such games are legal so long as the host doesn’t take a cut of the prize money. Police and prosecutors determined that Chimento’s collection for pizza and beer qualified as a "rake," making the game illegal.

"The typical police raid of these games … is to literally burst into a home in SWAT gear with guns drawn and treat poker players like a bunch of high-level drug dealers," says Jeff Phillips, a Greenville attorney representing Chimento’s group. "Using the taxpayers’ resources for such useless Gestapo-like tactics is more of a crime than is playing of the game."

Chimento and his friends aren’t alone. The Washington-based Poker Players Alliance says it has received so many calls about poker-related arrests that it’s created a national network of attorneys - many of them poker players themselves - to serve as a legal brain trust for its membership.

Reason.tv and Drew Carey highlighted one of those cases last year, in which a paramilitary vice squad in Dallas raided a Texas Hold ‘Em tournament held at local VFW post.

With the passing of the smoking ban, Virginia demonstrates that, when it comes to individual liberty, its ongoing urbanization renders it just another Mid-Atlantic nanny state like New Jersey, Maryland, and New York. I don’t need to rehash the libertarian arguments against smoking bans in private establishments. I will, however, note the following:

• Despite an email sent out by a minority of Republicans in the legislature, this ban passed with bipartisan support.
• Republicans are the worst advocates of libertarian policy imaginable. They’re all too eager to go along to get along. And if they do have some moderate libertarian positions, they usually shoot their consistency in the foot by being moral policemen to the max (see my thoughts on the Blackburn vs. Stoch race).
• We erroneously and self-righteously frame this issue in simplistic terms of “rights” and “freedom” and “liberty”, a language that nanny staters learned long ago to turn around on us. Nobody is against “freedom” or “liberty” or “rights”, so this approach does not capture the essence of the controversy. If this were about abstractions like “rights”, there are far more egregious government intrusions that would have been rejected long ago. No, we are against bans on peaceful behavior because they are enforced by men trained to hurt and kill us – period.

It’s time to stop pretending our self-important, philosophical civics lessons wrapped in political activism work. Our outrage at the state, heartfelt as it may be, is not nearly enough to constitute the necessary resistance, nor is the rhetoric it produces adequate to the task of appealing to our fellow man. We have to start showing people that this is not a game: passing superfluous and intrusive laws pits men trained in violence and suppression against peaceful people. Confront the nanny staters directly with the means they’ve chosen to promote their agendas and ask them why they want to threaten, hurt, and even kill us and our fellow human beings. The stakes are too high to treat this as a friendly debate about ideas.

For background, see GT 2008-06-13: Law and Orders #7:

Government cops are here to protect you by shouting orders at passing strangers on bicycles, For Their Own Good, and then, if the biker should fail to immediately obey arbitrary commands to stop, bellowed by complete strangers on the street at 9:30 pm, who don’t make any effort to identify or explain themselves, and who are dressed all in black so that you can hardly even see who the hell is hollering at you, they’ll make sure you’re biking safely by tackling you, slamming you against a nearby wall, wrestling you to the ground, and then, when you say No and ask to know what you did wrong, declaring that you’re combative and torturing you with repeated high-voltage electric shocks, before they finally, in a remarkable act of circular practical reasoning, arrest you for resisting arrest.

[…]

Thus, in the latest news from Occupied Cascadia, here’s how Portland cops Erin Smith and Ron Hoesly made sure that Phil Sano, who was suspected of the terrible crime of biking without a headlight, would get home safely: [… by grabbing him off his bike, repeatedly tasering him even though he posed no physical threat, and then justifying it by saying that he had been biking without a headlight and disobeyed an order to stop …].

According to Jonathan Maus at BikePortland.org (2008-06-11), the Gangsters in Blue arrested Sano and laid five charges on him, one of which was a civil citation for not having the headlight, and all the rest of which were charges for crimes that consisted in nothing other than failing to let himself be arrested for something that he couldn’t have been rightfully arrested for to begin with.

