'Sex brokers' in Tijuana connect men looking to exploit very young children, FBI says
By Kristina Davis
Los Angeles Times
October 23, 2017
“It’s William from tonight. Precious was weird and fun. I’m already thinking about coming down next Thursday. Please send me pics of 3 or four of the youngest ones so I can choose.”
FBI investigators say William Dixon Adelman, a 51-year-old Studio City man, sent the request to a Tijuana sex broker on July 3, 2015 — the same day border crossing records show he was returning to the U.S. from Mexico.
“Thin, pretty … Like a precious but smaller,” the request continued. “You have a safe apartment? Hotel people would freak out no?”
The broker responded that he had a “good” place in mind, but reservations were needed: “in this place you can take the girls realy (sic) young 9,10,11.”
The emails, being used to prosecute Adelman on charges of traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sex following his arrest this month, offer a glimpse into a niche of Tijuana’s sex tourism industry — men seeking to exploit young children.
FBI Supervisory Special Agent Joseph Rothrock in San Diego said the agency has investigated three to four cases in the last six months of Americans traveling with intent to have sex with minors. At least two of the recent cases, including Adelman’s, stem from a Tijuana man accused of setting up sexual encounters between U.S. citizens and young children. A third case involves the Philippines.
He said the cases are the beginning results of a renewed effort to tackle child trafficking in Mexico with help from Mexican law enforcement.
“All law enforcement partners are trying to get a handle on this information and assess how big an issue this is,” said Rothrock, who supervises the FBI’s Violent Crimes Task Force. He declined to discuss details of the cases, including if any child victims have been identified or rescued.
Prostitution has long been tolerated in Tijuana’s La Zona Norte, where customers — many of them Americans — easily find commercial sex on the street or in established brothels. Young children are offered more covertly, authorities say.
“It’s as easy as going on the internet and the dark web to get what you want,” said Marisa Ugarte, a former Tijuana social worker and founder of Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition, a National City, Calif.-based service organization for victims of sex trafficking.
Many of the children are brought up from other areas of Mexico, Ugarte said. Some are orphans, unaccompanied minor immigrants or sold by their parents. Some are kidnapped, she said.
Child sex trafficking has long been known to be a problem in Tijuana, but there is no official data suggesting just how prolific it is.
The Tijuana investigations began in December, when a U.S. citizen reported the broker to the FBI. The FBI found the unnamed broker, interviewed him and was granted access to his email and Facebook communications with several clients.
(The broker denied actually providing access to children, but admitted to communicating with several people about setting up such transactions, according to court records. The man did admit to providing clients access to adults for sex.)
The communications indicate Adelman and another man, Kenneth Bigler, 52, of Walnut, separately traveled to Tijuana several times over the past few years, either engaging in sex with young children or intending to do so, according to complaints filed in San Diego federal court. U.S.-Mexico border crossing records correspond with their messages, investigators said.
Both have pleaded not guilty. Adelman’s lawyer declined to discuss his case and Bigler’s did not respond to a request for comment.
In responding to Adelman’s request for a “smaller” girl, on July 8, 2015, the broker responded he ad just returned from Sinaloa with two beautiful girls, “brand new,” according to the communications.
Later, the messages began to refer to girls as “cars” with “mileage,” according to investigators.
Sept. 15, 2015: “hey will when aree u gonna be here_i got new girl,” the broker said.
“Girl?” Adelman responded, according to the complaint. “I’m looking for a car. About 10-11 years, low miles.”
On Adelman’s Facebook account, investigators found numerous pictures of prepubescent girls in various states of undress, as well as communications with more than 10 girls reportedly between the ages of 11 and 17, the complaint states. Once he learned they were under 18, authorities said, he would ask to continue talking on the messaging app Whatsapp, which is encrypted and a popular way to avoid law enforcement scrutiny, the complaint states.
Adelman’s last trip to Mexico was in April. He was arrested Oct. 4, according to the criminal complaint.
Bigler’s alleged communications with the broker were especially demanding, according to messages that began in November 2013, separate court records show.
The messages state the broker took Bigler around to scope out children, although it is not clear if the kids were potential victims or used as examples of girls and boys he was interested in.
He asked the broker to “try to get an 8 or 9” and referred to “the one in blue that was in front of the ladies underwear place” and “the one by the video game machine,” according to the complaint.
Bigler also warned that if the broker couldn’t help him out, “I’ll find someone else that can,” the complaint says.
In October 2014, the complaint says, Bigler requested a smaller and younger girl than he’d had sex with the other night, hoping for a 10-year-old but “NO MORE” than 12.
Later, the broker sent pictures of prepubescent girls to choose from. One photo, of a girl in an orange tank top, had the caption “Soi una sexy Hermosa” — “Im a sexy beauty” — with a pink heart next to it. In another, three girls in school uniforms appear to be standing in a bathroom.
“On my way,” a message from Bigler said, according to court records. “I like the one picture that has the little pink heart on it. Need to see her whole body before I make a decision though.”
In other emails in March 2015, Bigler allegedly bragged about buying sex from 10- and 12-year-olds during a trip to Thailand for $30 to $40, the complaint says. Records show Bigler flew from Los Angeles to Taiwan on March 1, 2015, and returned 12 days later, according to investigators.
The complaint states he then began asking for a girl or boy who had never had sexual contact before.
“Steel the (girl) if you have to. (Boy) also. Want them both tomorrow night,” read a September 2015 message.
Broker replied: “cause I got a (girl) brand new recently stolen only (8 years old) and a (boy) (10 years old).”
Bigler last crossed into Mexico in April, according to the complaint. He was arrested Aug. 14.
The men are being charged under the PROTECT Act, signed by former President George W. Bush in 2003, which makes it illegal in the U.S. to travel across state or foreign lines with the intent to have sex with minors. The crime comes with a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison.
One of the first men convicted under the law in 2004, John W. Seljan of Garden Grove, was 85 when he was arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport preparing to leave for the Philippines. In his suitcase was pornography featuring him with children and 100 pounds of chocolate.
Ugarte said the U.S. government should be prosecuting more travelers under the PROTECT Act.
“Until you start arresting the buyers, it’s going to continue,” she said.
The issue got national attention last year when a former Ohio seminary student was arrested after getting off a plane in San Diego to travel to Tijuana to rape infant and toddler girls.
Joel Alexander Wright, 23, studying to become a Roman Catholic priest, posted an online ad saying he wanted to adopt infants in Mexico, and then told the man who answered that he really wanted them for sex. The man eventually reported the conversations to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and a U.S. Homeland Security Investigations agent went undercover to build a case against Wright with help of the informant.
Wright pleaded guilty to attempted enticement of a minor and was sentenced in San Diego federal court to 16 years in prison.
“That’s one of a million,” Ugarte said of Wright.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
BLACK DAHLIA MURDER IN 1947 FINALLY SOLVED?
EXCLUSIVE: Notorious cold case of the Black Dahlia where aspiring starlet was cut in half, gruesomely mutilated and had 'Joker smile' carved into her face is finally solved as killer is 'revealed' despite 'cover-up by LAPD'
By Caroline Howe
Daily Mail
October 25, 2017
The notorious Black Dahlia murder in Los Angeles in 1947 is arguably the most gruesome of America's cold cases ever.
The body of aspiring starlet Elizabeth Short was found beside a sidewalk in a vacant lot in a southern Los Angeles suburb and shocked even the most hardened newspaper crime reporters.
The woman had been strung up by the wrists, her face and head severely beaten and a satanic smile cut into her face with deep cuts extending out from the corners of her mouth.
The 22-year-old had been viciously mutilated, with the trunk of her body completely severed, the anal opening had abrasions from the insertion of a foreign object and her stomach was filled with feces, among many other horrors.
Short's murder has remained unsolved for decades, although there was a break through in late 1948 when the killer was seduced out of hiding and admitted to knowing the two things about the crime that were never revealed to the public.
But the case was never solved by the LAPD because of a cover-up by the Homicide Division and lingering fears for years of reprisal by the department.
Now, 70 years later, after an exhaustive investigation author and legal sleuth Piu Eatwell exposes why the truth never out in her new book,Black Dahlia, Red Rose: The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of America's Greatest Unsolved Murder.
Short's murder captivated the nation, as her injuries 'suggested necrophilia and a fetishism with knives'.
'They were the marks of a sadistic lust murderer ...and it was speculated that the killer either had medical training or experience with handling corpses in a mortuary --- and a manifest fascination with death', writes Eatwell, a historical researcher and legal sleuth.
The young woman's body had multiple deep lacerations to the face and blows to the head that suggested they were delivered while the victim was still alive and possibly what killed her.
The trunk of her body had been completely severed by an incision cutting through the intestine exposing the organs of the abdomen and lacerating the intestines and both kidneys.
There was a gaping cut extending down from the naval to just above the pubis, multiple lacerations in the skin of the hip and an irregular piece of flesh had been removed from in front of her left thigh.
A square of tissue had been cut out from the right breast. The anal opening had multiple abrasions from the insertion of a foreign object.
Her stomach was filled with feces and the corpse completely cleaned and drained of blood.
As the case rose in prominence and no legitimate suspect on hand, detectives dived into the depths of the victim's life in order to track down her illusive killer.
Elizabeth Short, called 'Beth', was the third of five girls. She was raised by her mother, Phoebe, in Medford, Massachusetts, a working class Boston suburb. Her father feigned suicide only to resurface years later.
'She wanted to be someone famous. She had stars in her eyes, dreams rather than plans. I think of her as a very beautiful but very private person, with a sadness about her. A void, something missing', her mother, Phoebe recalled.
Short suffered from an acute bronchial condition and she moved around between Florida, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Chicago – in search of a better climate for her health.
She once worked as a clerk at the U.S. Army's Camp Cooke in Lompoc, California, a small town north of Santa Barbara and won a 'Cutie of the Week' contest.
Her former boss said 'she was one of the loveliest girls I have ever seen – and the most shy'.
She suddenly left the camp after being assaulted by a sergeant at the Army base.
She had been arrested in September 1943 for underage drinking with soldiers in a Santa Barbara restaurant.
The fingerprints filed by the Santa Barbara police were what identified her body.
Her mug shot showed a girl with raven-black hair with 'a look that went straight through you. Nobody had expected her to be so sullenly beautiful', writes Eatwell.
While awaiting trial at the time, the local policewoman, Mary Unkefer, took her into her home.
'She had the blackest hair I ever saw. I noticed that she was a very nice girl and was most neat about her person and clothes'.
She had a rose tattooed on her upper left leg and Unkefer recalled that loved to sit with it showing.
Short was released on probation by juvenile court at the time and Unkefer put her on a bus back to Medford with $10 from the Santa Barbara Neighborhood House for food and cokes on the six-day ride home.
Short stayed in the East for two years and then headed down to Miami Beach where she worked as a waitress and hooked up with an Army Air Force officer. They were to be married but his plane crashed over India.
She dated other men and then headed back to Los Angeles. Although Short was no prostitute, she wasn't innocent.
