Archive for the 'Police' Category

CBS-DC:

A University of Virginia student is seeking $40 million from the state and seven Alcoholic Beverage Control agents who arrested her believing she had illegally purchased beer when she had bought bottled water.

Elizabeth K. Daly, 21, filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Richmond Circuit Court, according to media reports. She alleges malicious prosecution, six counts of assault and battery and failure to appropriately train ABC agents.

On April 11, 2013, ABC agents confronted Daly outside a supermarket in Charlottesville. The agents believed Daly, who was then 20, was under the legal drinking age and had purchased beer.

Daly was charged with two felonies for grazing two agents with her vehicle.

Daly has said attempted to flee in a panic because the agents weren’t in uniform, one pulled a gun and another attempted to smash a window with a flashlight.

Daly spent a night in jail on felony charges of assaulting two law enforcement officers and eluding police. Prosecutors withdrew charges against Daly in June and her record was expunged in October.

In her lawsuit, Daly said she has suffered from a tremor in her right hand, intense anxiety and other problems since the confrontation.

As a result of the April 2013 incident, Daly and her parents “have incurred significant legal, medical, and other costs, and will continue to do so in the future due to the malicious, intentional” and negligent actions of the defendants, the lawsuit states.

A spokesman for Attorney General Mark Herring called the incident “incredibly unfortunate.”

Here is the summary.  Virginia ABC agents in plains clothes brandished a weapon at an innocent victim and attempted to smash the window of an automobile, endangering the driver (and any occupants that might have been there) of lifelong blindness from shards of glass, all over what they thought was a beer.  And the court officer notes this incident as being “unfortunate.”

Here is a modest proposal in an attempt to ameliorate the police state we have become.  Every law enforcement officer, federal, state, county and local, in America wears a camera beginning immediately.  The camera will be worn at all times when on duty by those who interact with the public (including LEOs from SWAT officers on to uniformed patrol), and failure to wear the camera will entail loss of job and deprivation of licenses issued by the state (such as driver’s license, hunting license, firearms license, etc.).

The video will be streamed to an independent third party, who releases the video upon request to any victim or his lawyer, and posts video of all violent encounters.  Law enforcement officers can then be held accountable for the same crimes we would be, namely brandishing, assault, denial of constitutional rights, lying under oath, and any of a host of other crimes.

It would be a start.

As a followup to my article Note To Cops And Survivalists: The World Is Full Of Animals, Embrace It!, Mountain Guerrilla posted a piece on animals and logistics (via WRSA), although he didn’t link back to my article.

Mosby spends some time rehearsing an Army field manual on animals and logistics, with some good suggestions for the proper use of horses.  Then he poses this.

Do you know how to ride a horse? I don’t mean sit on a horse in the lesson arena either. Have you ever ridden a horse across country, through the brush? Across steep terrain. Like I said, I’m not an expert, but I’ve done both of these enough to know…and witness…untrained people fall off horses all the fucking time in rough terrain, seldom with healthy results. Have you ever actually sat on a horse ALL day long? I helped some neighbors pack a camp into the Bob Marshall Wilderness area a couple of years ago. I’d always wanted to get into the backcountry of the “Bob,” and it seemed like a much easier alternative to walking in. What would have been a two-day round trip for them turned into a four-day trip because, after sitting on a horse for 16 hours straight on the ride in? I literally, could not walk the next two days, let alone get back on the horse to ride out. It was not pretty, at all…and I’m in pretty good condition.

Check.  All of the above.  I have fallen off, been thrown off, bitten, run over, kicked, and just about anything that can happen on or around a horse.  I have ridden horses all day long, and I do mean all … day … long, and gotten on to do it again the next day.  And the next day.  And the next day.  I have fed them, herded them, doctored them, and assisted them to mate.  If you’ve never witnessed horses mating first hand (and I’m not talking about watching the Discovery Channel), it can be a violent affair.  I’ve ridden with saddles and then also (in my much younger years) bareback over mountain tops along narrow trails while running the herd).  The hardest ride was bareback and (on a dare) without a bridle, only the halter.

