Keeping the police state, though.
Obama doesn't seem to be letting go seeing as there is yet to be a nominee; however, maybe they are saving it for diversionary purposes at some point.
Sorry to be blowing the whi$tle the Globe will not, but it looks like Holder will be in good hands when he leaves:
Eric Holder Takes $77 Million Job With JPMorgan Chase
That's his annual salary.
Kind of explains this, too:
"Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the nation’s banks had become too big to jail. “The size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them,” Holder said at a hearing Wednesday. “If we do prosecute — if we do bring a criminal charges — it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”
That's AmeriKan Ju$tu$!
"AG Eric Holder to quit; Governor Patrick won’t seek job" by Matt Viser | Globe Staff September 26, 2014
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder announced his resignation on Thursday afternoon, immediately reigniting rumors that Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts could be next in line for the country’s top law enforcement job.
OMG, that failure.
Almost as quickly, Patrick sought to squelch speculation that he would succeed Holder, even amid indications the president’s advisers were interested in Patrick and have sought to measure his interest in the post.
“That’s an enormously important job, but it’s not one for me right now,” Patrick said at a campaign event in Hudson, Mass. “I have no plans and no interest in making plans to be the next attorney general,” he said later at the State House.
A person briefed on the process, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the governor has told his closest aides that he will not be the next attorney general.
Thankfully, for this nation.
But in the hours before getting on plane to fly to Washington — a previously scheduled trip that coincided with the news of Holder’s resignation — the governor said he has talked previously with the president about a position.
“The president and I have had conversations over the years about a role in his administration and I am proud of his administration,” he told reporters in Worcester. “But I’ve told you before, I’m going to finish my term and then I’m going to go into the private sector.”
We'll see.
As long as a year ago, the White House was inquiring about the potential of Patrick taking Holder’s position. A senior adviser to the president posed the question to a prominent Massachusetts Democrat. “Would he be interested?’’ the adviser was quoted as saying.
It is unclear whether the efforts to determine Patrick’s interest went any further, or how Patrick responded to them.
The flurry of speculation erupted Thursday morning after news broke that Holder would be resigning. Holder is one of the longest-serving members of Obama’s Cabinet, and will be ending a tenure as the first black attorney general.
What scandal is coming down the pike causing Holder to leave?
During his nearly six years on the job, Holder sought to create a legacy on civil rights, pushing for legal benefits for gay couples, and filing lawsuits against voting restrictions in North Carolina and Texas. He also sought to ease federal drug sentencing laws, and recently went to Ferguson, Mo., to try to heal wounds and charges of racism that emerged when a police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager.
He opened more of them.
His tenure also was marked by controversy, and intense jousting with congressional Republicans — many of whom reacted with glee at his resignation.
I didn't react with glee. I was happy, but it changes nothing in the $y$tem.
Holder was criticized for his role in Operation Fast and Furious, a government program that allowed guns into Mexico.
Yeah, he should have been put on ice a long time ago.
He was also aggressive in prosecuting members of the media reporting on national security matters.
Then why did you not mention his obstruction on the IRS and Benghazi investigations?
“Eric has done a superb job,” Obama said during an emotional news conference at the White House. “I just want to say thank you.”
Bush to Brownie!
Aside from Patrick, other possible replacements include Preet Bharara, US attorney for the Southern District of New York; Janet Napolitano, the former secretary of Homeland Security; former White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler; and Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.
Natty Napolitano?
Patrick, a Harvard Law School graduate and the top civil rights enforcer in the Justice Department under President Clinton, is often mentioned when top law-related spots open up in Washington. He has been on speculators’ short lists for Supreme Court justice, as well as for attorney general each time rumors arose about a potential Holder resignation. Patrick is also the former corporate counsel at Texaco and Coca-Cola.
OMG, the Supreme Court!
I suppose he has the corporate credentials, but his governorship has been a massive failure.
*********
The White House has also long been interested in Patrick. The governor and Obama are personally close, sharing dinners on Martha’s Vineyard or late-night drinks at the White House. A former top aide to Patrick, David Simas, is now a top aide to Obama.