'This victim knew at least 50 men at the time of her death and at least 25 men had been seen with her in the 60 days preceding her death', according to a police report.
Short teased men, got rides with them, places to sleep, clothes and money but then refused to have sexual intercourse, claiming she was either a virgin, engaged or married.
She connected with no less than four men a day.
'And so, the public image of the murder victim began to change from that of a violated beauty into a "man crazy delinquent, a temptress prowling the rain-soaked streets of an urban film noir"'.
The movie industry in Southern California promised the golden life and stimulated a wave of women to seek their fame and fortune in the movies and Tinseltown.
More revelations about the dead girl came from a pharmacist in Long Beach where she had drifted in the summer of 1946.
She came frequently and wore a two-piece outfit revealing her bare midriff – and 'black lacy things'.
'She was popular with the men who came in here and they got to calling her The Black Dahlia'.
The name was also perhaps the brainchild of a newspaper reporter at a time when homicides were given floral murder tags. Wherever the moniker came from, it sparked a national obsession.
The reality of the young girl's life was that she was in search of a husband, home and happiness.
She got involved with the wrong person when she met 55-year-old Mark Hansen from Denmark who became a wealthy and powerful Hollywood figure.
He owned more than a dozen movie theaters and was a part owner of the Florentine Gardens on Hollywood Boulevard that put on a girly shows that even attracted the aging movie star, Errol Flynn.
A secret gambling casino was hidden within the Florentine Gardens.
'Hansen worked in a shadowy hinterland between legitimate business and the fringes of the LA underworld'.
He operated his own B-version of the casting couch and 'owned two rooming houses where would-be Hollywood hopefuls were groomed for semi-nude careers both on and off the dance floor'.
Back at his house behind the Gardens, he kept a harem of his favorite girls.
In October 1946, Short showed up on Hansen's doorstep with her friend Ann Toth who lived in Mark's home.
Hansen noticed her and came on to her but Short claimed she was a virgin. He finally had enough of her teasing after 10 days and ordered the two to move on.
He was also tired of Short's endless stream of boyfriends.
Hansen couldn't deny he knew the girl. His name was on the cover of Short's address book.
Short's body was discovered one morning in the wet morning grass in a vacant lot in a south LA neighborhood – and a room in the Aster Motel in downtown Los Angeles was found to be covered in blood and human feces. It was Short's death chamber.
Rumors circulated that Short was a female pervert and had indulged in 'unnatural intimacies' with other women. There were unsubstantiated sightings at gay bars.
Folksinger Woody Guthrie, once indicted by New York authorities for sending obscene letters in the mail, was considered a suspect in the ensuing hysteria and possibly capable of such a heinous crime a suspect in the ensuing hysteria until it was discovered he wasn't in LA at the time of the murder.
Over 500 crackpots came forward confessing to the murder in exchange for a free meal and a place to stay for the night.
The big break through in the case came in late 1948 when the chief police psychiatrist who was employed by the LAPD, Dr. Joseph Paul De River, seduced the killer out of hiding and he subtly revealed himself to the doctor.
The murderer came calling after Dr. De River planted a magazine article in a pulp crime magazine, True Detective, in an attempt to lure the killer out of hiding.
'It was his view that the pathology of the Dahlia killer included a deep-seated compulsion to publicize and claim recognition for his act'.
The confessors would continue to come and the police would talk to them but 'the type of mind that conceived the Elizabeth Short murder will some day have to boast about it', according to Dr. De River.
In October 1948, a letter arrived for Dr. De River with a return address of a post office box in Miami Beach.
The letter was signed 'Jack Sand' and stated he had associated with someone who fitted the 'pattern' of the 'infamous one'.
This 'Jack Sand' said he had associated with the killer for two months in San Francisco and the man had a motive for the killing and 'knew the characters involved'.
Jack Sand was also offering his help in tracking the suspect down.
Meetings were set up between Dr. De River and 'Jack Sand' in Vegas but the location was changed when they couldn't get rooms to a health resort in the San Jacinto Mountains far north of Banning, California, near Palm Springs.
Two other cops, members of the Gangster Squad, accompanied De River, one acting as the driver while Sand talked to De River.
'Jack Sand' was in fact Leslie Dillon, the true killer. He was connected to a prostitution network and a pimp and errand boy for Mark Hansen.
When Hansen got tired of Short's boyfriends and tired of her pestering him for money, he told his errand boy, Dillon to get rid of her – not realizing the man was a dangerous and murderous psychopath.
Dillon knew two things about the murder that had never been revealed to the public: a rose tattoo had been cut out of Short's thigh by the killer and inserted in her vagina. Her pubic hair had also been cut off and pushed up inside her rectum.
Dillon had worked briefly in a mortuary and knew how to make a cut in the leg of a corpse to bleed it out and how to insert a tube to drain the blood.
The man talked about this other individual 'Jeff Connors' he claimed to be the likely suspect for the murder.
Dillon suggested that Short's body had been cut in half so the killer could see how far his penis penetrated into the woman's body.
He inferred that this person named Jeff could have committed the crime in a hotel, a ground level motel, the doctor corrected him, so that he could get the body outside without carrying it downstairs.
De River asked Dillon to take off his shirt. He agreed and had a very muscular build.
The doctor then asked Dillon if he objected to dropping his trousers. Dillon hesitated briefly and then down they came, revealing a 'juvenile penis ... typical of an eight-year-old boy'.
In one of the letters to the doctor, Dillon had said that Short's killer 'had been mocked or threatened exposure by her to his friends'.
The author questions whether Short could have mocked Dillon and exposed him for having such a small penis. Dillon also stated he liked girls with 'big mouths'.
He didn't drink but he did do drugs – bennies or Benzedrine 'for pep'.
'He also told one of the gangster squad with the doctor about how he would grind up the phenobarbital and 'put it on ice cream or food' and give it to women 'as it knocks them out'.
De River knew he had his man.
'And yet, despite the compelling evidence the officers of the Gangster Squad were uncovering, they never seemed to make headway with their investigation. The path was always blocked', writes Eatwell.
Summer of 1949, 'the LAPD became embroiled in the biggest corruption scandal of its history: a scandal that was to change the police department, and the course of the Dahlia case, forever'.
It was a massive cover-up by the Homicide Division that had links to Hansen, according to Eatwell.
The LAPD was rotten to the core and 'let a dangerous psychopath on the loose'.
In an interview with homicide, Dillon told them he wouldn't say a word if they let him go. But if they arrest him, he would talk and 'he knew where the bodies were buried in terms of organized crime. And then he was gone'.
All the key protagonists of the Dahlia case are dead. Most of the documents are gone or locked away in the vaults of the LAPD.
In the aftermath of the 1949 grand jury investigation, there had clearly been a willful campaign to suppress the facts of the case and to discredit and harass key witness such as Dr. De River', writes the author.
And there was an unwillingness by more recent writers and researchers to let the facts tell the story.
'The facts – buried in newspapers reports and court documents are more compelling that any of the alternate facts'.
Dillon was the centerpiece of the Dahlia drama and evil personified in a native boy from the Southern plains. The legal sleuth and author rests her case.
EDITOR’S NOTE: To my generation, the Black Dahlia murder was a really big case.
By Caroline Howe
Daily Mail
October 25, 2017
The notorious Black Dahlia murder in Los Angeles in 1947 is arguably the most gruesome of America's cold cases ever.
The body of aspiring starlet Elizabeth Short was found beside a sidewalk in a vacant lot in a southern Los Angeles suburb and shocked even the most hardened newspaper crime reporters.
The woman had been strung up by the wrists, her face and head severely beaten and a satanic smile cut into her face with deep cuts extending out from the corners of her mouth.
The 22-year-old had been viciously mutilated, with the trunk of her body completely severed, the anal opening had abrasions from the insertion of a foreign object and her stomach was filled with feces, among many other horrors.
Short's murder has remained unsolved for decades, although there was a break through in late 1948 when the killer was seduced out of hiding and admitted to knowing the two things about the crime that were never revealed to the public.
But the case was never solved by the LAPD because of a cover-up by the Homicide Division and lingering fears for years of reprisal by the department.
Now, 70 years later, after an exhaustive investigation author and legal sleuth Piu Eatwell exposes why the truth never out in her new book,Black Dahlia, Red Rose: The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of America's Greatest Unsolved Murder.
Short's murder captivated the nation, as her injuries 'suggested necrophilia and a fetishism with knives'.
'They were the marks of a sadistic lust murderer ...and it was speculated that the killer either had medical training or experience with handling corpses in a mortuary --- and a manifest fascination with death', writes Eatwell, a historical researcher and legal sleuth.
The young woman's body had multiple deep lacerations to the face and blows to the head that suggested they were delivered while the victim was still alive and possibly what killed her.
The trunk of her body had been completely severed by an incision cutting through the intestine exposing the organs of the abdomen and lacerating the intestines and both kidneys.
There was a gaping cut extending down from the naval to just above the pubis, multiple lacerations in the skin of the hip and an irregular piece of flesh had been removed from in front of her left thigh.
A square of tissue had been cut out from the right breast. The anal opening had multiple abrasions from the insertion of a foreign object.
Her stomach was filled with feces and the corpse completely cleaned and drained of blood.
As the case rose in prominence and no legitimate suspect on hand, detectives dived into the depths of the victim's life in order to track down her illusive killer.
Elizabeth Short, called 'Beth', was the third of five girls. She was raised by her mother, Phoebe, in Medford, Massachusetts, a working class Boston suburb. Her father feigned suicide only to resurface years later.
'She wanted to be someone famous. She had stars in her eyes, dreams rather than plans. I think of her as a very beautiful but very private person, with a sadness about her. A void, something missing', her mother, Phoebe recalled.
Short suffered from an acute bronchial condition and she moved around between Florida, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Chicago – in search of a better climate for her health.
She once worked as a clerk at the U.S. Army's Camp Cooke in Lompoc, California, a small town north of Santa Barbara and won a 'Cutie of the Week' contest.
Her former boss said 'she was one of the loveliest girls I have ever seen – and the most shy'.
She suddenly left the camp after being assaulted by a sergeant at the Army base.
She had been arrested in September 1943 for underage drinking with soldiers in a Santa Barbara restaurant.
The fingerprints filed by the Santa Barbara police were what identified her body.
Her mug shot showed a girl with raven-black hair with 'a look that went straight through you. Nobody had expected her to be so sullenly beautiful', writes Eatwell.
While awaiting trial at the time, the local policewoman, Mary Unkefer, took her into her home.
'She had the blackest hair I ever saw. I noticed that she was a very nice girl and was most neat about her person and clothes'.
She had a rose tattooed on her upper left leg and Unkefer recalled that loved to sit with it showing.
Short was released on probation by juvenile court at the time and Unkefer put her on a bus back to Medford with $10 from the Santa Barbara Neighborhood House for food and cokes on the six-day ride home.
