Gangsters in Blue

Here are followup articles to this one, from newest to oldest:

1. Warwick Police Pass My Case Up to Bucks County District Attorney, No Charges Filed Against Me Yet 13 Jan 2010
2. Filed Complaint with Warwick Police (video) 12 Jan 2010

So I was out at lunch with classmates from a pistol instructor course this afternoon. As usual, I open carried my Glock 23. I ordered a sausage parm sandwich and was filling up my 20 oz soda from the fountain when the guy in the next booth turned and asked if I was from around here. Yes, I answered. Did he know me from somewhere? No. This was getting creepy. I didn’t answer him.

Who ARE you?”

Then: “Who ARE you?” Has a complete stranger ever asked you such an open-ended and personal question? It was a first for me. I had no idea what information he wanted and wasn’t about to give him my name or biography. “I don’t understand the question,” I told him. He didn’t like this answer.

Cop Threatens to Exceed His Authority

It was around this time that he claimed to be a cop. He showed no badge and wore no uniform. My instructor, who is a former cop, intervened to try and appease the man, a detective Jon Ogborn of Warwick township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania state. I kept quiet until Ogborn announced that he had to know who was carrying a gun around him, even if he had to handcuff and detain me. I replied that he would be exceeding his authority if he did that; that open carry of a firearm is legal under Pennsylvania law. Even his own department’s training memos will have confirmed in the last year that open carry is not sufficient justification for detention.

Just Waiting on my Sandwich

He got up, got in my face and became rather aggressive. I was just waiting for my sandwich to come up. I let him know I had no ill intentions. The gentleman who took my order told me he’d bring it to me so I sat down. To my amazement, my instructor gabbed with the cops (his lunch companion was a cop, too) all about me and my firearm-related activities.

This was not Right

As my adrenaline rush petered out and I ate my lunch, I realized I had just been treated inappropriately by a person claiming to be a cop who had demonstrated no evidence of it. I had no idea what his name was. This was not right. At a minimum, the cops’ own laws state they have to identify themselves to the public. I might want to file a complaint. I at least needed to keep my options open. So as I was leaving I stopped at his table. “Pardon me for interrupting but may I have your business card,” I asked.

Refused to Identify Himself

He refused! He offered to give it only if I provided my ID as well. I noticed that his lunch companion had a last name of McGurney on her sweater and a patch saying Warwick township. I noted this and began to leave but he got up and blocked my exit. He demanded my ID and when I asked if it was legally required, he claimed yes! That is an outrageous lie. I demanded to know what his reasonable articulable suspicion (RAS) was. His confidence level fell when I mentioned RAS. I guess he’s used to picking on less-informed folks. I asked if I was free to go. He said no! I asked on what basis he was detaining me. A charge of disorderly conduct! Unbelievable.

Detained on Fabricated Charge

For several tense minutes he pushed me further and further into the back of the strip mall restaurant as he demanded my ID. I told him he was assaulting me but he denied it. I refused to give the ID. He told me he hadn’t planned to arrest me but he would. He claimed I had escalated the situation and left him with no choice, ignoring his aggressive actions toward me entirely! All I had to do to be free to go was to give me ID. My instructor begged me to give it so we could continue our class. I told him, I couldn’t give it to him even if I wanted to because my hands were cuffed behind my back!

Cops Keeping Track of Open Carriers?

Ogborn demanded to know if I was a lawyer. I just stopped talking to him. He didn’t expect me to resist him this much or with such pointed questions as about the RAS. I could tell he was nervous. He expected me to cave. I did not. He confessed that all he wanted was my ID so he could write up the earlier encounter with me. This really took me aback. Does law enforcement keep tabs on people who open carry?

Cops Doesn’t Care if I Consent or Not

He took me out back where we waited in the cold for several minutes, I without a jacket – that had been confiscated. He emptied my pockets. I told him I didn’t consent to any searches and he said he didn’t care. He inspected my wallet and found my driver’s license. But of course that was never the only thing he wanted. My possessions were placed in a ziplock bag. I was loaded into a police SUV, forced to lay across the back seat with no back support. There was literally no leg room. Ogborn’s lunch companion, Kathleen (Kathy) McGurney, drove me to jail.

