Tuesday, December 05, 2006

We're the Only Ones Terrorizing Enough

Three more Chicago police officers were charged Monday with corruption, only three months after four rogue officers faced charges of using their badges to break into homes and rob them...

Prosecutors say the officers abused their authority to terrorize and steal from people. They say the men allegedly forced their way into homes of drug dealers and ordinary citizens. The officers allegedly took everything from drugs to guns and in come cases thousands of dollars in cash.
Thank goodness Chicago has such aggressive citizen disarmament in place. Otherwise, someone could get hurt and it would be their gun's fault.

[More from "The Only Ones" files...]

[Via Cousin G]

The Hipster

"Looks like a good way to be shot by cop if this rig is seen under your coat at the bank, serving on jury duty, etc."--WmH

True--they may think you're packing a video game controller.

I love hip Santa Monica socialist capitalists--particularly the kind who make a big deal out of supporting A.N.S.W.E.R. Talk about a group that's hostile to armed citizens, but they love the idea of being "strapped" if it's a fashion statement.

I think WmH is exactly right in his prediction--nobody in that part of town is used to seeing just plain folks with holsters. If a Birkenstocker does get blown away, any guesses the family survivors' lawsuit will include the language "knew or should have known"?

We're the Only Ones Playing B3yond Enough

A teenager accused of robbing a student of two new Playstation 3s on the day the popular game consoles were introduced was shot to death by police sent to arrest him...

“If this boy would’ve come to the door, opened the door, we probably wouldn’t be talking,” the sheriff said Sunday.

Roommate Mike Rhoton said Strickland was unarmed, but may have been holding a video game controller when he went to the door as it was bashed in by officers...

Strickland’s dog, a German shepherd, also was shot to death...

Sounds like a proportionate response. Anybody get the feeling there's...I dunno... a war going on?

[More from "The Only Ones" files...]

[Via HZ]

UPDATE: Cryptic Subterranean adds his perspective.

We're the Only Ones Unregistered Enough

A top Dallas County sheriff's commander who was demoted for keeping an unregistered Thompson submachine gun in his office locker for about five years wasn't the only high-ranking officer who knew about the weapon, according to an internal affairs investigation.

Larry Locke was demoted from assistant chief deputy to captain in July by Sheriff Lupe Valdez for not properly securing the 1940s-era "Tommy gun" in the department's property room as required by policy.

...Locke failed to tell him the gun was not properly documented and was not registered with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives...

The Tommy gun has since been registered and placed in the property room.
So if I keep an unregistered Tommy gun for five years, BATFU will be satisfied if my employer demotes me? How about if Wayne Fincher does? Or is that only an option for "The Only Ones"?

[Via Blackfork6]

We're the Only Ones Still in Charge Enough

How else do you explain why Jack Byrnes Jr. is still in charge of the village police department, despite not having been seen in town for more than three months?

...Byrnes himself has been the target of lawsuits, the center of controversy and the subject of much, oft-times unpleasant, speculation. He was overseeing the department in 1999 when 5,000 rounds of ammo disappeared and again when his officers were accused of faking hours they worked and double-billing both the village and the sheriff's department mere months later...

People said Byrnes never faced the music in town — indeed, he received a hefty raise after the 2001 incident — because his father, Jack Byrnes Sr., sat on the police commission for years. No conflict there, right?
Sounds like you could do a lot worse than to have this guy absent for 3 months...

[More from "The Only Ones" files...]

[Via Declan]

This Day in History: December 5

On this day in Williamsburg, Virginia, a group of five students at the College of William and Mary gather at Raleigh’s Tavern to found a new fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa. Intended to follow strictly American principles as opposed to those of “England or Germany,” the new society engaged in the fervent political debate typical of student life at Thomas Jefferson’s beloved college in Virginia’s capital. The fluent scholars of Greek and Latin who gathered to found the society, which was destined to count presidents and poets of the newly declared republic among its ranks, could not have differed more greatly from their Patriot fellows suffering as prisoners of the crown in British-occupied New York.
Jefferson? Wasn't he the fellow who advised:
Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks.
I guess. Just so you don't try that at his "beloved" William and Mary.