Short stayed in the East for two years and then headed down to Miami Beach where she worked as a waitress and hooked up with an Army Air Force officer. They were to be married but his plane crashed over India.
She dated other men and then headed back to Los Angeles. Although Short was no prostitute, she wasn't innocent.
'This victim knew at least 50 men at the time of her death and at least 25 men had been seen with her in the 60 days preceding her death', according to a police report.
Short teased men, got rides with them, places to sleep, clothes and money but then refused to have sexual intercourse, claiming she was either a virgin, engaged or married.
She connected with no less than four men a day.
'And so, the public image of the murder victim began to change from that of a violated beauty into a "man crazy delinquent, a temptress prowling the rain-soaked streets of an urban film noir"'.
The movie industry in Southern California promised the golden life and stimulated a wave of women to seek their fame and fortune in the movies and Tinseltown.
More revelations about the dead girl came from a pharmacist in Long Beach where she had drifted in the summer of 1946.
She came frequently and wore a two-piece outfit revealing her bare midriff – and 'black lacy things'.
'She was popular with the men who came in here and they got to calling her The Black Dahlia'.
The name was also perhaps the brainchild of a newspaper reporter at a time when homicides were given floral murder tags. Wherever the moniker came from, it sparked a national obsession.
The reality of the young girl's life was that she was in search of a husband, home and happiness.
She got involved with the wrong person when she met 55-year-old Mark Hansen from Denmark who became a wealthy and powerful Hollywood figure.
He owned more than a dozen movie theaters and was a part owner of the Florentine Gardens on Hollywood Boulevard that put on a girly shows that even attracted the aging movie star, Errol Flynn.
A secret gambling casino was hidden within the Florentine Gardens.
'Hansen worked in a shadowy hinterland between legitimate business and the fringes of the LA underworld'.
He operated his own B-version of the casting couch and 'owned two rooming houses where would-be Hollywood hopefuls were groomed for semi-nude careers both on and off the dance floor'.
Back at his house behind the Gardens, he kept a harem of his favorite girls.
In October 1946, Short showed up on Hansen's doorstep with her friend Ann Toth who lived in Mark's home.
Hansen noticed her and came on to her but Short claimed she was a virgin. He finally had enough of her teasing after 10 days and ordered the two to move on.
He was also tired of Short's endless stream of boyfriends.
Hansen couldn't deny he knew the girl. His name was on the cover of Short's address book.
Short's body was discovered one morning in the wet morning grass in a vacant lot in a south LA neighborhood – and a room in the Aster Motel in downtown Los Angeles was found to be covered in blood and human feces. It was Short's death chamber.
Rumors circulated that Short was a female pervert and had indulged in 'unnatural intimacies' with other women. There were unsubstantiated sightings at gay bars.
Folksinger Woody Guthrie, once indicted by New York authorities for sending obscene letters in the mail, was considered a suspect in the ensuing hysteria and possibly capable of such a heinous crime a suspect in the ensuing hysteria until it was discovered he wasn't in LA at the time of the murder.
Over 500 crackpots came forward confessing to the murder in exchange for a free meal and a place to stay for the night.
The big break through in the case came in late 1948 when the chief police psychiatrist who was employed by the LAPD, Dr. Joseph Paul De River, seduced the killer out of hiding and he subtly revealed himself to the doctor.
The murderer came calling after Dr. De River planted a magazine article in a pulp crime magazine, True Detective, in an attempt to lure the killer out of hiding.
'It was his view that the pathology of the Dahlia killer included a deep-seated compulsion to publicize and claim recognition for his act'.
The confessors would continue to come and the police would talk to them but 'the type of mind that conceived the Elizabeth Short murder will some day have to boast about it', according to Dr. De River.
In October 1948, a letter arrived for Dr. De River with a return address of a post office box in Miami Beach.
The letter was signed 'Jack Sand' and stated he had associated with someone who fitted the 'pattern' of the 'infamous one'.
This 'Jack Sand' said he had associated with the killer for two months in San Francisco and the man had a motive for the killing and 'knew the characters involved'.
Jack Sand was also offering his help in tracking the suspect down.
Meetings were set up between Dr. De River and 'Jack Sand' in Vegas but the location was changed when they couldn't get rooms to a health resort in the San Jacinto Mountains far north of Banning, California, near Palm Springs.
Two other cops, members of the Gangster Squad, accompanied De River, one acting as the driver while Sand talked to De River.
'Jack Sand' was in fact Leslie Dillon, the true killer. He was connected to a prostitution network and a pimp and errand boy for Mark Hansen.
When Hansen got tired of Short's boyfriends and tired of her pestering him for money, he told his errand boy, Dillon to get rid of her – not realizing the man was a dangerous and murderous psychopath.
Dillon knew two things about the murder that had never been revealed to the public: a rose tattoo had been cut out of Short's thigh by the killer and inserted in her vagina. Her pubic hair had also been cut off and pushed up inside her rectum.
Dillon had worked briefly in a mortuary and knew how to make a cut in the leg of a corpse to bleed it out and how to insert a tube to drain the blood.
The man talked about this other individual 'Jeff Connors' he claimed to be the likely suspect for the murder.
Dillon suggested that Short's body had been cut in half so the killer could see how far his penis penetrated into the woman's body.
He inferred that this person named Jeff could have committed the crime in a hotel, a ground level motel, the doctor corrected him, so that he could get the body outside without carrying it downstairs.
De River asked Dillon to take off his shirt. He agreed and had a very muscular build.
The doctor then asked Dillon if he objected to dropping his trousers. Dillon hesitated briefly and then down they came, revealing a 'juvenile penis ... typical of an eight-year-old boy'.
In one of the letters to the doctor, Dillon had said that Short's killer 'had been mocked or threatened exposure by her to his friends'.
The author questions whether Short could have mocked Dillon and exposed him for having such a small penis. Dillon also stated he liked girls with 'big mouths'.
He didn't drink but he did do drugs – bennies or Benzedrine 'for pep'.
'He also told one of the gangster squad with the doctor about how he would grind up the phenobarbital and 'put it on ice cream or food' and give it to women 'as it knocks them out'.
De River knew he had his man.
'And yet, despite the compelling evidence the officers of the Gangster Squad were uncovering, they never seemed to make headway with their investigation. The path was always blocked', writes Eatwell.
Summer of 1949, 'the LAPD became embroiled in the biggest corruption scandal of its history: a scandal that was to change the police department, and the course of the Dahlia case, forever'.
It was a massive cover-up by the Homicide Division that had links to Hansen, according to Eatwell.
The LAPD was rotten to the core and 'let a dangerous psychopath on the loose'.
In an interview with homicide, Dillon told them he wouldn't say a word if they let him go. But if they arrest him, he would talk and 'he knew where the bodies were buried in terms of organized crime. And then he was gone'.
All the key protagonists of the Dahlia case are dead. Most of the documents are gone or locked away in the vaults of the LAPD.
In the aftermath of the 1949 grand jury investigation, there had clearly been a willful campaign to suppress the facts of the case and to discredit and harass key witness such as Dr. De River', writes the author.
And there was an unwillingness by more recent writers and researchers to let the facts tell the story.
'The facts – buried in newspapers reports and court documents are more compelling that any of the alternate facts'.
Dillon was the centerpiece of the Dahlia drama and evil personified in a native boy from the Southern plains. The legal sleuth and author rests her case.
EDITOR’S NOTE: To my generation, the Black Dahlia murder was a really big case.
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
PERMITLESS CARRY AKA CONSTITUTIONAL CARRY
by Bob Walsh
I thought I would do something radical here and throw some actual facts into what is often called Constitutional Carry. There are currently 11 states that allow a person who is in legal possession of a handgun to carry that handgun concealed without a permit. Those states are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Vermont and West Virginian.
In addition two other states, Idaho and Wyoming, extend this right to their own citizens within the state, but not to visitors.
Alaska has had permitless carry for ten years. In that time their murder rate has dropped 28.3%. In Arizona it has dropped 33.8% in the seven years since the plan was implemented. In the four years Wyoming has had permitless carry the murder rate has dropped 10.7%.
Of course it is completely possible the murder rates came down for some other reason. I'm just throwing the numbers out there for your information.
I thought I would do something radical here and throw some actual facts into what is often called Constitutional Carry. There are currently 11 states that allow a person who is in legal possession of a handgun to carry that handgun concealed without a permit. Those states are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Vermont and West Virginian.
In addition two other states, Idaho and Wyoming, extend this right to their own citizens within the state, but not to visitors.
Alaska has had permitless carry for ten years. In that time their murder rate has dropped 28.3%. In Arizona it has dropped 33.8% in the seven years since the plan was implemented. In the four years Wyoming has had permitless carry the murder rate has dropped 10.7%.
Of course it is completely possible the murder rates came down for some other reason. I'm just throwing the numbers out there for your information.
WHEN IS A TAX A FEE AND WHEN IS A SIMPLE MAJORITY A SUPER-MAJORITY? ... OBVIOUSLY, WHEN IT'S IN CALIFORNIA
by Bob Walsh
Back in 1996 the citizens and voters of the People's Republic of California passed Proposition 218. It required that new taxes or tax increases placed on the ballot receive a 2/3 vote to be approved. This led to some interesting contortions, including calling things FEES that were clearly TAXES. Many of those have been squelched by the courts.
This led to an interesting ruling by the State Supreme Court. Back in August they decided that this interpretation applied ONLY to those ballot measures put on the ballot by act of the legislature. If the tax measure was put on by someone else it needs only a simple majority to become effective.
Various taxpayer groups have argued that the ruling is fuzzy and vague and in need of clarification. They have asked the state high court to reconsider the matter. The court will decide on whether or not to rehear the matter in about six weeks.
Back in 1996 the citizens and voters of the People's Republic of California passed Proposition 218. It required that new taxes or tax increases placed on the ballot receive a 2/3 vote to be approved. This led to some interesting contortions, including calling things FEES that were clearly TAXES. Many of those have been squelched by the courts.
This led to an interesting ruling by the State Supreme Court. Back in August they decided that this interpretation applied ONLY to those ballot measures put on the ballot by act of the legislature. If the tax measure was put on by someone else it needs only a simple majority to become effective.
Various taxpayer groups have argued that the ruling is fuzzy and vague and in need of clarification. They have asked the state high court to reconsider the matter. The court will decide on whether or not to rehear the matter in about six weeks.
BRACE FOR IMPACT: CA CIVIL SERVICE UNIONS SWEATING OUT SCOTUS RULING THAT MAY DESTROY THEM
by Bob Walsh
Civil service employment in the formerly great state of California is a closed shop. With very few exceptions you MUST be a union member to be employed. You can be what they call a "Fair Share" member if you want, which means you pay SLIGHTLY LESS than other folks but you have no vote in what goes on. The idea behind this is that even if you do not want to fund your unions non-union (political) activities you still need to pay for representation services. That has been true for roughly 40 years.