From the age of fourteen and beyond into my early twenties, I worked weekends and summers at a Christian camp above Marietta, South Carolina named Awanita Valley (and Awanita Ranch in Traveler’s Rest).  We trained and trail rode horses, fed them and cared for them, hiked the trails and cleared them of snakes and yellow jacket nests (have you ever been on a horse when it came up on a yellow jacket nest?).

When we weren’t doing that, we were cutting wood, hauling supplies, digging ditches, and baling hay.  My boys did the same thing, and Daniel later (before the Marine Corps) worked for Joey Macrae in Anderson, South Carolina, an extraordinary professional horseman, breaking and training horses.  I have ridden in the rain, blazing sun, and snow.  I have seen my son Joshua and his horse buried up to his thighs in snow, and watched him ride the horse up from sinking in the drift and stay on him while keeping the horse and him safe.

Why is all (or any) of this important?  Because as I tried to convey in my earlier post, it is critical to have an understanding and mastery over animals, especially if what we think will happen in America really happens.  And Mountain Guerrilla is right about logistics too.  But I’m not so sure that the Army was the first to field this idea.  See my article on Marines and Mules.  The Small Wars Journal had discussion on the importance of animals to logistics long ago.

The problem is that the Marine Corps has forgotten the lessons, and I’m afraid that the Army will never really take them to heart.  The modern U.S. military is techno-weighted down, with gadgetry, doohickeys, and reliance on constant logistics.  The so-called big dog is a symptom of this sickness, as is the huge budget for DARPA every year.  Truthfully, I think this is all related to the effete pressure for gender neutrality in the military.

But don’t you forget these lessons.  Plan ahead.  Learn how to make fire, how to purify water, how to fight, how to make your way around terrain, and how to navigate with maps and a compass (rather than using GPS like the liar Marine Corps officer candidates who were found out during officer’s school).

And learn animals.  Your life will be better for it.  This goes for cops too.  Lina Inverse makes an interesting point.

It just occurred to me that this puppycide policy is extremely unwise, because the desensitization works both ways. Every time a thug in uniform needlessly kills a family’s dog, that family in turn is that much more ready to return the favor someday….

It’s what Mike Vanderboegh calls losing the mandate of heaven.  At one time in our history, constables were respected and admired.  Children wanted to talk to them, show them respect, and even be like them.  Nowadays, with enough rifles pointed at women and children while screaming obscenities, with enough dead animals, with enough abuse and danger from cops, it may not be long before the people turn on cops.

If you’re a cop, you don’t want that to happen.  Believe me.  You don’t want that to happen.  You want to maintain the “mandate of heaven.”  If you lose it, you’ve lost everything.

Make sure to drop by Mountain Guerrilla and read his informed article.

There are two recent reports of dog shootings by cops in the news lately, one by the Nampa, Idaho Police Department, and another by the Mobile, Alabama Police Department (via David Codrea).  This behavior of reflexive, frightened shooting of dogs follows a pattern that we have observed before here and here, and just like we have observed elsewhere.

Before my children ever left home, they had been well-trained in at least rudimentary animal science.  They have been around animals of all flavor, knew how to ride, care for, train and (to some extent) doctor horses, knew how to raise dogs, and could handle themselves around most animals.  At least they knew when being around an animal required caution.  They knew how to build fire, rappel, and be at home in woodlands and mountains (although here I am diverging from the main subject).

If you are a law enforcement officer and know nothing about animals, are frightened all of the time around them, and cannot assert yourself at the proper time and in the proper way, there are options for you.  You can volunteer your time at local farms, ranches and dog breeders, and you can purchase and raise your own dogs.  You need to become accustomed to being around cattle, horses, goats, dogs and other such animals.  If you choose to ignore this gap in your training and life experiences, and you choose to run around frightened of everything that moves, but you relinquish your badge and gun, then who am I to infringe on your rights?  Do as you wish, and leave me out of it.