How Can a Human Being be so Monstrous?

At the Warwick police department, I was ordered to remove belt and shoes and left in a 4′x6′ or 6′x8′ cement cell. I have to say, this was not fun. There was a camera watching me. It had one of those metal toilets. No privacy. A dirty white towel was the only potential source of cover. The only place to sit or lay down was painted concrete. The cement floor was freezing my feet. That’s the first time I’ve been locked in a cage and it is not pleasant. How can a human being be so monstrous as to lock his fellow man in a cage simply for failing to give the required level of deference?

Good Cop, Bad Cop

After 10 minutes, Ogborn showed up and gave me the good cop routine while McGurney in the background asked if I had to be taken down to the Montgomery county scanseek (??), whatever that is. I had to confirm my current address in order to get out. He implied that if I didn’t cooperate my charge could become a misdemeanor and that could become a problem for my planned move. [WTF! He got this tidbit of information from my instructor.] He justified himself again. He let me put my shoes on. He lectured me for several minutes with his version of the encounter. He complimented me. He led me to the building lobby where I waited another 20 minutes while they processed my property and reportedly a charge of disorderly conduct which I’m to hear of in the mail.

Still Completed My Course!

All of this transpired during roughly 2 hours but I still managed to complete the pistol course on time! Ironically, at least one of my four lunch companions was carrying a concealed firearm. But Ogborn didn’t see fit to search the whole restaurant for concealed pistols.

Analysis

I have a bad attitude. It simply an incontrovertible fact. I will not bow down to authority figures. This is the root of my problem. I simply can not expect to speak with cops as my equals without being detained, harassed, attacked, man-handled, imprisoned, talked down to and/or robbed. This is the world I live in. I accept the consequences of my actions. So be it. But I will never bow down.

These are My Offenses

What did I do wrong? I securely and legally carried a pistol openly. I failed to answer the questions of a person who didn’t even identify himself as a cop. I told a cop that open carry was legal and that he did not have the authority by his own rules to detain me simply for open carrying. I asked a cop to identify himself. I refused to identify myself in a situation where even the cop’s own laws don’t require it. These are my offenses. For this I was harassed, assaulted, kidnapped and imprisoned – just for starters.

That’s the world we live in folks.

What Should I Have Done Differently

I have to learn how to ignore people I don’t know. I should have ignored Ogborn’s initial, and all subsequent, questions. I should have pretended he hadn’t even spoken. This is very counter to my nature though. I’m rather loquacious, sometimes gregarious and always receptive to communication with most any kind of person – even smelly bums!

I was running with the wrong crowd. My instructor is an ex-cop. Of course he’s going to sell me out at first chance. He’s a nice guy and he doesn’t see it that way, but in objective fact he did sell me out by giving Ogborn so much info about me. I have to be very careful about who I associate with. Any but the most committed is a liability.

I failed to exercise the discipline and care necessary to audio record my daily life. Argh.

What I Did Right

I’m glad I defended myself by stating that open carry is legal under Pennsylvania law and that he has no legal authority to detain me simply for open carrying. I think being too meek with a cop simply encourages him. I’m also glad I asked for his business card because I would have felt poorly without getting the information.

I was radically more terse in my communications this time. I didn’t lecture or challenge the cop hardly at all. I remained silent most of the time. I asked if I was free to go. Then I asked if I was being detained and what for. This was good.

I’m glad I stood my ground on the ID issue. He had no basis to demand it even under his own rules.

Next Actions

I’m going to put in a Pennsylvania Right to Know (FOIA-like) request on Monday. I will attempt to get the police report. I will consider filing a complaint and I may have to file a counter-claim if they pursue this unfounded disorderly conduct charge.

Don’t Tell me to Take it Down

Don’t tell me to take this down because it’s damaging my legal case. My goal is not to rake the cops over the coal for a multi-million dollar settlement. That’s a pipe dream. My goal in telling this story is to inform people like me. The fact is that the constitutions, bills of rights, laws, legal safeguards, police training memos and assorted government public relations paperwork are for entertainment and decorative purposes only.