Enter the case of Janus VS AFSCME, an Illinois case that challenges Fair Share in the 22 states where it exists. Unions are anticipating that probably the vote is going to go 5-4 against Fair Share. Some of the state employee unions feel that their membership will drop as much as 30% when-if this happens. Not all though. The union that represents the California Highway Patrol does not charge Fair Share fees for non-members. Their membership is still 97%.
This one will be very interesting to watch as it shakes out.
Civil service employment in the formerly great state of California is a closed shop. With very few exceptions you MUST be a union member to be employed. You can be what they call a "Fair Share" member if you want, which means you pay SLIGHTLY LESS than other folks but you have no vote in what goes on. The idea behind this is that even if you do not want to fund your unions non-union (political) activities you still need to pay for representation services. That has been true for roughly 40 years.
Enter the case of Janus VS AFSCME, an Illinois case that challenges Fair Share in the 22 states where it exists. Unions are anticipating that probably the vote is going to go 5-4 against Fair Share. Some of the state employee unions feel that their membership will drop as much as 30% when-if this happens. Not all though. The union that represents the California Highway Patrol does not charge Fair Share fees for non-members. Their membership is still 97%.
This one will be very interesting to watch as it shakes out.
ACTRESS ACCUSES FORMER PRESIDENT OF SEXUALLY ASSAULTING HER FROM HIS WHEELCHAIR
Heather Lind made the allegations against 93-year-old George H. W. Bush
Actress Heather Lind accused 93-year-old former president George H. W. Bush of sexually assaulting her from his wheelchair while wife Barbara was sanding next to him during a photo shoot four years ago.
Here is what Lind said on Instagram:
I was disturbed today by a photo I saw of President Barack Obama shaking hands with George H. W. Bush in a gathering of ex-presidents organizing aid to states and territories damaged by recent hurricanes. I found it disturbing because I recognize the respect ex-presidents are given for having served. And I feel pride and reverence toward many of the men in the photo. But when I got the chance to meet George H. W. Bush four years ago to promote a historical television show I was working on, he sexually assaulted me while I was posing for a similar photo. He didn’t shake my hand. He touched me from behind from his wheelchair with his wife Barbara Bush by his side. He told me a dirty joke. And then, all the while being photographed, touched me again. Barbara rolled her eyes as if to say “not again”. His security guard told me I shouldn’t have stood next to him for the photo. We were instructed to call him Mr. President. It seems to me a President’s power is in his or her capacity to enact positive change, actually help people, and serve as a symbol of our democracy. He relinquished that power when he used it against me and, judging from the comments of those around him, countless other women before me. What comforts me is that I too can use my power, which isn’t so different from a President really. I can enact positive change. I can actually help people. I can be a symbol of my democracy. I can refuse to call him President, and call out other abuses of power when I see them. I can vote for a President, in part, by the nature of his or her character, knowing that his or her political decisions must necessarily stem from that character. My fellow cast-mates and producers helped me that day and continue to support me. I am grateful for the bravery of other women who have spoken up and written about their experiences. And I thank President Barack Obama for the gesture of respect he made toward George H. W. Bush for the sake of our country, but I do not respect him. #metoo
Good old old George. There’s life still left in the old dog.
Bush released the following apology: “President Bush would never — under any circumstance — intentionally cause anyone distress, and he most sincerely apologizes if his attempt at humor offended Ms. Lind.”
If these accusations continue, there’s no telling who will be hit next. I fully expect some actress to come forward to say that Pope Francis sexually assaulted her.
Actress Heather Lind accused 93-year-old former president George H. W. Bush of sexually assaulting her from his wheelchair while wife Barbara was sanding next to him during a photo shoot four years ago.
Here is what Lind said on Instagram:
I was disturbed today by a photo I saw of President Barack Obama shaking hands with George H. W. Bush in a gathering of ex-presidents organizing aid to states and territories damaged by recent hurricanes. I found it disturbing because I recognize the respect ex-presidents are given for having served. And I feel pride and reverence toward many of the men in the photo. But when I got the chance to meet George H. W. Bush four years ago to promote a historical television show I was working on, he sexually assaulted me while I was posing for a similar photo. He didn’t shake my hand. He touched me from behind from his wheelchair with his wife Barbara Bush by his side. He told me a dirty joke. And then, all the while being photographed, touched me again. Barbara rolled her eyes as if to say “not again”. His security guard told me I shouldn’t have stood next to him for the photo. We were instructed to call him Mr. President. It seems to me a President’s power is in his or her capacity to enact positive change, actually help people, and serve as a symbol of our democracy. He relinquished that power when he used it against me and, judging from the comments of those around him, countless other women before me. What comforts me is that I too can use my power, which isn’t so different from a President really. I can enact positive change. I can actually help people. I can be a symbol of my democracy. I can refuse to call him President, and call out other abuses of power when I see them. I can vote for a President, in part, by the nature of his or her character, knowing that his or her political decisions must necessarily stem from that character. My fellow cast-mates and producers helped me that day and continue to support me. I am grateful for the bravery of other women who have spoken up and written about their experiences. And I thank President Barack Obama for the gesture of respect he made toward George H. W. Bush for the sake of our country, but I do not respect him. #metoo
Good old old George. There’s life still left in the old dog.
Bush released the following apology: “President Bush would never — under any circumstance — intentionally cause anyone distress, and he most sincerely apologizes if his attempt at humor offended Ms. Lind.”
If these accusations continue, there’s no telling who will be hit next. I fully expect some actress to come forward to say that Pope Francis sexually assaulted her.
THE HILDEBEAST PAID FOR DIRT ON TRUMP
Hillary paid for notorious 'golden showers' dossier on Trump: Her campaign lawyer funded dirty tricks firm's research into his Russian links which came up with discredited claims
By Emily Crane and Regina F. Graham
Daily Mail
October 24, 2017
Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped bankroll research that led to the 'golden showers' dossier on Donald Trump.
Clinton's campaign lawyer Marc Elias hired research firm Fusion GPS back in April 2016 to look into allegations of Trump's ties to Russia, according to the Washington Post.
Fusion GPS, the Washington-based research firm, then hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to dig up the unconfirmed dirt on Trump.
Clinton's lawyer and his law firm Perkins Coie continued to fund the research until October 2016 - just days before the presidential election.
The research was previously funded by an unknown anti-Trump Republican donor during the primary, but Clinton's campaign then paid for it to be finished.
Sources would not confirm how much was paid to Fusion GPS, but said the campaign and DNC shared the cost.
Steele's findings and research were then submitted to Elias via Fusion GPS, the Post reports. It is not clear what information, or how much of it, was provided to Clinton's campaign. It also isn't clear which people within Clinton's campaign and the DNC knew of Steel and Fusion GPS.
The research resulted in the now infamous dossier that came up with the discredited claims about Trump. The dossier has become a focus of congressional probes into Russian interference in last year's election.
Trump tweeted on Saturday that the FBI and Justice Department should 'immediately release who paid for it' after Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch and partner Thomas Catan last week invoked the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment, which protects Americans against self-incrimination.
The two men had been subpoenaed to appear in a closed-door session before the House Intelligence Committee but refused to speak at every turn.
Committee chair Rep. Devin Nunes has been trying to determine who paid Fusion GPS for the opposition research that formed the basis of the dossier.
'Officials behind the now discredited 'Dossier' plead the Fifth. Justice Department and/or FBI should immediately release who paid for it,' Trump tweeted.
Trump had also speculated on Twitter last week that the dossier may have been funded by Democratic officials.
'Workers of firm involved with the discredited and Fake Dossier take the 5th. Who paid for it, Russia, the FBI or the Dems (or all)?' Trump said last Thursday.
Fusion GPS, Elias and spokesmen for Clinton's campaign and the DNC would not comment.
Prior to the Post report, Elias had earlier 'vigorously' denied being involved in the Trump dossier, according to New York Times reporter Ken Vogel.
'When I tried to report this story. Clinton campaign lawyer (Marc Elias) pushed back vigorously, saying 'You (or your sources) are wrong',' Vogel tweeted shortly after the Post report surfaced.
The dossier contends that the Russian government amassed compromising information about Trump but had also been engaged in a years-long effort to support and assist him.
Compiled by the British spy, Christopher Steele, the dossier circulated among Washington journalists last year until Buzzfeed first published it in January.
Trump branded the entire document 'fake news.'
Among its claims are that Russian officials have videos of the president cavorting with prostitutes, which were filmed during Trump's 2013 visit to a luxury Moscow hotel for the Miss Universe contest
It also contains a highly unusual report, also never substantiated, that the call girls performed a 'golden shower' routine that involved them urinated on a hotel bed as a sign of disgust for then-president Barack Obama.
The FBI has worked to corroborate the document, and in a sign of its ongoing relevance to investigators, special counsel Robert Mueller's team - which is probing potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign - weeks ago questioned the former British spy who helped compile the claims in the dossier.
By Emily Crane and Regina F. Graham
Daily Mail
October 24, 2017
Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped bankroll research that led to the 'golden showers' dossier on Donald Trump.
Clinton's campaign lawyer Marc Elias hired research firm Fusion GPS back in April 2016 to look into allegations of Trump's ties to Russia, according to the Washington Post.
Fusion GPS, the Washington-based research firm, then hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to dig up the unconfirmed dirt on Trump.
Clinton's lawyer and his law firm Perkins Coie continued to fund the research until October 2016 - just days before the presidential election.
The research was previously funded by an unknown anti-Trump Republican donor during the primary, but Clinton's campaign then paid for it to be finished.
Sources would not confirm how much was paid to Fusion GPS, but said the campaign and DNC shared the cost.
Steele's findings and research were then submitted to Elias via Fusion GPS, the Post reports. It is not clear what information, or how much of it, was provided to Clinton's campaign. It also isn't clear which people within Clinton's campaign and the DNC knew of Steel and Fusion GPS.
The research resulted in the now infamous dossier that came up with the discredited claims about Trump. The dossier has become a focus of congressional probes into Russian interference in last year's election.
Trump tweeted on Saturday that the FBI and Justice Department should 'immediately release who paid for it' after Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch and partner Thomas Catan last week invoked the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment, which protects Americans against self-incrimination.
The two men had been subpoenaed to appear in a closed-door session before the House Intelligence Committee but refused to speak at every turn.
Committee chair Rep. Devin Nunes has been trying to determine who paid Fusion GPS for the opposition research that formed the basis of the dossier.
'Officials behind the now discredited 'Dossier' plead the Fifth. Justice Department and/or FBI should immediately release who paid for it,' Trump tweeted.
Trump had also speculated on Twitter last week that the dossier may have been funded by Democratic officials.
'Workers of firm involved with the discredited and Fake Dossier take the 5th. Who paid for it, Russia, the FBI or the Dems (or all)?' Trump said last Thursday.
Fusion GPS, Elias and spokesmen for Clinton's campaign and the DNC would not comment.
Prior to the Post report, Elias had earlier 'vigorously' denied being involved in the Trump dossier, according to New York Times reporter Ken Vogel.