But if you choose to be that kind of person, where you ignore gaps in your knowledge and experience base, but you continue to carry a badge and gun, I think you’re a panty waist.  You are an irresponsible person who should feel bad about themselves, and you’re dangerous to those of us around you, and especially dangerous to animals.  You’re unqualified to have your job, and you are basically a liability to the community.  But I’m saying more than that.  I think you’re a panty waist.

There are only one or two breeds for which I would consider use of something like OC spray, and that would probably only be necessary if they were trained fighting dogs.  In any case, if you place yourself in a position where you are running from an animal while you’re on a call, then in addition to being a panty waist you’re an idiot.  You should knock on the door if you want an owner to secure his animals.  It isn’t any more complicated than that.

Now a note to survivalists.  You might spend time, money and energy on being prepared to survive in the wilderness, or perhaps being tactically competent.  But if your planning, education and preparation doesn’t include a moderate knowledge of and mastery over animals, then your preparations are incomplete and your calculus is faulty.  There are animals out there who truly can harm you, such as (in the West) brown bear, cougar and moose, and (in the East) black bear if they’re badly hungry, or feral hogs.

You need to know when you need dogs with you.  Daniel dispatched this hog with a fixed blade Ka-Bar, but he had pit bulls with him for strike dogs.  I won’t go into the mountains without a dog and gun.  A feral hog with turn on you and cut your femoral artery, and if he doesn’t respect you, a horse can turn on you and kill you.  Horses don’t love you or even like you.  Horses learn to tolerate you in what they consider to be a mutually beneficial relationship.  Know them.  Understand them.

And that’s the key, isn’t it?  An ATV will run out of fuel.  With the exception of certain necessary things such as worming medication, a horse is self feeding, and I would rather have a good Quarter Horse or Appaloosa than an ATV any day in most parts of woodland or mountain America.  You need to understand what animals can do to you, what they can do for you, and how to manage them the proper way rather than reading books or relying on the internet.  Or for LEOs, rather than shooting them because you’re scared like a little girl.

We’ve covered how a York County cop assumed that a slow moving seventy year old man was sweeping around and picking up a long gun to shoot him.  He shot the elderly man, who as far as I know lives today.

There is more from The State:

YORK COUNTY, SC — The York County Sheriff’s deputy who shot a 70-year-old man reaching for his cane during a traffic stop last month wept and begged God to forgive him after he fired about six shots at the man, according to the deputy’s dash cam video released Wednesday afternoon.

During a news conference at the York County Detention Center, Sheriff Bruce Bryant said deputies reviewed video of the incident “time and time and time again” and feel that Deputy Terrance Knox did nothing wrong when he fired his service weapon during a traffic stop on U.S. 321 in Clover at about 7:30 p.m. Feb. 25. He also said he does not believe the victim, Bobby Canipe of Lincolnton, N.C., did anything “intentionally” wrong when he stepped out his car and began walking toward Knox while grabbing his walking cane.

Still, Bryant said he plans to speak with the state General Assembly and state Sheriff’s Association and push for legislation requiring state and even federal highway officials to add instructions in driver’s manuals on what to do when motorists are stopped by police officers.

“We’re not making excuses in anything we’ve done,” Bryant said, “but if you’re out at night … and you’re out there by yourselves (on traffic stops), you’ve got to realize that these officers must act to protect their own safety. You do not exit your vehicle and go meet the police officer. You do not do that.”

I can remember when this was not standard procedure or regular protocol.  I can recall a time when it was the expectation that you exit your car.  I am not at all certain and it isn’t at all apparent to me that it’s safer for the LEO for you to sit in your car when stopped.  But whether this is better than what was once the expectation, the elderly man probably remembered an earlier and simpler time when he was pulled for some minor traffic violation and was asked to exit the car – or did so as routine.

Putting something about this in the driver’s manual means next to nothing as far as I’m concerned.  If LEOs and their departments can leave the bubble of their own jobs for just an instance and learn from someone else, as a professional engineer the first thing that crosses my mind for any design, piece of work, procedure or operation is “What does a failure mode and effects analysis tell us?”