You Want the Truth?

The fact is that cops don’t serve you. They serve themselves. They have no limits. They have legal immunity for their acts. They have no legal obligation to protect you from harm! They can do whatever the hell they like, and lie about it afterwards. They can arrest you for nothing, drop the original charges and prosecute you for resisting their false arrest. It’s a scam.

Most people can’t, or won’t, see this. That’s fine. I just hope to reach the small number who can.

Photo credit: banspy. Photo license.

Someone should send him a copy of Overkill.

Reminds me of the time Michael Ledeen attempted to illustrate how evil the ruling government in Iran is because, holy crap!, their narco cops wear masks when they conduct drug raids. Imagine!

Amid a world-historic economic collapse and the emergence of a fully-orbed doctrine of official impunity, an increasing percentage of those hired by the State to protect “public safety” are freelancing as undisguised criminals.

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Rapist on Patrol:

Marcus Jackson, a patrol officer with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, was arrested last week after two women accused him of sexual assault.

Since being charged and  jailed on multiple counts of sexual battery, felonious restraint, and interference with an emergency communication, Jackson has been hit with a third accusation. All three accusers describe being sexually assaulted by Jackson during traffic stops.

Jackson was fired subsequent to his arrest. He had been hired despite being subject to a domestic violence restraining order. It’s worth recalling that federal and local “laws” forbid the exercise of the right to armed self-defense by people convicted of domestic violence charges, yet Jackson was given a gun and a piece of costume jewelry and the opportunity to prey on innocent victims.

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“Professional Courtesy” for a Bank Robber:

As paladins of public order, police are considered largely exempt from the traffic regulations that government mere Mundanes — not only when they’re needlessly speeding or running red lights while on-duty, but also by way of “professional courtesy” while off the clock.

On January 6, Apple Valley, Minnesota patrol officer Kurt Schultz pulled over a white car belonging to Timothy Edward Carson because it wasn’t displaying a front license plate.

This is a classic “pretext stop” of the sort used to manufacture probable cause for a vehicular search. In this case, however, Schultz let Carson go without hassle, because Carson was an officer with the Minneapolis PD. Had Schultz pressed Carson just a bit he might have learned that Carson was late for work that morning. He was an hour tardy for his “protect and serve” gig because he spent the morning robbing a bank.

A half-hour later, Schultz received a call that a local Wells Fargo Bank had been robbed by an armed man wearing a black jacket and a ski mask. En route to the bank, Schultz passed Carson’s car again, this time headed north. “This was the break in the case,” Schultz later recalled.

That “break” might have come sooner if Schultz had treated Carson like a Mundane, something “professional courtesy” forbids. Carson, a member of the Minneapolis SWAT team, has admitted to a role in several local armed robberies. Presumably this refers to unsanctioned robberies apart from those routinely carried out by Minnesota police under the label of “asset forfeiture.”

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Bibulous Sobriety Gatekeeper:

Corporal John Quigg of the Pennsylvania State Police, who supervised sobriety checkpoints in that state, “has been charged with drunken driving,” reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has been placed on “administrative leave” — that is, paid vacation — “pending adjudication of the charges and the results of an internal investigation” into his December 17 arrest.

Quigg, who was not on duty, lost control of his Honda, which collided with a guard rail on Pennsylvania Route 422. The 47-year-old State Trooper was found slumped over the wheel of his car with an open container of alcohol.

Leaving aside the issue of whether driving after drinking (as opposed to conduct while driving that actually threatens others) should be considered a crime, this isn’t what most people would expect from someone who set up roadblocks and demanded travel papers from motorists in the name of enforcing DUI laws. Then again, most people just aren’t paying attention.

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Blue Gang Beating in Springfield:

Last November 27, Melvin Jones, Jr. of Springfield, Mass. was severely beaten during a traffic stop by at least four, and perhaps as many as six, heroic defenders of public virtue. One of the officers hit Jones at least fifteen times with a large metal flashlight. The arrest and assault were captured on video.