'When I tried to report this story. Clinton campaign lawyer (Marc Elias) pushed back vigorously, saying 'You (or your sources) are wrong',' Vogel tweeted shortly after the Post report surfaced.
The dossier contends that the Russian government amassed compromising information about Trump but had also been engaged in a years-long effort to support and assist him.
Compiled by the British spy, Christopher Steele, the dossier circulated among Washington journalists last year until Buzzfeed first published it in January.
Trump branded the entire document 'fake news.'
Among its claims are that Russian officials have videos of the president cavorting with prostitutes, which were filmed during Trump's 2013 visit to a luxury Moscow hotel for the Miss Universe contest
It also contains a highly unusual report, also never substantiated, that the call girls performed a 'golden shower' routine that involved them urinated on a hotel bed as a sign of disgust for then-president Barack Obama.
The FBI has worked to corroborate the document, and in a sign of its ongoing relevance to investigators, special counsel Robert Mueller's team - which is probing potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign - weeks ago questioned the former British spy who helped compile the claims in the dossier.
OHIO COPS SAVED THE LIFE OF A WORTHLESS SCUMBAG WHO TWO YEARS LATER SHOT DEAD A POLICE OFFICER
Police Once Saved Life of Suspect Accused of Killing Ohio Officer
Tribune Media Wire
October 24, 2017
Police say they saved the life of alleged cop killer Jason Marble by performing CPR and giving him Narcan in 2015. Marble is now accused of fatally shooting Ohio police officer Justin Leo.
“It was rather disturbing to find out that we saved his life, and two years later he ended an officer’s life,” Liberty Township Police Chief Rich Tisone told WJW on Monday.
Police were called to a home on Indiana Avenue in Girard about 10 p.m. Saturday. Shortly after they arrived sources say Marble shot Officer Leo. Another officer returned fire killing Marble.
Several police flags line the street where Leo was shot. Some neighbors have blue ribbons tied on trees and small memorials in their yard. Leo, 31, had worked as a police officer for Girard for about five years.
Girard Mayor Jim Melfi said in the past few days they have heard dozens of stories on how the young officer impacted so many lives.
“For example, he had a call about some young kids playing in the neighborhood, maybe trespassing and he showed up in uniform. He ended up tossing the football to them,” Melfi said.
There are others who have written on Facebook, saying the officer even helped pay for a traffic ticket that was given to a disabled veteran.
“He was an amazing person,” Melfi said.
Many lined the streets Monday waiting for police to escort Officer Leo’s body to a funeral home in his hometown.
“I wanted to be here for his family,” said Don Whisler, of Girard. “I didn’t know him. But it’s so sad. It hurts.”
Tribune Media Wire
October 24, 2017
Police say they saved the life of alleged cop killer Jason Marble by performing CPR and giving him Narcan in 2015. Marble is now accused of fatally shooting Ohio police officer Justin Leo.
“It was rather disturbing to find out that we saved his life, and two years later he ended an officer’s life,” Liberty Township Police Chief Rich Tisone told WJW on Monday.
Police were called to a home on Indiana Avenue in Girard about 10 p.m. Saturday. Shortly after they arrived sources say Marble shot Officer Leo. Another officer returned fire killing Marble.
Several police flags line the street where Leo was shot. Some neighbors have blue ribbons tied on trees and small memorials in their yard. Leo, 31, had worked as a police officer for Girard for about five years.
Girard Mayor Jim Melfi said in the past few days they have heard dozens of stories on how the young officer impacted so many lives.
“For example, he had a call about some young kids playing in the neighborhood, maybe trespassing and he showed up in uniform. He ended up tossing the football to them,” Melfi said.
There are others who have written on Facebook, saying the officer even helped pay for a traffic ticket that was given to a disabled veteran.
“He was an amazing person,” Melfi said.
Many lined the streets Monday waiting for police to escort Officer Leo’s body to a funeral home in his hometown.
“I wanted to be here for his family,” said Don Whisler, of Girard. “I didn’t know him. But it’s so sad. It hurts.”
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
POSTURING OR THE REAL DEAL ??
by Bob Walsh
The United States is preparing to place our fleet of B-52 bombers on 24 hour alert for the first time in nearly 30 years. It is unclear what armaments the bombers would be loaded up with but the reports I have seen strongly imply that at least some of them will be loaded with nuclear weapons. Barksdale AFB in Louisiana is being upgraded to support the instant readiness of the 2nd Bomb Wing and Air Force Global Strike command, which manages our nuclear arsenal.
Whether this is just Trump showing the Norks that they don't have a big enough Johnson to get in a serious pissing contest with us or Trump and the Air Force wanting to be reading to go if the guy with the toilet brush haircut goes nutso I would not care to bet.
I do know without a doubt what the final outcome would be, but it could become really interesting along the way.
The United States is preparing to place our fleet of B-52 bombers on 24 hour alert for the first time in nearly 30 years. It is unclear what armaments the bombers would be loaded up with but the reports I have seen strongly imply that at least some of them will be loaded with nuclear weapons. Barksdale AFB in Louisiana is being upgraded to support the instant readiness of the 2nd Bomb Wing and Air Force Global Strike command, which manages our nuclear arsenal.
Whether this is just Trump showing the Norks that they don't have a big enough Johnson to get in a serious pissing contest with us or Trump and the Air Force wanting to be reading to go if the guy with the toilet brush haircut goes nutso I would not care to bet.
I do know without a doubt what the final outcome would be, but it could become really interesting along the way.
BERGDAHL SENTENCING STALLED
by Bob Walsh
Deserter Bowe Bergdahl was supposed to be sentenced yesterday. It has been set back at least two days. His lawyer has filed an appeal, sniveling that Candidate Trump's statements that Bergdahl should be shot create some sort of command interference by inference on the part of President Trump.
I wouldn't care to make a call on how that one will shake out.l
Deserter Bowe Bergdahl was supposed to be sentenced yesterday. It has been set back at least two days. His lawyer has filed an appeal, sniveling that Candidate Trump's statements that Bergdahl should be shot create some sort of command interference by inference on the part of President Trump.
I wouldn't care to make a call on how that one will shake out.l
DO THE SCOUTS NOW HATE FIREARMS?
by Bob Walsh
Ames Mayfield was a Cub Scout in the greater Denver, CO.area. His pack was taken to a talk by State Senator Vicki Marble. They were told to prepare questions about issues that were important to them to put to the senator.
Ames was kicked out of the pack because he asked about gun control. The scouts deemed it to be inappropriate, disrespectful and political. (I thought the idea was to be political.)
The Boy Scouts of America have declined comment but have said young Ames will remain in the program with a different group. The spokeshole for the organization also asserted that the Scouts are a "wholly non-partisan organization and does not promote any one political position..." I guess that whoever said that got their BULLSHITTER merit badge.
EDITOR'S NOTE: I am an Eagle Scout and back then I believe the Scouts had a shooting merit badge.
Ames Mayfield was a Cub Scout in the greater Denver, CO.area. His pack was taken to a talk by State Senator Vicki Marble. They were told to prepare questions about issues that were important to them to put to the senator.
Ames was kicked out of the pack because he asked about gun control. The scouts deemed it to be inappropriate, disrespectful and political. (I thought the idea was to be political.)
The Boy Scouts of America have declined comment but have said young Ames will remain in the program with a different group. The spokeshole for the organization also asserted that the Scouts are a "wholly non-partisan organization and does not promote any one political position..." I guess that whoever said that got their BULLSHITTER merit badge.
EDITOR'S NOTE: I am an Eagle Scout and back then I believe the Scouts had a shooting merit badge.
NO DECREASE IN THE USE OF FORCE WHEN COPS WEAR BODY CAMS
Body cam study shows no effect on police use of force or citizen complaints
By Nell Greenfieldboyce |
National Public Radio
October 20, 2017
Having police officers wear little cameras seems to have no discernible impact on citizen complaints or officers' use of force, at least in the nation's capital.
That's the conclusion of a study performed as Washington, D.C., rolled out its huge camera program. The city has one of the largest forces in the country, with some 2,600 officers now wearing cameras on their collars or shirts.
"We found essentially that we could not detect any statistically significant effect of the body-worn cameras," says Anita Ravishankar, a researcher with the Metropolitan Police Department and a group in the city government called the Lab @ DC.
The findings come as the Los Angeles Police Department continues to equip its own officers with body cameras and faces questions about public access to the video footage. The city's civilian police commission, which oversees the LAPD, is currently conducting a review of the department’s policy on when to release such videos to the public and is due to present its findings in the coming days or weeks, according to the L.A. Times.
"I think we're surprised by the result. I think a lot of people were suggesting that the body-worn cameras would change behavior," says Chief of Police Peter Newsham. "There was no indication that the cameras changed behavior at all."
Perhaps, he says, that is because his officers "were doing the right thing in the first place."
In the wake of high-profile shootings, many police departments have been rapidly adopting body-worn cameras, despite a dearth of solid research on how the technology can change policing.
"We need science, rather than our speculations about it, to try to answer and understand what impacts the cameras are having," says David Yokum, director of the Lab @ DC.
His group worked with local police officials to make sure that cameras were handed out in a way that let the researchers carefully compare officers who were randomly assigned to get cameras with those who were not. The study ran from June 2015 to last December.
"This is a very methodologically rigorous study. It is very well done. And that's not a small issue, because there have been many studies of body-worn cameras that are not rigorous," says Michael White, a researcher at Arizona State University who has studied body-worn camera programs in Tempe, Ariz., and Spokane, Wash.
It's to be expected that these cameras might have little impact on the behavior of police officers in Washington, D.C., he says, because this particular force went through about a decade of federal oversight to help improve the department.
"They're hiring the right people; they've got good training; they've got good supervision; they've got good accountability mechanisms in place," White says. "When you have a department in that kind of state, I don't think you're going to see large reductions in use of force and complaints, because you don't need to. There is no large number of excessive uses of force that need to be eliminated."
The big question about cameras now is, White says: "Is it worth the cost?" Besides buying the actual cameras, cash-strapped police departments have to pay to store and manage many thousands of hours of video footage. "I think a big part of the answer to that question is going to come from what the police department and the community want to accomplish with the rollout of body-worn cameras."
The results of this study call into question whether police departments should purchase body-worn cameras at all, says Harlan Yu, who works for an organization called Upturn that studies how technology affects civil rights and social justice issues.
"This is the most important empirical study on the impact of police body-worn cameras to date," Yu says. "If cameras don't decrease use of force, don't decrease the number of misconduct complaints and don't change officer behavior, then what are we adopting cameras for?"
He notes that a lot of recent footage showing police violence has come from bystander video, not officer body cameras.
And while cameras have had neutral effects in Washington, D.C., Yu says the devices might have harmful effects in places with policies that, say, allow officers to review footage before writing their initial reports of violent incidents.
Despite this study's results, the nation's capital has no plans to get rid of its cameras, according to Newsham.
"I am a little concerned that people might misconstrue the information and suggest that the body-worn cameras have no value. I don't think that this study suggests that at all," he says.
