Gangsters in Blue

This time of year is especially auspicious for our nation's local law enforcers, and not because they are particularly fond of the season, or filled with holiday spirit. No, it's more to do with another kind of spirit: alcoholic spirits, to be exact, and the drivers who imbibe them.

The overwhelming majority of the 50,000 SWAT team raids conducted every year are to serve arrest or search warrants. Many of those warrants are for nonviolent crimes.  A Columbia Missouri SWAT team demonstrated this fact when they raided a family home all to find less than a few grams of cannabis.  Columbia Missouri’s ridiculous use [...]

(Originally posted at Liberty On Tour on September 8th.) AUSTIN, TX – Last year when on the road with another project – Motorhome Diaries – Adam and I and our other colleague at the time, Jason Talley, were arrested when traveling through southern Mississippi by Jones County Sheriff’s Deputy James Atkins. Despite the passage [...]

• If you had dreams of going dwile flonking in Britain this summer, well you can just forget it.
• Georgia prosecutor orders a defense lawyer off a death penalty case. Bonus: The state’s supreme court upheld the defendant’s conviction. Double bonus: Same prosecutor is now angling to become a judge.
• Puppycide: Cops shoot man’s medical dog while looking for a burglary suspect.
• Pretty sure this law isn’t going to have the effect its supporters think it will.
• Philly cops under fire for passing around gruesome accident scene photo.
• Nashville mayor thanks city jail inmates for saving the city’s water supply.
• Arizona continues its campaign to become the Mississippi of the West.

Various jurisdictions in Texas have made news over the last several years for sending vice squads into bars and arresting patrons for drinking. Not drinking and driving, mind you. Just drinking. In a bar.

In a scary piece for Mother Jones, Adam Weinstein delves into just how ridiculously broad and vague the state’s public intoxication laws really are. Exceprt:

The public intoxication standard, backed by the Texas-based Mothers Against Drunk Driving, is so broad that you can be arrested on just a police officer’s hunch, without being given a Breathalyzer or field sobriety test. State courts have not only upheld the practice but expanded the definition of public intoxication to cover pretty much any situation, says Robert Guest, a criminal defense attorney in Dallas. “Having no standard allows the police to arrest whoever pisses them off and call it PI,” he says, adding, “If you have a violent, homophobic, or just an asshole of a cop and you give him the arbitrary power to arrest anyone for PI, you can expect violent, homophobic, and asshole-ic behavior.”

For some officers, PI has provided a ready-made reason for detaining minorities. A Houston defense attorney, who asks to be unnamed since he specializes in misdemeanors such as PI, puts it this way: “If you’re brown and you’re around—you’re going down.” Nick Novello, a 27-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, blew the whistle on three colleagues who he claims filled their arrest quotas by picking up people, mostly minorities, for PI. “They were illegally arrested,” Novello says. “It’s an absolute perversion.” (Two were removed from the force.)

According to a recent report by sociology and law professors at the University of California-Berkeley, the Dallas suburb of Irving has used “discretionary” public intoxication arrests to fish for undocumented immigrants.

A quick roundup of recent stories on law enforcement officials and DWI laws…

• Ten police officers in Westchester County, New York admit to local newspaper that they routinely let other officers off after catching them driving drunk off duty.
• Off-duty, possibly drunk South Carolina officer pulled over after a chase demands “professional courtesy” she says is customarily granted to other officers. She was charged with reckless driving and disorderly conduct, but wasn’t arrested or given a breath test, and was allowed to go home.
• Chicago police officer shown to have faked dozens of DWI arrests won’t face criminal charges.
• Off-duty Massachusetts state police lieutenant crashes into pickup truck, causing the truck to flip several times. Officer admitted drinking earlier in the day and two open beer cans were found in his car. Other officers don’t administer field sobriety test for 2 1/2 hours, after allowing him to talk to his attorney. He was also never given breath or blood tests. He did get a $20 traffic ticket.
• From last year, DWI charges dropped against Nevada DA who caused two crashes within six hours while in California, and tested over the legal limit after the second. He was allowed to plead to reckless driving.

Thank goodness the Washington Post didn’t perpetuate irresponsible Internet rumors on that snowball fight story. Instead, they went straight to MPDC for the official version of events, unskeptically published the resulting lies from the department’s spokesman, after which WaPo columnist Marc Fisherput up a smug blog post gloating about how responsibly the paper treated the story, as opposed to those hysterical blogs and Internet sites. Never mind that the blogs and videos had proof the WaPo got the damned story wrong. Facts aren’t as important as who followed journalistic protocol.

Interesting piece by Adam Liptak on the politicization of Supreme Court clerks.

Saddest Christmas story you’ll hear about today.

Speaking of the snowball fight heard ’round the world, Julian Sanchez has good thoughts on class, video, and police accountability.

Cow art. Some of these are quite moo-tiful.

The latest from Maricopa County.

Minnesota Supreme Court nixes innocent owner defense in forfeiture cases, says spouse has no claim if other spouse loses car after DWI stop.

Eliot Spitzer’s call girl now has an advice column with the NY Post. First question: How can I turn a life turning tricks into an advice column gig with the NY Post?

Dozens of DUI cases in question after Colorado crime lab fails independent blood test audit. Exactly why audits like these are a good idea.

So the Max Baucus nominating his paramour to be a U.S. Attorney scandal is getting pretty interesting. Turns out she at one point was also sleeping with a forensic pathologist who had a history of questionable diagnoses in infant death cases. Oh, and he was a state medical examiner for the state of Mississippi in the 1980s. Why am I not surprised?

Last week, I linked to a Huffington Post entry that accused Rush Limbaugh of some racially-charged chatter concerning the Tiger Woods scandal. Limbaugh says he was misquoted. I link, you decide.

The L.A. Times rounds up the many incidences in which Joe Arpaio has launched investigations into people who have dared to question his tactics. Scariest line from the story: “Though he has said he’s not interested in running for governor, a recent poll showed him crushing the presumptive Democratic nominee, state Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard, 51% to 39%.”

Yahoo, Verizon refuse to release information related to their capability of and cooperation with the government for the purposes of spying on their customers. Their reasoning? Releasing the info would “shock” and “confuse” their customers.

Want to banish a sex offender enclave? Build a day care center near them.

Martin Short as Jerry Lewis singing Bob Dylan in an old SCTV bit. Found this SCTV skit on the same page, and it’s even better. (Via Max Sawicky.)

Interesting story about the A.P. reporter whose beat is to cover executions.

SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts wants to broaden the drunk driving exception to the Fourth Amendment.

Hi Britain. Welcome to the drug war, American style.

Food activists finding that idealized school lunch proposals will . . . actually cost money. I don’t have a problem with the idea that if we’re going to have public schools, they should try to serve the kids healthy food. In fact, I support that idea. But these nutrition activists often seem rather detached from reality.

Don’t blame you, Penn. Padma Lakshmi would get me tongue-tied, too.

Co-founder of Feminist Majority okay with Roman Polanski’s rape. A few people have emailed to ask what I make of the Polanski affair. I think he ought to go to prison. And Hollywood’s defense of him is pretty disgusting. That Woody Allen signed a petition calling for Polanski to be freed would be hilarious were we not talking about, you know, a drugging and raping.

British government considering mandating plastic pint glasses in pubs.

Puppycide.

The gas masks are a bit much, don’t you think?

Here’s more on the Ukrainian woman who created those stunning sand animations.

L.A. mandates graffiti-proof homes.

Mississippi judge convicts Motorhome Diaries crew on all counts.