As the officers administered a dose of “street justice” to Jones (who was allegedly found in possession of non-government-approved drugs), one of them serenaded him with kind words about his ethnic heritage: “Put your hands behind you, you f*****g n****r!” exclaimed the hero in blue.

Jones, who tried to run from the police (gee golly Ned, I wonder why?), is now partially blind. “They beat him like a wild animal,” observes his father, Melvin Sr.  While he believes his son should face the legal consequences if found guilty of drug possession, the elder Jones insists, quite sensibly, that  “no human being should be treated like that.”

The officers who swarmed and beat Jones were conducting enhanced patrols in a local “hot spot” as part of a program funded through a special state grant. Jones came to their attention because his car had a damaged muffler.

Among the officers involved in the incident is Patrolman Jeffery M. Asher, a 17-year veteran on the force who came to national attention in 1997 through a video showing him kicking a black suspect.

Asher is the kind of valiant public servant who specializes in assaulting helpless suspects: In the earlier incident he kicked a suspect who had been pinned down by several other officers. He was cleared of criminal charges (natch)  and suspended for a year without pay — but even that punishment was deemed too harsh, and his suspension was cut in half.

“Be safe out there,” members of the Brotherhood in Blue often say to each other by way of melodramatic benediction. Law enforcement isn’t a particularly dangerous job, and last year was the safest for police of the last half-century. The real question, as always,  is this: Who’s going to protect us from our supposed protectors?

Here’s Jenn Rowell in the Montgomery Advertiser on a recent murder in Tallassee. Notice the amazing disappearing subject:

Tallassee police have released additional information about a fatal shooting that involved officers.

In the news, fatal shootings just happen somehow, and officers, poor things, somehow end up involved.

Of course, what actually happened is that some white cops working on the Tallassee city government’s police force chased a black man down and then they shot him to death. Their victim, Michael McIntyre, was not actually accused of any crime whatsoever; the cops were in the housing projects where he lives because they were looking for somebody else to serve a warrant. (Who they found, and arrested, without any trouble. But Michael McIntyre ran away, which cops in America take as a crime in itself, and sufficient reason to chase after you, force a violent confrontation, and take you down by any means necessary, even if it means lighting you up (the police so far have refused to disclose how many shots were fired, beyond the fact that their victim was hit multiple times).

Cops claim that McIntyre brandished a weapon — after a gang of heavily-armed strangers had chased him for 200 or 300 yards. I don’t know whether that’s true or not — there’s certainly no reason to just take the police at their word — but even if it is true, I don’t much care. If I had no reason to be looking for you, no reason to hang around bothering you — if you were never accused of any crime and I had no basis to arrest or detain or harass you over anything — and you decided to leave, then you have a right to leave. If I took your decision to leave as an offense against my person or prerogative, and then chased you down, threatening to use my small arsenal of weapons to restrain you by any means necessary, and so forced a violent confrontation with you when, again, you were not suspected of committing any crime, or of posing any threat to anyone, and if I then ended it all by lighting you up, in self-defense against a threat which, if it existed at all, was purely the product of my own belligerence and escalation, then I would be considered a dangerous maniac, and I would probably be in prison for the next couple decades, if not the remainder of my natural life.

Of course, here the dangerous maniac is a gang of cops armed and uniformed by the city government. So instead they get a crowd control goon squad to clear the area of upset black people, while the Mayor pro tem of the city government takes time out to roll up and do some damage control, while their colleagues in the Alabama Bureau of Investigation perform a perfunctory investigation that will almost certainly end up by declaring that everything they did was done According To Official Procedures.

(Via Roderick 2009-12-31.)

See also:

• GT 2009-10-21: Wednesday Lazy Linking (Tucumcari, New Mexico: Unarmed 14 year old girl tasered for running away)
• GT 2009-09-16: The Police Beat: Shot in the Back (Las Vegas, Nevada: shot to death for running away)
• GT 2009-06-02: The Police Beat (Detroit, Michigan: Tasered to death for running away.)
• GT 2009-05-26: Over My Shoulder #45: How Empire comes home in sado-statism and police brutality. From Fred Woodworth, “Evil Empire Notes,” in The Match! # 107 (Summer, 2009)

Until recently, Brandon Reed Loverde, one of Orlando’s “Finest,” was making $40 an hour to provide security for rhe Firestone Live club. Although off-duty, he would wear his government-issued costume, and presumably was also clothed in the necessary “authority” to arrest and otherwise abuse people as he saw fit.