He go to the bathhouse, too?
With Patrick not running for reelection, he also will be available for new employment opportunities come January.
But Patrick has consistently ruled out interest in federal posts and has said he would like to explore more lucrative, private-sector opportunities.
He told the Globe on Thursday afternoon it was “mind-blowing to be mentioned in those contexts,” but acknowledged some weariness at the now-familiar pattern of his name surging to the top of lists about federal jobs, despite his repeated statements that he will serve out his term.
It is mind-blowing.
And he repeated his insistence that his first career step out of office will not be into another government post.
“As soon as I know what my next job is, I will tell you, I promise,” he said. “But it will be in the private sector.”
Patrick’s travel schedule Thursday helped fuel speculation. He held a Cabinet meeting at 2 p.m., and later left for Washington, which was abuzz over a 4:30 p.m. press conference during which Obama formally announced Holder’s resignation.
Patrick said he had long planned to be in Washington on Friday for events with the Congressional Black Caucus. Patrick is also attending a fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee, and then heading back to Boston in the evening.
Thanks for contributing to the global warming problem.
A Patrick spokeswoman could not say whether Patrick had plans to go to the White House, or whether he would be speaking with Obama.
“You know, the president knows how to get in touch with me whether I’m in D.C. or not,” Patrick said. “Just relax everybody. I’m not going to Washington to meet with the president.”
But Patrick evaded specific questions over his past discussions with Obama over being appointed to the post.
When asked if he’d ever been offered the position of attorney general, he responded, “I’m not going to tell you all the details of our conversation, but he has an attorney general and a damn good one.”
With the Senate on recess until the midterm elections in November, any attorney general nominee probably would have to wait until at least the lame duck session for confirmation hearings. If Patrick were the nominee and confirmed before his term expires in January, Secretary of State William F. Galvin would become acting governor; the lieutenant governor’s office is vacant.
A confirmation hearing for Patrick could be contentious.
His political image has been dented by a string of mismanagement scandals, including at the state drug lab and major problems at the state’s Department of Children and Families.
They mentioned only two?
Patrick’s administration also has refused to comply with the Department of Homeland Security’s Real ID verification program, which requires proof of citizenship or legal residence in order to obtain a driver’s license.
Related: Things Getting UnREAL in Massachusetts
And he declined to sign onto the controversial fingerprint sharing system as part of a Secured Communities immigration enforcement program.
Republicans could also use the hearings as an opportunity to ding Patrick’s national reputation, should he ever decide to seek higher office.
Going to get dinged anyway.
Despite the governor’s denials, Senator Elizabeth Warren — campaigning with gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley in Chelsea Thursday — hinted that Patrick would be an ideal replacement for Holder.
“I happen to be very fond of the current governor of Massachusetts,” she said. “I don’t want to start any rumors here. I have not spoken with the governor about this and don’t know what the governor’s wishes are.”
Who cares what Liz says anymore?
--more--"
Media let go of these rather easily:
"Father: Police murdered my son at Ohio Walmart" by Kantele Franko | Associated Press September 26, 2014
DAYTON, Ohio — The father of a man fatally shot by police as he held an air rifle inside an Ohio Walmart said Thursday that he believes his son was murdered, despite a special grand jury declining to criminally charge the officers.
John Crawford Jr., whose son was shot Aug. 5 in the Dayton suburb of Beavercreek, said at a news conference that he was appalled the officers weren’t indicted. He said he welcomed an announced US Justice Department probe to determine if his 22-year-old son’s civil rights were violated.
‘‘The officer went in and virtually shot him on sight,’’ Crawford said. ‘‘He did not have a chance.’’
John Crawford III was black and the officers are white. Attorneys for Crawford’s family said they hope a federal grand jury will consider if or how race was a factor in the shooting.
‘‘It was an unarmed black man that got shot and killed in Walmart, and we can’t hide from that,’’ attorney Michael Wright said. ‘‘We believe that, yes, had Mr. Crawford been Caucasian, maybe the outcome would be different. But it’s very hard at this point to say that that, in fact, was the case.’’