To Sheriff Bryant, if it’s standard procedure that motorists stay in their vehicle, assume that it doesn’t happen.  Always.  Never assume that things go according to your own plans.  No one cares about your plans or your training or even your expectations.  If you haven’t prepared your officers for failure of motorists to follow your procedures because they don’t know them, you are failing your officers.

Let’s also observe that not only are departments failing their officers in basic schooling, they are failing officers in the very culture being encouraged within the department.  Once again we find Sheriff Bryant claiming that nothing wrong was done by the officer who shot he elderly man, and the tape makes it clear that this was a trigger happy, less than thoughtful officer who was later told by his colleague that “You done what you had to to!”

See the comments in the first article on this subject, but it simply isn’t service to society or anyone else when an officer removes his own risk by placing it on innocent people around him.  We see this all across America every day, from SWAT teams who bust down doors pointing rifles at women and children and screaming obscenities at them, to large city cops who unload 80-100 rounds at a time at assumed perpetrators, hitting innocent victims, windows, doors, and other things in the process.  We saw it recently in, of all places, Alabama, where an innocent man was gut-shot by an officer because be was carrying his wallet to the officer.

Mature, thinking men and women have been replaced by “tacticool operators” on police forces across America, using rules of engagement more liberal than what our Soldiers and Marines labored under in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the result that law enforcement is losing what Mike Vanderboegh calls the mandate of heaven.  We have more and more laws, more and more procedures, more and more “blue walls” protecting officers, and less and less respect from the people who have a healthy fear of LEOs, wondering when some frightened cop is going to unload a weapon in their direction.

To claim that the officer was merely protecting himself denies that their lives are analogous and equivalent to our own in two distinct ways.  First, it places officer safety above that of everyone around them.  Second, it ignores the SCOTUS decision in Tennessee versus Garner where the Supreme Court emphatically ruled that LEOs can shoot in self defense only, just like ordinary citizens.  But as an ordinary citizen and concealed (or here in North Carolina, open) carrier, if I unloaded my weapon at a man who was picking up his walking stick, I would be charged with (and found guilty of) second degree murder.  End of story.  This dual standard is immoral and weighs heavily on the American people.

And the sad part is that it doesn’t really have to be this way.  Becoming a law enforcement officer really can be a service to the community.  For that to happen, though, requires a complete paradigm shift in operating philosophy, management, training, and expectations, and much higher qualifications for becoming a LEO in the first place.

Don’t hold your breath for any of that to happen.

First of all, watch this video, and make sure to watch all of it, listening to the exchange between LEOs near the end.  Then I’ll make several observations.

First of all, take note of the sentence crafted by the LEO who showed up after the incident: “You done what you had to do.”  This is a sad commentary on the intelligence and educational level of these LEOs.  This is a serious rather than a rhetorical question.  Would you ever put these words together in a sentence in this order?  “You done what you had to do.”  If so, why?  Why would a person choose to do something like that?

Second, take note that without even having seen the evidence and without knowing anything at all about the situation, the blue wall is closing in.  It happens immediately.  “You done what you had to do.”  There is nothing more important than going home safely at the end of their shift.

This brings me to my third and most important point.  When Daniel was in Iraq, he made a practice each morning of waking up and preparing himself to perish.  He had to be okay with it or he couldn’t function.  Thus, he was able to restrain himself with ROE, and that restraint came in the face of plenty of AK-47s in the population, as I’ve pointed out before.

Thus, whatever you think about the campaign in Iraq, what he did (i.e., restraint in the face of danger) can be called service.  LEOs want what they do to be considered service as well, but in most cases it’s not.  As it stands, they are no more than uniformed goons who run around frightened of everything that moves.  The last thing I would have thought in this situation is “an old man is reaching for a long gun to shoot me.”

Finally, take note of the official (so far) reaction to this shooting.

The York County Sheriff’s Office released this statement to the media on Wednesday following Tuesday’s officer-involved shooting in Clover.