—GT 2008-06-13: Law and Orders #7

Today (Tuesday) and tomorrow (Wendesday) are Phil Sano’s days in court. Supporters in Occupied Portland are welcome to come out in solidarity:

From: revphil
Date: Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 1:50 AM
Subject: the state v revphil

Hi there. Today and Tomorrow Im in court contesting the charge of Resisting Arrest. If you would like to go support me the trial will likely go from today though Wed afternoon. It might be easy to ignore this matter for a variety of reasons, however the the issue affects us all. Even if you never ride a bike you should be concerned with the power cops have over you. The resulting decision may set a precedent for what behavior is expected of police officers and how they interact with us, the public.

Here is a recent story about Revphil’s case:
http://bikeportland.org/2009/02/04/phil-sano-taser-incident-goes-to-trial-next-week/
http://bikeportland.org/2009/02/09/phil-sano-taser-trial-live-updates-from-day-one/
http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX/archives/2009/02/09/rev_phil_sano_s_taser_trial_i
(I have a sweet pictures in this last one!)

For more specific info about the current way tazers are being used
http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/less-lethal-weapons/Content?oid=951762
http://www.loadedorygun.net/showDiary.do?diaryId=1509

If you are planning on coming to court please be respectful, and remove any hats, tools or contraband before coming to the courthouse.

Tuesday Feb 10th and Wed Feb 11th
Multnomah County Courthouse
1021 SW 4th Ave, Portland, OR
Judge You ct 5XX (er on the 5th floor) take a left on top of the stairs.
8:30 am until 5pm

thanks for your support,

reverend phil

See also:

• GT 2008-10-25: Translation from cop-speak to English
• GT 2008-06-30: Law and Orders #8: Memphis cop Bridges McRae exceeds expectations by punching Duanna Johnson repeatedly in the face with handcuffs over his knuckles for failing to stand up on command in the booking area at 201 Poplar
• GT 2008-06-13: Law and Orders #7: Portland cops Erin Smith and Ron Hoesly find it would be necessary to pull Phil Sano down off his bike, beat him up, and taser him repeatedly, for biking without a headlight
• GT 2008-02-01: Law and Orders #6: Pigs at the Trough
• GT 2007-12-23: Law and Orders #5: Daytona Beach cop takes control at Best Buy by shocking an unarmed, retreating woman
• GT 2007-12-07: Law and Orders #4: Wichita cops take control by shocking a deaf man for not following orders he couldn’t hear
• GT 2007-12-01: What a shock.
• GT 2007-11-27: Law and Orders #3: John Gardner of the Utah Highway Patrol tasers Jared Massey in front of his family for questioning why he was pulled over
• GT 2007-11-09: You got served and protected.
• GT 2007-10-11: Law and Orders #2: Florida cop was within bounds when he punched and pepper-sprayed a 15-year-old girl for breaking curfew
• GT 2006-11-16: Law and Orders: UCLA campus police found it necessary to repeatedly taser an Iranian student already lying helpless on the ground
• GT 2005-05-05: Peace Officers, redux
• GT 2005-04-26: Peace Officers

In Las Vegas:

“Coco” was a good dog. Almost embarrassingly so.

When Jose Fernandez would have friends over, he would brag that he had a pit bull. He’d take his friends into the backyard to see Coco and the 6-year-old pit bull would lick their feet.

“I’d say, ‘Come on! Put on a mean face or something!’” Fernandez, 40, said.

But that’s all Coco would do, he said. Lick them, or put his paw on their laps for attention.

Around 5 a.m. Friday, Coco was shot and killed in his backyard by a Las Vegas police officer.

The officer was one of several who were searching for a DUI suspect who fled on foot from a traffic stop near Nellis Boulevard and Sahara Avenue, according to department spokesman Bill Cassell.