I don't. We see white and black being blown away everyday; it is just that in my agenda-pushing paper of power the rural rednecks are poor white trash that deserve to be killed.
**************
Police said the Fairfield man didn’t obey commands to put down what turned out to be an air rifle taken from a shelf. Prosecutor Stacey DeGraffenreid said the officers did what they were trained to do, based on the information they had when entering the store.
Stay away from Walmart.
But Crawford’s father and the family’s attorneys say surveillance video shows the shooting was unreasonable. They contend that Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and special prosecutor Mark Piepmeier were biased and set out to defend the police.
Authority does close ranks.
DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney denied the allegations, saying DeWine took pains to remove himself from the process.
Piepmeier said he was complimented after the grand jury session by pool members for an unbiased presentation by himself and Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents, Tierney said. Those agents work for DeWine.
Wright said the family is considering its legal options and that he’ll seek the full investigative file from the Beavercreek police.
The Justice Department has begun its own review of police department practices. The federal government said its investigation will be ‘‘thorough and independent’’ and it would take appropriate action if evidence was found that civil rights laws were broken.
The Justice Department has opened civil rights investigations into the practices of some 20 police departments in the past five years. The latest is in Ferguson, Mo., where racial unrest and sometimes violent protests erupted after an officer fatally shot an unarmed, black 18-year-old on Aug. 9.
Activists who protested the handling of the Crawford case say Ferguson spurred national discussion about policy and race-related issues and prompted some people to reexamine the Walmart shooting, which happened days earlier, in that context.
Why wasn't this seized on by the agenda-pushing agent provocateurs of the paper?
It's a one-day wonder and that is it.
‘‘I think that race has always been a part of it, but I think Ferguson exploded it,’’ said Prentiss Haney, an organizer with the Ohio Student Association who says justice hasn’t been served in the Crawford case.
Walking the halls of Wright State University in a T-shirt printed with the words ‘‘Don’t shoot,’’ Haney promised more demonstrations as that federal investigation progresses.
--more--"
Related:
Ferguson police chief offers apology to Brown’s family
Grand jury gets second case on Ferguson officer
"Ferguson shooting, protests unrelated, police say; Suspect’s gunfire injures officer" by Ashley Southall and Emma G. Fitzsimmons | New York Times September 29, 2014
NEW YORK — Authorities searched Sunday for a man who shot a police officer in the arm in Ferguson, Mo., on Saturday night, in an episode that they said was unrelated to continuing protests over the death of a black teenager shot by a white officer there last month.
Is it?
The officer was shot around 9:10 p.m. while checking on a community center, Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson said in a news conference. The center is not near where the protesters had gathered.
The officer spotted two men, who began running when he approached them, Jackson said. The officer chased them, and as he closed in on one of the men, the chief said, the second pulled out a gun and fired at the officer.
The officer said he fired several shots in return, but there was no indication that he had hit either man, Jackson said.
The man who shot the officer fled into woods, the St. Louis County Police Department said Sunday morning. Ferguson police officers and officers from other departments searched the area for an hour and a half but did not find him.
????
Are you frein with that?
***********
Less than an hour after Jackson spoke, an off-duty St. Louis city police officer was shot at while driving his personal vehicle on a highway near Ferguson, the County Police Department said....
Schron Jackson, a spokeswoman for the St. Louis Municipal Police Department, said the suspects, described as three males, fled in a black sedan.
???????
*****************
Governor Jay Nixon of Missouri expressed sympathy for the two injured officers in a conference call Sunday from Afghanistan with reporters from Missouri. He described the violence as ‘‘a challenge for everyone.’’
Demonstrators have been protesting in Ferguson since Brown’s death, in a case that has heightened long-simmering racial tensions in Ferguson, a suburb north of St. Louis.
At around midnight Saturday, about two dozen officers stood near a group of about 100 protesters who mingled on a street corner, occasionally shouting, ‘‘No justice, no peace.’’ By Sunday afternoon, the streets of Ferguson were quiet, with no visible signs of police or protesters.