After an initial review of the car video from the incident, we can report that on February 25, 2014, at approximately 7:30 p.m., York County Sheriff’s Deputy Terrance Knox made a traffic stop on a vehicle with an expired license plate at Highway 321 and Motseller Street north of the town of Clover.

The driver of the vehicle, Bobby Dean Canipe, 70, of Lincolnton, North Carolina, exited his vehicle and reached in his truck bed, raised what Deputy Knox perceived to be a long barrel weapon. Deputy Knox was forced to make a split second, life or death decision and fired his weapon several times striking Canipe once. Canipe had grabbed a walking cane from the bed of his truck. Deputy Knox rendered aid to Mr. Canipe until EMS arrived.

At Sheriff’s Bryant’s request, The State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is investigating the incident and will report their findings to the 16th Circuit Solicitor.

The situation is very unfortunate. It does appear, at this time, that Deputy Knox’s actions were an appropriate response to what he reasonably believed to be an imminent threat to his life …

Goons protecting goons.  Did you expect any different?  The blue wall closes in, and a 70 year old man was shot for picking up a walking stick.

You can’t make this stuff up.

He was a Doraville police officer, until a tip led to an investigation and ultimately his dismissal.

“One of our officers was trying to sell an automatic weapon,” says Doraville Police Officer Gene Callaway.

Callaway tells WSB Officer Woodrow Mann had been with the department since 2008.  His attempted sale was discovered following a tip to the police.

“That led to an inquiry and we found that he was trying to sell a Class 3 weapon, which is a fully automatic weapon,” says Callaway.

When Doraville received the tip they contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

“Because the weapon had not been delivered,” Callaway says, “it didn’t meet their threshold for a crime.”

Mann was dismissed from the Doraville police department.  He can appeal his firing.

So let’s leave aside for a moment the issue of the NFA and the Hughes amendment (and Gun Control Act) being obscene abominations.  How does this cop get off trying to sell a class 3 weapon and not be charged with a crime?  Simply because he didn’t actually complete the sell because the ATF caught him?

Okay, so I said let’s leave behind the issue of the NFA, GCA and Hughes amendment being obscene abominations.  I lied.  I didn’t really mean it.  You know what I wouldn’t do if I had a class 3 weapon?  Sell it.  Point it at women and children like SWAT teams do.  Terrorize others with it for no good reason.  Keep it laying about unsecured.  You know.  Bad things.  Things like the police do with automatic weapons.

So tell me again how we’re not qualified to have them and can’t be trusted with such firepower.  Let’s hear it.

Peretz Partinsky describes a series of events that occurred on July 25, 2013, but apparently on which he only recently published.  I won’t quote the entire article.  The part that I do quote will force you to read the rest, and the rest is remarkable.  If it weren’t true you almost couldn’t make this kind of thing up – it is so emblematic of an abusive police state.

My friend Ben Woosley and I were hanging out at Driftwood Bar on Folsom Street. We were talking work; we had three drinks over the course of three hours. We left the bar at 12:45am and walked towards my house, a block away.

The accident had happened just seconds before…

The bicycle had flipped forward and lay unattended in the street. The girl’s foot was bare and mangled, her chin bleeding. There was blood on her jacket, a puddle of it on the ground. Her name was Rebecca. “Where am I?” she kept asking. She was lucky to have been wearing a helmet. Josh, who had been giving her a ride on his handlebars, was wincing and bracing his shoulder.

Neither of them had working cell phones. When they asked me to, I immediately dialed 911. According to the record, it was 12:49am.

While I relayed the situation to the operator, Ben and the first bystander were helping Rebecca elevate her foot. Ben held her hand and supported her body on the ground. Rebecca borrowed his phone to call her friends and family.

Four minutes had passed when I spotted a fire truck and several police cars in the distance and stepped into the street to wave them over. “They arrived,” I told the 911 operator. She thanked me and told me to expect an ambulance to follow.

I identified myself as the caller to the half dozen police who poured out of squad cars and stepped back onto the sidewalk in front of Radius restaurant.