Police searched a nearby neighborhood with a helicopter equipped with a heat detecting device and spotted a large mass in a shed behind a home at 4880 Welter Ave., Cassell said.

Cassell said the dog, which was inside the shed, confronted officers. But he said he didn’t know how the dog displayed aggressiveness.

“The officer did everything he could to avoid shooting at the dog. Ultimately he was forced to fire in self-defense,” Cassell said.

Two shots rang out. Coco had a bullet wound in his back and in his chest, according to Fernandez and his girlfriend, Yurisel De La Torre. Both were at work at the time.

The suspect, whose name and charges were not released, was arrested a few doors away.

Cassell said the dog’s death was a mistake and the department offered apologies to the family.

“This is an extra unfortunate incident,” he said. “All cops are animal lovers and it hurts us deeply when something like this occurs.”

A next-door neighbor said she never heard Coco bark or growl at the officers.

Sorry, but this is bullshit. If “all cops” were “animal lovers,” they’d learn how to subdue a dog without killing it. This is happening way too often.

Looks like it.

A Toledo man says he was wrongfully arrested after Toledo police barged into his home.

A Toledo man says he was wrongfully arrested after Toledo police barged into his home.

Lloyd Williams, 56, has a clean record, except for a few traffic tickets. He admits he was at a friend’s house and had a couple of beers, but says he’s not involved in TPD’s investigation.

Williams says Toledo Vice detectives arrested him for no reason. The Vice and SWAT team raided a home at 1722 Washington last night. Williams lives next door. He says he was coming in the house when he heard the back gate rattle.

He claims vice detectives beat him up, and they handcuffed him. Police charged him with three crimes, including obstructing official business. Police declined to talk about the case because it’s an ongoing investigation.

Williams says he feels the officers violated his rights and his family plans to do something about it. Williams wants the charges against him dropped. He contacted TPD’s Internal Affairs and plans to file a complaint.

This happened 11 days ago. I haven’t seen any follow-up.

Looks like it.

A Toledo man says he was wrongfully arrested after Toledo police barged into his home.

A Toledo man says he was wrongfully arrested after Toledo police barged into his home.

Lloyd Williams, 56, has a clean record, except for a few traffic tickets. He admits he was at a friend’s house and had a couple of beers, but says he’s not involved in TPD’s investigation.

Williams says Toledo Vice detectives arrested him for no reason. The Vice and SWAT team raided a home at 1722 Washington last night. Williams lives next door. He says he was coming in the house when he heard the back gate rattle.

He claims vice detectives beat him up, and they handcuffed him. Police charged him with three crimes, including obstructing official business. Police declined to talk about the case because it’s an ongoing investigation.

Williams says he feels the officers violated his rights and his family plans to do something about it. Williams wants the charges against him dropped. He contacted TPD’s Internal Affairs and plans to file a complaint.

This happened 11 days ago. I haven’t seen any follow-up.

Looks like it.

A Toledo man says he was wrongfully arrested after Toledo police barged into his home.

A Toledo man says he was wrongfully arrested after Toledo police barged into his home.

Lloyd Williams, 56, has a clean record, except for a few traffic tickets. He admits he was at a friend’s house and had a couple of beers, but says he’s not involved in TPD’s investigation.

Williams says Toledo Vice detectives arrested him for no reason. The Vice and SWAT team raided a home at 1722 Washington last night. Williams lives next door. He says he was coming in the house when he heard the back gate rattle.

He claims vice detectives beat him up, and they handcuffed him. Police charged him with three crimes, including obstructing official business. Police declined to talk about the case because it’s an ongoing investigation.

Williams says he feels the officers violated his rights and his family plans to do something about it. Williams wants the charges against him dropped. He contacted TPD’s Internal Affairs and plans to file a complaint.

This happened 11 days ago. I haven’t seen any follow-up.

(Via Country As Cotton 2009-01-13: Know Your Rights When Dealing With Law Enforcement.)