In his view, the cameras have helped his department enormously after contentious encounters like a recent one on Christmas, when police officers fatally shot a man who was brandishing a knife. Some had suggested the man was not armed, but Newsham says the video shows otherwise.
"I think it's really important for legitimacy for the police department," says Newsham, "when we say something to be able to back it up with a real-world view that others can see."
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser says in a statement that the city "invested in one of the most comprehensive deployments of body-worn cameras in the nation to ensure even greater transparency and accountability. As we conclude this comprehensive study, we will recommit ourselves to always evaluating what works —and what does not— to better serve our residents and creating a safer, stronger DC."
EDITOR’S NOTE: In the end it’s all in the eyes of the beholder. Those who are looking for police brutality will see it. Those who want to ignore black brutality will not see it even though it clearly shows up on the body cam footage.
By Nell Greenfieldboyce |
National Public Radio
October 20, 2017
Having police officers wear little cameras seems to have no discernible impact on citizen complaints or officers' use of force, at least in the nation's capital.
That's the conclusion of a study performed as Washington, D.C., rolled out its huge camera program. The city has one of the largest forces in the country, with some 2,600 officers now wearing cameras on their collars or shirts.
"We found essentially that we could not detect any statistically significant effect of the body-worn cameras," says Anita Ravishankar, a researcher with the Metropolitan Police Department and a group in the city government called the Lab @ DC.
The findings come as the Los Angeles Police Department continues to equip its own officers with body cameras and faces questions about public access to the video footage. The city's civilian police commission, which oversees the LAPD, is currently conducting a review of the department’s policy on when to release such videos to the public and is due to present its findings in the coming days or weeks, according to the L.A. Times.
"I think we're surprised by the result. I think a lot of people were suggesting that the body-worn cameras would change behavior," says Chief of Police Peter Newsham. "There was no indication that the cameras changed behavior at all."
Perhaps, he says, that is because his officers "were doing the right thing in the first place."
In the wake of high-profile shootings, many police departments have been rapidly adopting body-worn cameras, despite a dearth of solid research on how the technology can change policing.
"We need science, rather than our speculations about it, to try to answer and understand what impacts the cameras are having," says David Yokum, director of the Lab @ DC.
His group worked with local police officials to make sure that cameras were handed out in a way that let the researchers carefully compare officers who were randomly assigned to get cameras with those who were not. The study ran from June 2015 to last December.
"This is a very methodologically rigorous study. It is very well done. And that's not a small issue, because there have been many studies of body-worn cameras that are not rigorous," says Michael White, a researcher at Arizona State University who has studied body-worn camera programs in Tempe, Ariz., and Spokane, Wash.
It's to be expected that these cameras might have little impact on the behavior of police officers in Washington, D.C., he says, because this particular force went through about a decade of federal oversight to help improve the department.
"They're hiring the right people; they've got good training; they've got good supervision; they've got good accountability mechanisms in place," White says. "When you have a department in that kind of state, I don't think you're going to see large reductions in use of force and complaints, because you don't need to. There is no large number of excessive uses of force that need to be eliminated."
The big question about cameras now is, White says: "Is it worth the cost?" Besides buying the actual cameras, cash-strapped police departments have to pay to store and manage many thousands of hours of video footage. "I think a big part of the answer to that question is going to come from what the police department and the community want to accomplish with the rollout of body-worn cameras."
The results of this study call into question whether police departments should purchase body-worn cameras at all, says Harlan Yu, who works for an organization called Upturn that studies how technology affects civil rights and social justice issues.
"This is the most important empirical study on the impact of police body-worn cameras to date," Yu says. "If cameras don't decrease use of force, don't decrease the number of misconduct complaints and don't change officer behavior, then what are we adopting cameras for?"
He notes that a lot of recent footage showing police violence has come from bystander video, not officer body cameras.
And while cameras have had neutral effects in Washington, D.C., Yu says the devices might have harmful effects in places with policies that, say, allow officers to review footage before writing their initial reports of violent incidents.
Despite this study's results, the nation's capital has no plans to get rid of its cameras, according to Newsham.
"I am a little concerned that people might misconstrue the information and suggest that the body-worn cameras have no value. I don't think that this study suggests that at all," he says.
In his view, the cameras have helped his department enormously after contentious encounters like a recent one on Christmas, when police officers fatally shot a man who was brandishing a knife. Some had suggested the man was not armed, but Newsham says the video shows otherwise.
"I think it's really important for legitimacy for the police department," says Newsham, "when we say something to be able to back it up with a real-world view that others can see."
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser says in a statement that the city "invested in one of the most comprehensive deployments of body-worn cameras in the nation to ensure even greater transparency and accountability. As we conclude this comprehensive study, we will recommit ourselves to always evaluating what works —and what does not— to better serve our residents and creating a safer, stronger DC."
EDITOR’S NOTE: In the end it’s all in the eyes of the beholder. Those who are looking for police brutality will see it. Those who want to ignore black brutality will not see it even though it clearly shows up on the body cam footage.
MYTHS ABOUT POLICE SHOOTINGS
Everything you know about police shootings is wrong
By Joseph Loughlin and Kate Flora
New York Post
October 21, 2017
The woman with the advanced Harvard degree says, “Why did the cops shoot him so many times? Why not just wound him?”
The sophisticated lawyer, describing a mentally ill man charging the police with a knife asks, “Why didn’t they just shoot the knife out of his hand like they used to?” The guy at the gym says, “But he had his hands up!” The “expert” tells an audience of police officers, “It was just a small screwdriver.”
Unfortunately for officers on the line, thousands of comments like these are made by untrained civilians who are educated by what they see in the news, movies, TV and social media. Too often, reporters, politicians, community leaders and activists who assume they know what happened leap to judgment, immediately proclaiming officers as trigger-happy, racist or failing to resolve the situation with less lethal means.
Too often overlooked in all the furor and outrage are the facts of the incident, the reality of human dynamics and how police are trained. Ninety-five percent of officers go through their entire careers without discharging their weapons. Contrary to public image, officers do not wish to be in a deadly-force incident and do everything in their power to avoid it at all costs, often times to their own peril. There are about 34,000 arrests each day in this country and well over 10 million a year, and in many of those arrests suspects are taken into custody safely even when many are extremely violent. Only a very small number result in shots fired.
Is it possible for us to pause and consider the realities for our police officers when they are involved in a shooting incident? Our book “Shots Fired: The Misunderstandings, Misconceptions, and Myths about Police Shootings” was written to provide citizens with a glimpse into the police world and the experience of officers in deadly force encounters.
Among those myths:
Hands up, don’t shoot? Police officers are trained — training that is quickly reinforced by the realities of the job — to be cautious of the subject with hands in the air. What may look like surrender to an untrained observer is frequently a ploy to lure the officer close enough for an attack. Or, when gunshots are exchanged, what looks like surrender may be the involuntary response of a subject who has been shot.
Why not just wound? In the world of policing, officers shoot not to kill and not to wound but to stop the threat. That threat is rarely stopped by a single bullet. Rarely, except in the world of fiction, does a single bullet knock someone down. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers, had been shot nine times, several of those wounds fatal, and he continued to toss bombs and shoot at the Watertown police. A person who has been knocked down remains a threat. Those who would have the officer “just shoot him in the knee” miss an important fact. Even assuming the officer can successfully hit that small, moving target, the subject still has both hands free to continue shooting.
As for shooting that weapon out of a subject’s hands? Many shooting events are sudden, surprising and evolve in seconds. In those seconds, while the subject has a weapon out and is shooting, the responding officer has to form the intention to respond, draw the weapon, ascertain that there are no innocents in the line of fire and then return fire — often while being fired upon. Those subjects are often fueled by drugs, rage, adrenaline and mental illness. Individuals do not stand there and present themselves like a silhouette. A twisting, turning, violent human being makes it impossible to just shoot someone in the leg or arm.
As for the assertion that an unarmed person isn’t dangerous? ‘Unarmed’ doesn’t have the same meaning to a police officer. Nearly 40,000 police officers were assaulted in 2015 with hands, fists or feet. More than 3,000 people are killed every year by unarmed assailants. Eleven percent of all officers murdered in the line of duty from 2013 to 2015 were killed by unarmed persons. And far too often overlooked? In every encounter with a police officer, unarmed simply doesn’t apply — the officer’s gun is always available.
Let’s bring the facts into clear focus to create better understandings nationwide about the police and the realities they face, often in impossible situations. Before jumping to conclusions about a deadly force incident, consider the police officers’ reality and their perspective.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We need to hire men of the John Wayne and Clint Easrwood caliber. They could shoot a gun out of a man’s hand. Or hoe about Chuck Norris? In Walker, Texas Ranger he always disarmed an assailant with a knife, often breaking his arm or nose in the process. And once Walker shot a rope in half from 30 feet or so as a lynch mob was hanging an innocent man.
But what is the biggest myth of all? Police shoot unarmed black men.
By Joseph Loughlin and Kate Flora
New York Post
October 21, 2017
The woman with the advanced Harvard degree says, “Why did the cops shoot him so many times? Why not just wound him?”
The sophisticated lawyer, describing a mentally ill man charging the police with a knife asks, “Why didn’t they just shoot the knife out of his hand like they used to?” The guy at the gym says, “But he had his hands up!” The “expert” tells an audience of police officers, “It was just a small screwdriver.”
Unfortunately for officers on the line, thousands of comments like these are made by untrained civilians who are educated by what they see in the news, movies, TV and social media. Too often, reporters, politicians, community leaders and activists who assume they know what happened leap to judgment, immediately proclaiming officers as trigger-happy, racist or failing to resolve the situation with less lethal means.
Too often overlooked in all the furor and outrage are the facts of the incident, the reality of human dynamics and how police are trained. Ninety-five percent of officers go through their entire careers without discharging their weapons. Contrary to public image, officers do not wish to be in a deadly-force incident and do everything in their power to avoid it at all costs, often times to their own peril. There are about 34,000 arrests each day in this country and well over 10 million a year, and in many of those arrests suspects are taken into custody safely even when many are extremely violent. Only a very small number result in shots fired.
Is it possible for us to pause and consider the realities for our police officers when they are involved in a shooting incident? Our book “Shots Fired: The Misunderstandings, Misconceptions, and Myths about Police Shootings” was written to provide citizens with a glimpse into the police world and the experience of officers in deadly force encounters.
Among those myths:
Hands up, don’t shoot? Police officers are trained — training that is quickly reinforced by the realities of the job — to be cautious of the subject with hands in the air. What may look like surrender to an untrained observer is frequently a ploy to lure the officer close enough for an attack. Or, when gunshots are exchanged, what looks like surrender may be the involuntary response of a subject who has been shot.