Sgt. Espinoza, short, stout, grey and assertive, asked Ben and me whether we had witnessed the accident. We said that we hadn’t, but arrived shortly thereafter. I was standing 15 feet from the scene beside Officer Kaur, a stocky female of South Asian complexion. She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately. I told her we were headed home, just across the way, when my friend and I encountered the accident; and that I’d recently broken my elbow in a similar bike accident here and deeply cared about the outcome.

The firemen were examining Rebecca and Josh. Ben was still supporting Rebecca’s back when Sgt. Espinoza and Officer Gabriel grabbed him from behind without warning, putting him in an arm lock and jerked him backwards over the pavement. They told him sternly that he had to leave now that trained medical professionals had arrived, implying that he was interfering and justifying their violent actions. The officers dragged him across the sidewalk, propping him against the building. Rebecca was still holding Ben’s cellphone when she lost his support. “Where are they taking him?” she asked perplexedly.

It all happened within 5 minutes of the police’s arrival. The sirens and emergency vehicles, the sudden arrival of over half a dozen uniformed personnel, two of whom had grabbed my friend, transformed an intimate street scene into something chaotic. Officer Kaur shouted at me to cross the street. It was very sudden and I was, admittedly, in shock. I stammered that I intended to head home, but that my friend was over there. I pointed at Ben against the wall, and said I’d like to take him home with me.

Without warning, I was shoved from behind by Officer Gerrans and then collectively tackled by Officers Gerrans, Kaur and Andreotti. As they took me to the ground, one of the officers kneed me in the right temple. On the pavement, I begged them to watch out for my recently broken right elbow. Knees on my back and neck pinned me to the ground. I was cuffed and left face down.

I was not told that I was under arrest, what the charges were, nor read my rights. I rolled over onto my back so that I could see the arresting officers and ask them their intentions.

Officer Kaur pulled me up so that I was in a sitting position, and then stepped onto my handcuffed hands, grinding them into the pavement. I was so suddenly transported to a distant reality, that I was still coming to terms with its operating principles. “Is this protocol?” I inquired and instinctively wriggled my hands from under her boots. Officer Kaur had full control of me physically. Again, she stomped her boots on my hands, demanded that I “keep [my] hands on the ground,” pushed me back face down, and walked away.

You can read the rest of his account, where he was taken to prison, detained without charges, placed into solitary confinement, and eventually made his way out of the system.  By my count [at least] the following illegalities were committed against Partinsky and his friend by the San Francisco Police Department.

1. Denial of due process (see Professor Glenn Reynolds on A Due-Process Right To Record The Police, and Morgan Manning on Photographers’ Rights).
2. False imprisonment.
3. Assault and battery.
4. Kidnapping.
5. Reckless endangerment.

The judges conspire with the police and don’t care about your rights (after all, those no-knock raids where cops point rifles at women and children require a warrant).  The police will be immune from prosecution for abuse and illegalities (or otherwise from the consequences of their actions) as long as we allow it to happen.

NY Daily News:

“Do you know who my boss is?”

A bodyguard for Gov. Chris Christie is facing criminal charges in Pennsylvania for shoplifting gun supplies — despite trying to evade punishment by dropping the name of his scandal-plagued boss.

William Carvounis, a New Jersey state trooper assigned to Christie’s security detail, reportedly stole $268 in merchandise from a Hamburg, Pa., hunting gear store earlier this month, including handgun grips, a pistol magazine and a hat.

But when the 35-year-old Carvounis was arrested by police, he repeatedly mentioned that he worked for Christie and asked for a break on the charges, police sources said.

On Jan. 8, Carvounis was perusing the aisles of a Cabela’s, an outdoor equipment store that sells hunting and camping gear, when he began stashing away several items in his cargo pants pockets. He also reportedly placed a $29.99 binocular strap in a box for a product that only cost $19.99, according to a criminal complaint filed by the responding police officer.