That latter fact explains why he was able to detain and sexually assault 20-year-old nursing mother Rachelle Cortez after she was thrown out of the club for dancing too close to the stage.

Loverde ordered Cortez “to follow him into a parking lot at the rear of a nearby business and made her sit on the ground,” reports the Orlando Sentinel. He confiscated her cell phone and identification and left briefly, presumably to run a background check.

When he returned he had a blue latex glove on his right hand. “He then squatted in front of her, reached inside her bra and squeezed her right breast until milk squirted into his glove,” while commenting to the horrified young mother that he wanted to “suck on them.’”

This event was captured on surveillance video. After being charged with battery and with false imprisonment with a weapon, Loverde was booked into jail and then released after posting $5,500 bail. It’s doubtful that a Mundane would be given such lenient bail were he accused of assaulting a police officer (for one thing, the offense wouldn’t be described in such minimal terms: prosecutors tend to multiply charges whenever a commoner lifts an unhallowed hand against one of the State’s sanctified enforcers).

Elsewhere along the heroic Thin Blue Line:

*Fredericktown, Missouri Police Captain Kenneth Tomlinson, 42, faces 16 counts of sexual misconduct involving at least three teenage boys.

*Trying to subdue what amounts to a crime wave in the county police department, the Board of Commissioners for Georgia’s Clayton County has voted to remove police chief Jeff Turner. The complaints sustained against Turner’s department included numerous acts of sexual misconduct; one of his officers was arrested by federal authorities for sexual enticement of  a minor.

*Last September, Michael Meissner, the 39-year-old chief of Little River-Academy (a small Texas community south of Waco) was arrested on sexual misconduct charges; the long and detailed arrest affidavit contained numerous explicit excerpts from text messages he had sent to teenage boys “trying to lure them to sex parties,” reports the Dallas Morning News.

Without explanation, the prosecutors “erased” the charges against Meissner, which included promotion of child prostitution and sexual performance of a child.

The former police chief contends that the case was contrived by investigating officer John Hoskins of the nearby Combine Police Department, who supposedly has a “vendetta” against him.

Meissner, who has been employed by 18 different police agencies during the past twenty years, has had a lengthy feud with Hoskins, who is (in the Morning News’s delicate phrase) “an equally nomadic officer.”

Prior to being hired as police chief at Little River-Academy, Meissner had been arrested at least four times for (among other things) witness tampering and attempted fraud (by claiming a fictitious degree in a job application with the Dallas Community College District).

The conflict between Meissner and Hoskins began in 2006, after Hoskins investigated allegations that Meissner had used a department computer to watch pornography with a 15-year-old boy.

These stories offer an interesting counterpoint to a recent “Bless the Badge” ceremony in Columbus, Ohio sponsored by Central Ohio Crime Stoppers. Pastors from several local churches participated in the event, during which one of them prayed that the badge would be “a heavenly protection” for those who wear it.

Who is going to protect nursing mothers and vulnerable youngsters from the predatory attentions of Officer A-Little-Too Friendly?

Officer Marcus Ramon Jackson, rapist on patrol.

Officer Marcus Ramon Jackson, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, Charlotte, North Carolina. Last week, the Charlotte city government’s police force fired and then arrested Officer Marcus Ramon Jackson, for using the power of his badge and the threat of arrest to pull over, abduct and then rape at least two different young women off the street within a period of a week and a half in late December. The police force’s spokesman is keeping mum about it, but apparently Jackson was still out on patrol after the first woman came forward to the police — and raped the second victim during the time he was allowed to stay on the road. This is what Police Spokesman Captain Brian Cunningham considers act[ing] in a swift and appropriate manner.

On Wednesday, Jackson, 25, was arrested after two young women told investigators he had pulled them over on traffic stops and sexually assaulted them. He was on duty in a marked patrol car at the time, according to police.