On Thursday, Chief Thomas Jackson of the Ferguson Police Department issued a stark apology to the relatives of Brown, saying in a videotaped statement that he was sorry for the death of their son and for the four hours that the body of the unarmed 18-year-old lay in the street.
“I want to say this to the Brown family: No one who has not experienced the loss of a child can understand what you’re feeling,” he said. “I am truly sorry for the loss of your son. I’m also sorry that it took so long to remove Michael from the street.”
But in an interview with the Associated Press on Saturday, Brown’s parents were unmoved....
Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, and his father, Michael Brown Sr., attended President Obama’s speech at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation awards dinner on Saturday. He acknowledged their presence in the audience during his remarks, in which he also said more progress is needed in curbing racial discrimination.
--more--"
"Obama says votes, not just prayers, needed for racial progress" by Megan O’Neil | Bloomberg News September 29, 2014
WASHINGTON — President Obama challenged black voters to turn out for November’s congressional elections if they want to see more of the racial progress in society that allowed him to become the nation’s first black president.
Tired of being used as tools and pandered to yet?
In remarks Saturday night at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual conference, Obama ticked off a list of achievements that he said showed the ‘‘enormous progress’’ in the United States, including steady job growth, a decline in the number of people without health insurance, and a falling crime rate.
Yeah, this country is in great shape. Too bad we have either a delusional or deceptive president.
‘‘But our work’s not done,’’ he said, noting the killing of an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Mo., and the lack of equal access to education and jobs.
Prayers and good intentions aren’t enough, Obama said.
‘‘We have to get back to our schools, our offices, our churches, our beauty shops, our barber shops,’’ he said. ‘‘Make sure people know there is an election coming up. They need to know how to register, and they need to know how and when to vote. We have to tell them to push back against the cynics.’’
OMG! I need to let go.
Obama’s address underscored a reality Democrats around the country are facing with less than six weeks before the Nov. 4 midterm congressional elections: Voter enthusiasm is a problem.
Not on the Republican side it isn't.
Turnout from groups crucial to the party’s recent victories — young people, minorities, and women — historically declines in midterm elections.
Seven of the 21 Senate seats being defended by Democrats are in states that Obama lost in the last presidential election. Republicans need a net gain of six seats to gain control of the chamber, and polls show they are in reach of that goal.
Related: Scott Brown Surges Past Jeanne Shaheen
Also see: Shaheen, Brown use issues as weapons
Everything is a f***ing war in my paper.
Smiling, Obama told the audience that people often wish him well, note that he’s getting gray hair and ‘‘looking tired,’’ and say they’re praying for him.
‘‘But we need more than prayer. We need to vote,’’ Obama said. ‘‘It will not relieve me of my gray hair, but it will help me pass some bills.’’
All the more reason to vote Republican.
National Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, former secretary of state, a potential presidential candidate in 2016, have focused on Republican efforts to change voting laws as a way to increase urgency among the party’s voters.
The changes to state voting laws and rules around the country have drawn the ire of Democrats, who see the measures as a deliberate effort to suppress votes, particularly among minorities.
I wish I cared about rigged selections like I once did.
Republicans counter that laws requiring identification at the polls or cutting down on early voting hours are designed to root out fraud and streamline state and county operations.
Obama spoke two days after announcing the resignation of Eric Holder, the first black US attorney general, who focused on voting rights and reducing mandatory minimum sentences for some drug offenses that disproportionately imprisoned blacks.
He paid tribute to Holder as someone who has made it his life’s work to ‘‘making sure that equal justice under the law actually means something.’’ He called him ‘‘a great friend of mine, he has been a faithful servant of the American people.’’
Holder spoke to the group a day earlier, saying attending a Congressional Black Caucus dinner with an aunt when he was younger was a ‘‘foundational experience’’ for him.
As the nation’s top Democrat, Obama has a schedule of political fund-raising trips between now and the Nov. 4 elections aimed at helping Democrats retain control of the Senate.
He recently headlined fund-raisers in New York and Washington and this week he is scheduled to travel to Chicago to raise money.