Carvounis, of North Brunswick, N.J., then went to check out, where he only paid for the items in his cart but not for those he had hidden in his pockets, which totaled $267.38.

When police arrived, Carvounis reportedly began attempting to slip his way out of punishment by explaining that he worked for Christie’s security detail.

“It was, more or less, ‘Look, I’ve got a good job, I’m on the governor’s security detail, I don’t want to lose my job,’ along those lines,” Tilden, Pa., Township Police Chief William McEllroy said, adding that Carvounis’ plea resembled “one cop asking another cop for a break multiple times.”

So this is yet another cop who thinks he is above the law.  We’ve seen thousands of them.  Here is the question of the day?  Would Christie have in any way assisted him had he known about this arrest?

The Tribune Papers:

By Linda Crisp-In recent news, it has been reported that six U.S. Forest Service (USFS) employees from Western North Carolina were awarded “Law Enforcement and Investigations Awards” by the USFS for their roles in “Operation Something Bruin”, a four-year, multi-agency investigation targeting “bear poachers” in WNC and surrounding states, resulting in arrests in February 2013.

Also, in October, the National Wildlife Federation bestowed “prestigious conservation honors” on Sgt. Chad Arnold, an officer from Charlotte with the Special Investigations Unit of the N.C. Wildlife Commission. Arnold was named “Wildlife Enforcement Officer of the Year”, and the Commission was named the “Natural Resources Agency of the Year”, according to a press release from the N.C. Wildlife Commission.

After state and federal wildlife officials arrested these “so-called” poachers in February, 2013, the state dismissed all charges on some of them in April, 2013. Some hunters were arrested again in June, 2013 by United States Forest Service officials.

The Wildlife Federation, United States Forest Service, state and federal officials have been too hasty in handing out awards and congratulating themselves.

In 2009, Arnold (undercover alias “Chad Ryan”), and Davey Webb (alias Davey Williams), a wildlife agent from Georgia, visited a gun shop in Bryson City, N.C. According to the shop owner, they stated that they wanted to get involved in bear hunting and asked for recommendations of hunting guides in the area. However, according to subsequent reports, they were supposed to be infiltrating “known poaching circles”. The gun shop owner told them about some hunters he knew in Graham County, N.C. These agents hunted with men in Graham, Swain, Jackson, and Haywood from 2009-2012.

In late 2010 through 2011, under time constraints, and possibly due to not finding any illegal activity, Arnold and Webb resorted to various schemes to try to entice the hunters to break laws.

During one hunter’s trial in Haywood County, agents admitted to buying illegal bait for bears in Tennessee, and placing it in a hunter’s yard in Graham County. Hunters witnessed the officers killing at least four of the ten bears that were taken. These agents, against the advice of hunters, removed the bears’ gallbladders and called hunters from surrounding counties to try to get them to participate in the illegal selling of bear parts. The hunters refused to take part in this illegal activity. These are only two of the many tactics used in attempts to entrap hunters of Western North Carolina.

According to one attorney, Arnold admitted in court to violating 39 wildlife laws.

So far what is being discussed is very serious: illegalities, violations of civil rights, waste of taxpayer money, and corruption.  But it gets worse still.

Additionally, state and federal agents employed “Gestapo-like” techniques in search and seizure of so-called “evidence”, including improper service of search-warrants.

Men in bullet-proof vests, with M-16 rifles came into homes where women were alone.

In one house, more than 20 agents with guns drawn, terrorized screaming toddlers and left them unsupervised while the parents were roughed up, searched, handcuffed, and taken outside the home. To this day, these children display post-traumatic stress symptoms.

They left homes in disarray and removed items unrelated to bear hunting: a laptop computer, hunting picture of deceased family member, legally killed mounted deer and boar heads, duck and turkey calls belonging to a four-year-old boy, a boat and boat titles, a front-end loader, personal vehicles, and many other items, which have not been returned.

To date, hunters who have had jury trials have not been convicted. In one case in Graham County, agents could not produce video “evidence”. Enticements were made by prosecutors including an offer to drop some charges if the hunter involved would plead guilty. The hunter refused and requested a jury trial. In this case, all charges were dropped due to lack of evidence.