The first incident allegedly occurred on Dec. 18 but wasn’t reported until Monday. Police Chief Rodney Monroe said Jackson — wearing his uniform and driving his police cruiser - pulled over a 17-year-old girl, forced her into his car, drove to another location and forced her to commit sex acts.

CMPD began its investigation after a relative of the girl called police Monday.

As detectives investigated the allegations, Monroe said, a 21-year-old woman reported Tuesday night that she too had been assaulted by Jackson under similar circumstances. That assault, she said, occurred on Monday.

Police would not say what time on Monday they received the first complaint, or how much time passed before the second attack occurred.

—Ely Portillo and Gary Wright, Charlotte Observer (2010-01-01): Ex-officer had past reports of violence

The reason that Officer Marcus Ramon Jackson was given a badge and a gun and the power to detain and arrest in the first place is because the city government’s police force decided to hire him even though he had already been taken to court two different times for threatening violence and battering women:

Court documents reveal that Jackson’s past included two allegedly violent episodes in Mecklenburg County. The first was in 2003 when Jackson, then 19 and a student at UNC Charlotte, was dating a 15-year-old Harding High School student.

The girl’s mother sought a restraining order against him in May 2003. The defendant threatened my daughter by telling her she was going to get hers and catch one, the mother wrote.

Jackson tried to hit the teen with a car and pushed her into a locker, according to the mother’s complaint. He was later summoned to court after being accused of violating a restraining order, but was found not guilty in August 2003.

In 2005, Jackson was working at Off Broadway Shoes on South Boulevard and still studying at UNCC when his 21-year-old girlfriend sought a restraining order against him.

The defendant grabbed me by the face several times, screaming and yelling…, the girlfriend wrote in her complaint. The defendant hit me in the back of the head, slapped my face, pushed me down in the floor, forcing (me) in (a) walk-in closet.

The judge ordered Jackson to stay away from the victim and not own or carry any firearms [for the duration of the restraining order].

—Ely Portillo and Gary Wright, Charlotte Observer (2010-01-01): Ex-officer had past reports of violence

The police admit that they were already aware of the 2003 domestic violence complaint when they decided to hire and arm Jackson. They claim that they weren’t aware of the 2005 restraining order — but, of course, they claim to do background checks before they hand out badges and guns, and the restraining order was a matter of public record, and could easily have been discovered if they took the time to follow up on the 2003 complaint, to see whether it was part of a pattern of behavior. In other words, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department chose to hire, train, arm, and put out on patrol a man who they already knew, or already should have known, to be a hyperviolent control freak with a history of violence against women. Who then went on to become a serial rapist, using the legal and martial weapons that they gave him to single young women out, force them into his car, abduct them, and force sex on them against their will. Police Chief Rodney Monroe has mentioned to the press that he thinks it would be naïve to believe that Jackson hadn’t raped other women while out on duty.

Yes, it would be. Men who attack women typically do so repeatedly; men with a known history of violence against women will do it over and over again, unless and until they are stopped. So how naive is it to hire a man with a known history of abusive rages and physical violence against women, heavily arm him, and putting him out on patrol, where he effectively holds the power of life or death over any woman that he chooses to single out?

See also:

• GT 2009-08-24: Rapists on patrol (#6) / Men in Uniform (#4)
• GT 2009-07-31: The Police Beat (on rapist-on-patrol Officer Feliciano Sanchez)
• GT 2009-06-11: The Police Beat (on rapist-on-patrol Officer Thomas Tolstoy)
• GT 2009-05-14: Rapists on Patrol (#3). Officer Gary Pignato. Greece, New York.
• GT 2008-03-10: Rapists on Patrol (#2). Officer David Alex Park, Irvine, California.
• GT 2007-12-21: Rapists on patrol. Officers Victor Hugo Gonzalez, Michael Anthony Munoz and Raymond Ramos, San Antonio, Texas.
• GT 2009-04-19: Men in Uniform (#3). Los Angeles, California.
• GT 2007-12-02: Men in Uniform
• GT 2008-02-26: Cops are here to protect you. (#2)