I'm sick of $hit-show fooley politics, sorry.
--more--"
You might want to buckle up for this next article:
"S.C. dashboard video shows shooting of unarmed driver" by Jeffrey Collins | Associated Press September 26, 2014
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina state trooper’s dashboard video shows an unarmed driver being shot just seconds after he was stopped for a seat-belt offense — and the trooper, who was fired last week, has now been charged with assault.
As Levar Jones cried in pain waiting for an ambulance, he repeated one question: ‘‘Why did you shoot me?’’
Jones’s groans and then-Trooper Sean Groubert’s reply — ‘‘Well you dove head first back into your car’’ — were captured by the camera.
State Public Safety Director Leroy Smith, Groubert’s boss, fired the officer Friday. He called the video ‘‘disturbing’’ and said ‘‘Groubert reacted to a perceived threat where there was none.’’
I think he should be executed by firing squad.
The 31-year-old former trooper is charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, a felony that carries up to 20 years in prison. He was released after paying 10 percent of a $75,000 bond.
The dashboard camera video was released by prosecutors Wednesday night after they showed it at Groubert’s bond hearing.
Jones was stopped Sept. 4 as he pulled into a convenience store on a busy Columbia road. With the camera recording, Groubert pulled up without his siren on as Jones was getting out of his vehicle to go into the store. ‘‘Can I see your license please?’’ Groubert asked.
As Jones turned and reached back into his car, Groubert shouted, ‘‘Get outa the car, get outa the car.’’ He began firing before he finished the second sentence. There was a third shot as Jones staggered away, backing up with his hands raised, and then a fourth.
From the first shot to the fourth, the video clicked off three seconds. Jones’ wallet could be seen flying out of his hands as he raised them.
Groubert’s lawyer, Barney Giese, said the shooting was justified because the trooper feared for his life and the safety of others.
All police shootings in AmeriKa are justified. The police only shoot those who deserve it, unlike those awful enemy countries.
Police officers are rarely charged in South Carolina.
Or anywhere else, for that matter.
In August, a prosecutor refused to file criminal charges against a York County deputy who shot a 70-year-old man after mistaking his cane for a shotgun during an after-dark traffic stop.
It's just FIRE AWAY FIRST, huh?
Groubert is white and Jones is black.
The agenda-pu$hing ma$$ media noticed that.
State Representative Joe Neal is an African-American who has spoken against racism in law enforcement for years.
‘‘You are doing exactly what the police officer asked you do to and you get shot for it?’’ said Neal. ‘‘That’s insane.’’
That's AmeriKa!
--more--"
Also see: SWAT teams respond to N.H. school
I'm tired of the mind-manipulating, staged and scripted psyops to justify more tyranny. Sorry.
"More US police agencies turning to cameras" by Kirk Johnson | New York Times September 28, 2014
PULLMAN, Wash. — Amateur videos of police officers doing their jobs have become part of the fabric of urban democracy, with embarrassing or violent images spreading via social media in minutes.
But more police agencies, especially after the unrest following an unarmed teenager’s shooting in Ferguson, Mo., are recording events with small body-mounted cameras.
In just the past few weeks, law enforcement agencies in at least a dozen cities, including Ferguson; Flagstaff, Ariz.; Minneapolis; Norfolk, Va.; and Washington, have said they are equipping officers with video cameras.
I'll bet the cops are complaining about their privacy!
Miami Beach approved buying $3 million worth of cameras for police officers, parking enforcement workers, and building and fire inspectors.
The New York Police Department, the nation’s largest urban force, has studied how Los Angeles is incorporating body cameras and plans its own pilot project.
A new law in New Jersey, requires all municipal police departments to buy car-mounted or body cameras, and creates a new fine on drunken drivers to help pay for it. And the US Border Patrol, with more than 21,000 agents, said it would start testing cameras this year.
The experience of the police in this college town in Washington provides a glimpse of how.