Various new releases by state and federal agencies, as well as the media, have already labeled all the hunters as “poachers”; however, most of these men have not had their “day in court”. Whatever happened to due process of law and “innocent until proven guilty”?

To add insult to injury, some hunters who have not been convicted of anything have been assigned federal probation officers who visit monthly.

“Something IS Brewing” in WNC; that “SOMETHING” would be tempers. The hunters involved are tired of being falsely accused, their rights ignored, and their reputations ruined.

The citizens of WNC and Northern Georgia are now organizing to get some answers from these agencies on why their constitutional rights have been ignored and proper due process of law not given.

A public hearing is currently being planned for mid-January 2014. Organizers are asking for Governor Pat McCrory, Congressman Mark Meadows and all elected officials to initiate investigations of all officers and agencies involved in “Operation Something Bruin”. If you have information to share, or would like to participate, please send an e-mail to SomethingBrewing2013@yahoo.com , or letter to P.O. Box 948, Bryson City, N.C., 28713.

The moment they pointed weapons at people it left the category of mere corruption and became dangerous.  The good folk of Western North Carolina don’t have the L.A. Times to which they can turn.  They are doing the best they can do to bring attention to this outrageous abuse of power and authority.

I too call on Governor Pat McCrory to intervene and investigate these abuses and illegalities.  This kind of thing will go on as long as we allow it to.

Guns.com:

Dash cam footage recently obtained by M Live shows the 14-minute confrontation in March between Grand Rapids Police Officers and 28-year-old Johann Deffert over a legally possessed firearm. An incident which has resulted in a federal lawsuit against the city and the officers involved.

Deffert was simply taking a walk down the street on a Sunday morning after he had finished enjoying breakfast at a nearby restaurant when he was stopped and detained by police because he was openly carrying a holstered handgun, which is legal in the state of Michigan.

Officer William Moe was the first to confront Deffert after a woman called 911 to report that she had seen a man walking on the sidewalk with a gun “strapped to his leg.” The woman was surprised when the 911 operator informed her that open carry was legal in the state.

After asking several questions about what is and is not legal when it comes to carrying firearms in the state, the woman insisted that the man looked “scary” because he was wearing camo and carrying a gun.

I see “scary” looking people every day and I don’t call the police to investigate them.  There is no law against looking scary.

The dispatcher sent an officer out to investigate the report of a “suspicious person.”

As Moe pulled his patrol car to the area where Deffert was walking, he told the dispatcher that the man did appear to have a holstered weapon and claimed that the man was “talking to nobody.”

As Moe exited the car, with his service pistol drawn and trained on Deffert, he ordered the man to get down on the ground and put his hands up. “Do not move,” he instructed Deffert, asking, “Why do you have a handgun on you?”

Deffert remained calm, cooperative and respectful and replied, “It’s my constitutional right to defend myself.”

But apparently that answer was not sufficient for Moe, who continued to probe the man about why he would be walking down the street openly carrying a firearm and eventually said, “I gotta make sure you’re not a felon, right?” Deffert informed the officer that he actually did not have to check on that and even offered to show him the penal code.

I’ve got a big, big problem here.  First of all not only is Michigan an open carry state, it has no stop and identify statute.  As far as the police officer is concerned, the person could have been Mutt or Jeff.  It doesn’t matter.  The officer violated the law by stopping him for the purpose of identifying who he is.  Here is the video.

And of course the second and biggest problem is that he unholstered his weapon and aimed it at Deffert.  This is an obvious lack of muzzle discipline and highly irresponsible and dangerous.  If we do things like that we get arrested on felony charges and go to prison, which is exactly what should happen to this officer.

Deffert has filed a lawsuit against the city.  I hope he wins, but more than that, I hope that God visits his wrath on the police department.  As for their police department response, they have requested that the case be thrown out.  Of course they have.  They should mind their manners a little more.  The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department was rebuked by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals for this very thing.