Why not just wound? In the world of policing, officers shoot not to kill and not to wound but to stop the threat. That threat is rarely stopped by a single bullet. Rarely, except in the world of fiction, does a single bullet knock someone down. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers, had been shot nine times, several of those wounds fatal, and he continued to toss bombs and shoot at the Watertown police. A person who has been knocked down remains a threat. Those who would have the officer “just shoot him in the knee” miss an important fact. Even assuming the officer can successfully hit that small, moving target, the subject still has both hands free to continue shooting.
As for shooting that weapon out of a subject’s hands? Many shooting events are sudden, surprising and evolve in seconds. In those seconds, while the subject has a weapon out and is shooting, the responding officer has to form the intention to respond, draw the weapon, ascertain that there are no innocents in the line of fire and then return fire — often while being fired upon. Those subjects are often fueled by drugs, rage, adrenaline and mental illness. Individuals do not stand there and present themselves like a silhouette. A twisting, turning, violent human being makes it impossible to just shoot someone in the leg or arm.
As for the assertion that an unarmed person isn’t dangerous? ‘Unarmed’ doesn’t have the same meaning to a police officer. Nearly 40,000 police officers were assaulted in 2015 with hands, fists or feet. More than 3,000 people are killed every year by unarmed assailants. Eleven percent of all officers murdered in the line of duty from 2013 to 2015 were killed by unarmed persons. And far too often overlooked? In every encounter with a police officer, unarmed simply doesn’t apply — the officer’s gun is always available.
Let’s bring the facts into clear focus to create better understandings nationwide about the police and the realities they face, often in impossible situations. Before jumping to conclusions about a deadly force incident, consider the police officers’ reality and their perspective.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We need to hire men of the John Wayne and Clint Easrwood caliber. They could shoot a gun out of a man’s hand. Or hoe about Chuck Norris? In Walker, Texas Ranger he always disarmed an assailant with a knife, often breaking his arm or nose in the process. And once Walker shot a rope in half from 30 feet or so as a lynch mob was hanging an innocent man.
But what is the biggest myth of all? Police shoot unarmed black men.
WHAT’S KILLING OUR FIREFIGHTERS?
Cancer Is the Biggest Killer of America’s Firefighters
By Tom Costello
NBC News
October 23, 2017
BOSTON — For the nation’s oldest fire department, the alarm sounds 234 times a day.
Car accidents, medical calls, rescues and fires keep Boston firefighters busy round-the-clock.
But while they are equipped with state-of-the-art apparatus and protective clothing, what’s killing them is a danger they often can’t see: cancer.
Boston Fire Commissioner Joseph Finn called it an “epidemic.”
“We're seeing a lot of younger members in their 40s, early 40s, who've got 20 years on the job, who are developing these cancers at a very young age,” Finn told NBC News.
Each month, another three active or just-retired firefighters are diagnosed with cancer. The cancer rate among firefighters is more than twice the rate for Boston residents — and it’s illegal for firefighters in this city to smoke.
At the Dana Farber Cancer Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, firefighter Glenn Preston is being treated for blood cancer.
He’s already had chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. He invited NBC News to his hospital room to talk, but the crew had to wear surgical masks and gloves, swabbing the camera gear down with alcohol to lessen the risk of introducing a virus that could prove fatal to Glenn.
“It's in the lining of my heart. The tumor's in the lining of my heart now,” he said.
Married with four children, Preston is just 41 years old and a native Bostonian.
“For me, it's a passion,” he explained. “Other than God, family, and my country. There's nothing I love more than being a Boston firefighter.”
In 2002, Preston was among 200 firefighters who responded to a massive inferno at a power plant on the city’s south side. Inside the building, he became separated from his crew as chemicals rained down from the roof, coating his protective turnout gear in a petroleum-jelly-like goo.
“That’s the most scared I've ever been in my life, I think.”
When he finally made it out, his jacket was covered in a slick slime, possibly containing PCBs.
Of the 200 firefighters who responded, a quarter have since been diagnosed with cancer or cardiac ailments, according to the commissioner.
The International Association of Firefighters says cancer is now the leading cause of death among firefighters.
While thirty years ago, firefighters were most often diagnosed with asbestos-related cancers, today the cancers are more often leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma, officials say.
Fire departments in Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Toronto and Calgary all report elevated cancer rates.
The most aggressive cancers were oral, digestive, respiratory and urinary.
Researchers say one big reason for the change is that firefighters today are fighting very different blazes. Modern homes and businesses full of synthetics, plastics and chemicals that can explode much faster and coat firefighters in a toxic soot.
A National Institutes of Health study tracked nearly 30,000 firefighters across the country in 2010 and found higher rates of cancer than the general population.
Congress is currently considering whether to approve the creation of a National Firefighter Cancer Registry — to get a firm handle on the number of deaths.
Now, fire departments nationwide are ordering their men and women to take the danger from chemicals much more seriously. No longer is a firefighter’s soot-covered face a badge of honor. Departments are buying air tanks that provide oxygen for 45 minutes, rather than the standard 30 minutes.
Incident commanders are ordering firefighters to keep their masks on until they are out of the smoke and washed down by decontamination teams on the scene. And back at the station, firefighters are being told to change into a second set of turnout gear while industrial washing machines clean the dirty equipment.
Finn, a 33-year veteran of the department, has been known to arrive at the scene of a fire and yell at firefighters who take their masks off too soon.
“Sometimes I use colorful language” said Finn. “I’ve buried way too many friends over my 33 years. Too many friends ... so I tell them, ‘Think about your wife, your husband, your boyfriend, your girlfriend before you take that mask off your face.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: A couple of years ago, my close friend and retired Houston firefighter Cecil Arnold was unexpectedly diagnosed with Brain cancer and passed away within just a few weeks of the diagnosis.
By Tom Costello
NBC News
October 23, 2017
BOSTON — For the nation’s oldest fire department, the alarm sounds 234 times a day.
Car accidents, medical calls, rescues and fires keep Boston firefighters busy round-the-clock.
But while they are equipped with state-of-the-art apparatus and protective clothing, what’s killing them is a danger they often can’t see: cancer.
Boston Fire Commissioner Joseph Finn called it an “epidemic.”
“We're seeing a lot of younger members in their 40s, early 40s, who've got 20 years on the job, who are developing these cancers at a very young age,” Finn told NBC News.
Each month, another three active or just-retired firefighters are diagnosed with cancer. The cancer rate among firefighters is more than twice the rate for Boston residents — and it’s illegal for firefighters in this city to smoke.
At the Dana Farber Cancer Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, firefighter Glenn Preston is being treated for blood cancer.
He’s already had chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. He invited NBC News to his hospital room to talk, but the crew had to wear surgical masks and gloves, swabbing the camera gear down with alcohol to lessen the risk of introducing a virus that could prove fatal to Glenn.
“It's in the lining of my heart. The tumor's in the lining of my heart now,” he said.
Married with four children, Preston is just 41 years old and a native Bostonian.
“For me, it's a passion,” he explained. “Other than God, family, and my country. There's nothing I love more than being a Boston firefighter.”
In 2002, Preston was among 200 firefighters who responded to a massive inferno at a power plant on the city’s south side. Inside the building, he became separated from his crew as chemicals rained down from the roof, coating his protective turnout gear in a petroleum-jelly-like goo.
“That’s the most scared I've ever been in my life, I think.”
When he finally made it out, his jacket was covered in a slick slime, possibly containing PCBs.
Of the 200 firefighters who responded, a quarter have since been diagnosed with cancer or cardiac ailments, according to the commissioner.
The International Association of Firefighters says cancer is now the leading cause of death among firefighters.
While thirty years ago, firefighters were most often diagnosed with asbestos-related cancers, today the cancers are more often leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma, officials say.
Fire departments in Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Toronto and Calgary all report elevated cancer rates.
The most aggressive cancers were oral, digestive, respiratory and urinary.
Researchers say one big reason for the change is that firefighters today are fighting very different blazes. Modern homes and businesses full of synthetics, plastics and chemicals that can explode much faster and coat firefighters in a toxic soot.
A National Institutes of Health study tracked nearly 30,000 firefighters across the country in 2010 and found higher rates of cancer than the general population.
Congress is currently considering whether to approve the creation of a National Firefighter Cancer Registry — to get a firm handle on the number of deaths.
Now, fire departments nationwide are ordering their men and women to take the danger from chemicals much more seriously. No longer is a firefighter’s soot-covered face a badge of honor. Departments are buying air tanks that provide oxygen for 45 minutes, rather than the standard 30 minutes.
Incident commanders are ordering firefighters to keep their masks on until they are out of the smoke and washed down by decontamination teams on the scene. And back at the station, firefighters are being told to change into a second set of turnout gear while industrial washing machines clean the dirty equipment.
Finn, a 33-year veteran of the department, has been known to arrive at the scene of a fire and yell at firefighters who take their masks off too soon.
“Sometimes I use colorful language” said Finn. “I’ve buried way too many friends over my 33 years. Too many friends ... so I tell them, ‘Think about your wife, your husband, your boyfriend, your girlfriend before you take that mask off your face.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: A couple of years ago, my close friend and retired Houston firefighter Cecil Arnold was unexpectedly diagnosed with Brain cancer and passed away within just a few weeks of the diagnosis.
Monday, October 23, 2017
ARMY COMBAT DESERTER BOWE BERGDAHL SAYS THIS COUNTRY HAS TREATED HIM WORSE THAN HIS TALIBAN CAPTORS
Bergdahl complains about being tried by a Kangaroo Court and thinks we might as well return to lynch mobs
In 2009, Bowe Bergdahl was positioned in a forward outpost in Afghanistan when he up and took off, leaving his fellow soldiers behind. He was soon captured by the Taliban and held prisoner for five years until 2014 when Obama agreed to a shameful exchange of five terrorists being held at Gitmo for the deserter..
In an interview with a filmmaker last year that was just released Sunday by The Sunday Times, Bergdahl implies that this country has treated him worse than his Taliban captors. He said he could not get a fair trial because Trump referred to him as a “dirty, rotten traitor” and called for him to be executed while campaigning for the presidency, and Trump is now commander-in-chief of the military tribunal that court martialed him.
“We may as well go back to kangaroo courts and lynch mobs that got what they wanted,” Bergdahl said in the interview. “The people who want to hang me — you're never going to convince those people.”
Bergdahl did say that he was beaten and otherwise mistreated while in captivity.
Last Monday Bergdahl pled guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. He faces a sentence of life in prison.
Instead of sending the deserter to prison, let me suggest that since he believes he has been treated worse in this country than by those who held him captive for five years, they ship his unhappy ass off to Afghanistan and give him back to the Taliban.
In 2009, Bowe Bergdahl was positioned in a forward outpost in Afghanistan when he up and took off, leaving his fellow soldiers behind. He was soon captured by the Taliban and held prisoner for five years until 2014 when Obama agreed to a shameful exchange of five terrorists being held at Gitmo for the deserter..
In an interview with a filmmaker last year that was just released Sunday by The Sunday Times, Bergdahl implies that this country has treated him worse than his Taliban captors. He said he could not get a fair trial because Trump referred to him as a “dirty, rotten traitor” and called for him to be executed while campaigning for the presidency, and Trump is now commander-in-chief of the military tribunal that court martialed him.