Shane Emerson, a barrel-chested officer, was responding to a report of inebriated students — not an unusual assignment here. Friends of the youths rushed up as he began his questioning, brandishing their cellphones and telling him they were recording the encounter.
God help them if they smoke a joint.
“Cool,” Emerson said. “I am, too.”
The shift has been sudden and seismic, primarily because various interests, often opposed, have lined up in support of the idea.
Liability-conscious city attorneys say the cameras could help in lawsuits. Rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say police accountability will be bolstered by another layer of public documentation.
The Justice Department, surveying 63 police departments that were using body cameras and many others that were not, concluded in a report this month that the technology had the potential to “promote the perceived legitimacy and sense of procedural justice” in interactions between the public and law enforcement.
Why would the AmeriKan public feel there was not that?
But the spread of police body cameras is also raising concerns about what is recorded when and how video might be released to the public, and how the millions of hours of video will be archived and protected from leaks and hackers.
This from the authority and officials that are collecting all of our data and storing it.
Some police unions worry that videos could become tools of management, used by higher-ups to punish an officer they do not like, or that private conversations among officers could go public.
And then the racist nature of the police will really be established!
The rising use of cameras has put the police in a complex and uncertain landscape of public records law.
Yeah, the poor skull-bashing, blasting-away cops.
--more--"
Did you know that "private companies like Taser International offer document storage services, along with the cameras, batteries, docking stations and software?"
Hard to let go of that dough!
Time for me to let go of blogging for tonight. See you bright and early tomorrow for some Sunday Globe Specials and much more!
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
Thought I would let go of this Sunday Globe Special:
"Police, public at risk from State Police cruiser crashes" by Todd Wallack | Globe Staff October 05, 2014
Over the past five years, Massachusetts State Police have been involved in more than 1,800 accidents — almost one a day — leaving behind a trail of battered vehicles, expensive lawsuits, and painful injuries to officers and civilians alike. Though many were the fault of other drivers, State Police acknowledge that hundreds were the result of troopers driving too fast, ignoring traffic signals, or violating other safety rules.
Absolutely. Your fault for being in the way.
State records show that about 100 people a year are injured in State Police-involved accidents, and, over the past decade, the department has paid out more than $3 million in settlements from crashes, a total that might have been considerably larger if not for the statutory $100,000 limit on negligence claims against government agencies in Massachusetts. At least four of the crashes in the last decade were fatal.
No wonder government doesn't give a sh** here.
And Massachusetts is not an outlier; police crashes are an everyday occurrence at major law enforcement agencies across the country. Though there are no national statistics available, several other state police departments contacted by the Globe reported similar crash rates.
No national statistics? What are the Ju$tu$ Department bureaucrats doing?
And the three largest municipal police departments in Massachusetts racked up a total of more than 400 crashes in 2013, including 306 in Boston alone.
Law enforcement officials said part of the reason for the large number of crashes is the sheer number of miles that officers log while out on patrol. The average Massachusetts State Police cruiser travels 22,500 miles a year, nearly double the typical mileage for US drivers.
Thanks for the massive contribution to greenhouse gases and global warming.
But even adjusted for the heavy mileage, police appear to be involved in roughly twice as many crashes per mile as drivers overall in both Massachusetts and nationwide, according to data the Globe collected from eleven large law enforcement agencies and the US Department of Transportation.
Yet the cost of police crashes — in lives, injuries, and lawsuits — has drawn little notice compared to police shootings, even though, nationwide, crashes are more common, killing dozens of officers and civilians a year and injuring countless more.
That's this government, media, and nation all over: minimal problems maximized and maximum problems minimized. All so you hopefully won't see all that loot continuing to go up the pyramid.
“Nobody has paid attention to it,” said Geoffrey Alpert, professor of criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, who says he is one of a small number of researchers who studies police crashes. “The issue is killing people. The issue is hurting people. This issue is costing an inordinate amount of money.”
Issue is tyranny.
Alpert cited several factors that contribute to the high rate of police vehicle accidents.