“We may as well go back to kangaroo courts and lynch mobs that got what they wanted,” Bergdahl said in the interview. “The people who want to hang me — you're never going to convince those people.”
Bergdahl did say that he was beaten and otherwise mistreated while in captivity.
Last Monday Bergdahl pled guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. He faces a sentence of life in prison.
Instead of sending the deserter to prison, let me suggest that since he believes he has been treated worse in this country than by those who held him captive for five years, they ship his unhappy ass off to Afghanistan and give him back to the Taliban.
PRISONER TERMINALLY REHABILITATED AT NEW FOLSOM PRISON
by Bob Walsh
The California State Prison-Sacramento County, commonly called New Folsom Prison, had a serious disturbance on the recreation yard on Friday. Two prisoners, apparently armed with inmate manufactured knives, attacked a third inmate. A fourth inmate jumped into the fight, though whose side he was on isn't quite clear. Staff tried conventional control techniques which did not succeed, and opened fire with .223 rifles. When it was ove one inmate was dead, one is in critical condition.
The dead guy is Jamie Mardis doing 11 years out of Kern County for robbery and making and possession of deadly weapons while in custody.
This is actually an unusual situation in the CA prison system where it is not uncommon for a year to go by without a prisoner being shot to death.
The California State Prison-Sacramento County, commonly called New Folsom Prison, had a serious disturbance on the recreation yard on Friday. Two prisoners, apparently armed with inmate manufactured knives, attacked a third inmate. A fourth inmate jumped into the fight, though whose side he was on isn't quite clear. Staff tried conventional control techniques which did not succeed, and opened fire with .223 rifles. When it was ove one inmate was dead, one is in critical condition.
The dead guy is Jamie Mardis doing 11 years out of Kern County for robbery and making and possession of deadly weapons while in custody.
This is actually an unusual situation in the CA prison system where it is not uncommon for a year to go by without a prisoner being shot to death.
MORE PRISON STAFF EQUALS MORE PRISON SAFETY ... MAYBE/PROBABLY
by Bob Walsh
Texas is, in many ways, a very nice place and is run reasonably well and efficiently. They do, however, have the lowest staff to prisoner ratio of any large state in the country and it does, from time to time, cause problems.
It seems that a complex plot was hatched at the Texas death row at the Huntsville prison. Condemned prisoners Anthony Shore and Larry Swearingen got together Shore was about to be executed. He was going to confess to Swearingen's murder of Melissa Trotter in 1998. Shore hade already admitted to four very nasty murders, including one nine-year old and there was no doubt he was going to be executed. The idea was for him to confess at the last minute to Swearingen's crime to get him off the hook. Shore's execution has been stayed by a judge for 90 days to give the correctional system time to work out what happened.
Swearingen managed to get physical possession of written material, including a hand-drawn map. That should not have been possible as inmates are supposed to have next to zero physical contact with one another on death row.
Speaking from experience I can testify that inmates can be very creative with "fish lines" for passing written material, drugs and other contraband from cell to cell, especially at night. Unless you have staff out on the tiers constantly looking for such things it is impossible to stop. Despite what the union claims I am unsure that additional staff, unless you are talking about a LOT of additional staff, would have prevented this little plot from developing.
Texas is, in many ways, a very nice place and is run reasonably well and efficiently. They do, however, have the lowest staff to prisoner ratio of any large state in the country and it does, from time to time, cause problems.
It seems that a complex plot was hatched at the Texas death row at the Huntsville prison. Condemned prisoners Anthony Shore and Larry Swearingen got together Shore was about to be executed. He was going to confess to Swearingen's murder of Melissa Trotter in 1998. Shore hade already admitted to four very nasty murders, including one nine-year old and there was no doubt he was going to be executed. The idea was for him to confess at the last minute to Swearingen's crime to get him off the hook. Shore's execution has been stayed by a judge for 90 days to give the correctional system time to work out what happened.
Swearingen managed to get physical possession of written material, including a hand-drawn map. That should not have been possible as inmates are supposed to have next to zero physical contact with one another on death row.
Speaking from experience I can testify that inmates can be very creative with "fish lines" for passing written material, drugs and other contraband from cell to cell, especially at night. Unless you have staff out on the tiers constantly looking for such things it is impossible to stop. Despite what the union claims I am unsure that additional staff, unless you are talking about a LOT of additional staff, would have prevented this little plot from developing.
MEXICAN ACTRESS CLAIMS SHE HAD SEX WITH SEAN PENN, BUT NOT WITH EL CHAPO … YEAH, RIGHT!
Kate del Castillo: "I had sex with Sean Penn, it was just business"
By Chivis Martinez
Borderland Beat
October 20, 2017
In case you missed it, Kate del Castillo was a guest on Good Morning America today [Friday] promoting her film, now on NETFLIX. There has been drama surrounding the film titled “The Day I Met “El Chapo”. The big story yesterday was the revelation that Sean Penn, who accompanied Castillo on the clandestine trip to meet the capo in a Mexican jungle, was attempting to stop the film from using footage about his alleged cooperation with the United States government in catching Chapo. The film reportedly suggests that Penn alerted U.S. authorities to the fugitive drug lord’s location, this was after the meeting with Chapo arranged by Castillo in September 2015.
Penn’s camp suggests that if NETFLIX releases the film, “blood may be on their hands”. Meaning there may be retribution or as in the narco world it is said “A settling of scores”.
Furthermore, they contend the film is riddled with fabrications. Penn’s attorney’s asked at the very least, “remove any references to their client contacting (the Justice Department) prior to meeting Chapo.”
Penn sat on his interview for months, and released it the day after El Chapo’s arrest.
This morning in her GMA interview, Castillo said she had sex with Sean Penn, not Chapo as many wondered, but Penn. The startling admission about the Hollywood movie star who tagged along. Sean Penn.
From her GMA interview:
"I never fell for him. We had sex. Okay. Sorry, but -- we're both adult, single and something was going on, but that was it. And it was business. And so there was sex but there wasn't a relationship. No."
She was asked “why wait until now to finally admit that you were intimate with Sean?”
She laughed and said “ Because nobody asked me. They were so stupid. They were all thinking I had something to do with El Chapo and I'm not bragging about that but I think it was all so calculated even that.”
Reporter: “Just one day before Penn published a storing in "Rolling stone" about the star's secret encounter, the drug lord was arrested. Now Penn strongly denying allegations he alerted U.S. Authorities. His spokesperson calling the notion a complete fabrication and bald-faced lie. He has seen this documentary and in "Variety" was quoted as saying there are profound inaccuracies. What's your reaction?”
“ I said the same thing about his article. So he has probably a point of view. I have another point of view. What is the truth? That I have nothing to do with him getting caught.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Rumors had her fucking El Chapo long before she hooked up with Penn and you can bet she did.
"It was just business." That's what Harvey Weinstein is saying.
One Anonymous commented: I wonder if Harvey Weinstein ever interviewed Kate Castillo for an acting career? "It's just business" puta...
By Chivis Martinez
Borderland Beat
October 20, 2017
In case you missed it, Kate del Castillo was a guest on Good Morning America today [Friday] promoting her film, now on NETFLIX. There has been drama surrounding the film titled “The Day I Met “El Chapo”. The big story yesterday was the revelation that Sean Penn, who accompanied Castillo on the clandestine trip to meet the capo in a Mexican jungle, was attempting to stop the film from using footage about his alleged cooperation with the United States government in catching Chapo. The film reportedly suggests that Penn alerted U.S. authorities to the fugitive drug lord’s location, this was after the meeting with Chapo arranged by Castillo in September 2015.
Penn’s camp suggests that if NETFLIX releases the film, “blood may be on their hands”. Meaning there may be retribution or as in the narco world it is said “A settling of scores”.
Furthermore, they contend the film is riddled with fabrications. Penn’s attorney’s asked at the very least, “remove any references to their client contacting (the Justice Department) prior to meeting Chapo.”
Penn sat on his interview for months, and released it the day after El Chapo’s arrest.
This morning in her GMA interview, Castillo said she had sex with Sean Penn, not Chapo as many wondered, but Penn. The startling admission about the Hollywood movie star who tagged along. Sean Penn.
From her GMA interview:
"I never fell for him. We had sex. Okay. Sorry, but -- we're both adult, single and something was going on, but that was it. And it was business. And so there was sex but there wasn't a relationship. No."
She was asked “why wait until now to finally admit that you were intimate with Sean?”
She laughed and said “ Because nobody asked me. They were so stupid. They were all thinking I had something to do with El Chapo and I'm not bragging about that but I think it was all so calculated even that.”
Reporter: “Just one day before Penn published a storing in "Rolling stone" about the star's secret encounter, the drug lord was arrested. Now Penn strongly denying allegations he alerted U.S. Authorities. His spokesperson calling the notion a complete fabrication and bald-faced lie. He has seen this documentary and in "Variety" was quoted as saying there are profound inaccuracies. What's your reaction?”
“ I said the same thing about his article. So he has probably a point of view. I have another point of view. What is the truth? That I have nothing to do with him getting caught.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Rumors had her fucking El Chapo long before she hooked up with Penn and you can bet she did.
"It was just business." That's what Harvey Weinstein is saying.
One Anonymous commented: I wonder if Harvey Weinstein ever interviewed Kate Castillo for an acting career? "It's just business" puta...
TRANSGENDER BATHROOMS
Will Pecker Checkers be required to enforce bathroom laws?
There are important questions to be answered about recent LGBT bathroom legislation and whether transgender people will be permitted to use a restroom of the gender that they “identify” with or be required to use the restroom of their biological gender.
If the latter, will public restrooms be required to have a Genital Inspection Station posted at the entrance to all public restrooms? Who will have to pay these Pecker Checkers? The people using the restroom or the entity that owns the restroom? And how much money will a Pecker Checker be paid to check peckers? Or do Pecker Checkers get paid by the number of peckers checked? How many peckers can a Pecker Checker check if a Pecker Checker could check peckers?
What has this country come to when the U.S. Department of Labor has to create a new job description of Politically Correct Restroom Service Inspectors? Their motto will be ………. ??? “If you gotta Pee – we gotta see!”
There are important questions to be answered about recent LGBT bathroom legislation and whether transgender people will be permitted to use a restroom of the gender that they “identify” with or be required to use the restroom of their biological gender.
If the latter, will public restrooms be required to have a Genital Inspection Station posted at the entrance to all public restrooms? Who will have to pay these Pecker Checkers? The people using the restroom or the entity that owns the restroom? And how much money will a Pecker Checker be paid to check peckers? Or do Pecker Checkers get paid by the number of peckers checked? How many peckers can a Pecker Checker check if a Pecker Checker could check peckers?
What has this country come to when the U.S. Department of Labor has to create a new job description of Politically Correct Restroom Service Inspectors? Their motto will be ………. ??? “If you gotta Pee – we gotta see!”
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