Officers often drive at high speeds to pursue suspects or respond to emergencies. They frequently drive during foul weather when most other drivers stay off the roads. Police also face an array of distractions, from laptops mounted in their vehicles to frequent chatter on police radios. And some officers have been hit by careless or inebriated drivers while parked at construction sites or on the side of a road.
But police sometimes speed, even when not responding to emergencies.
Yeah, I always wondered about that as we all pull off to the side of the road, woo, woo.
Two years ago, the Sun Sentinel newspaper in Florida, found nearly 800 police officers in the state reached speeds of 90 miles per hour to 130 miles per hour while driving, including many who were off-duty, based on calculations of how fast they traveled between detectors on toll roads. It found 1 in 5 police officers had driven at least 90 miles per hour on South Florida toll roads, well above the 70 mile speed limit. Many observers say police are reluctant to stop or ticket their fellow officers, which can encourage officers to bend the rules.
“They don’t worry if they speed,” said Alpert, the University of South Carolina professor. “They think they are above the speeding law.”
All authority in AmeriKa does, from the criminal president all the way down to local selectman and such. That is ju$t the nature of the bea$t now.
It’s a topic some law enforcement agencies seem reluctant to talk about, even as they regularly remind the public to drive carefully and obey speed limits.
Yeah, hypocrisy is a tough thing to talk about.
The Massachusetts State Police, which had the most crashes in 2013 among the largest law enforcement agencies in New England, declined repeated requests over the past six months for interviews about the subject. The union that represents troopers, the State Police Association of Massachusetts, also declined interview requests.
I would be careful driving home. They didn't like it much when you pointed out cruisers parking in front of the precinct back when.
The department, which has nearly 2,200 troopers and the largest fleet of patrol vehicles in New England, averages close to 400 accidents a year, according to State Police.
Though the department declined interview requests, a State Police spokesman said in an e-mail that most of the crashes are not the police officers’ fault.
“Cruisers are frequently hit in the breakdown lane either on detail or while conducting stops,” Procopio wrote.
The ma$$ media reports from the flag$hip of the region really are government hand-outs.
Colonel Timothy P. Alben, who oversees the State Police, noted in a statement that his officers often drive for long hours in severe storms, gridlocked traffic, or in other challenging conditions. And they frequently must pursue fleeing suspects at high speeds.
“The very nature of a police officer’s job puts him at a greater risk of being involved in a crash,” Alben said in the statement. “To hold up a handful of individual occurrences to support a claim of systemic driving failures is both inaccurate and fundamentally unfair.”
Yeah, yeah, we all know you skull-bashing authority figures have it rough with all your weaponry and everything. You can cut the violin music.
However, the State Police’s own investigations found officers were partially or fully to blame in more than one-third of the accidents, resulting in more than 640 verbal or written warnings since 2009.
In addition, 55 officers were assigned to remedial driver training and eight cases were referred to internal review for a deeper investigation and potentially additional discipline.
Blaming the victim?
Academics who study law enforcement say it’s possible police were actually responsible for many more accidents than the investigations indicate, because police are often quick to blame civilians.
Oh, really? No kidding?
“When police investigate accidents, they are almost always going to come down on the side of the officer,” said Thomas Nolan, an associate criminology professor at Merrimack College and a retired Boston police officer.
I am just stunned.
I mean, in those icky-pooh countries we have to turn to rubble, yeah, but THAT DOES NOT HAPPEN in AmeriKa!!! We have the greatest and fairest ju$tu$ $y$tem in the world, and anyone who doubts it, its enforcers, or its apologists should be put to death!
This isn't some other place, this is AmeriKa! Our Ju$tu$ $y$tem always tells the truth!!!!
For instance, the State Police blamed a man for not getting out of the way of an officer driving more than twice the speed limit in a small town in Central Massachusetts three years ago.
Police records show Trooper David M. Fleming Jr., was traveling as fast as 95 miles an hour in a 45-mile-per-hour zone as he passed other vehicles on a curved road in North Brookfield.
Moments later, he slammed into a car ahead of him that was making a left turn into a driveway, injuring the other driver.
The police report said Fleming, who has two other accidents on his personal driving record since 2006, had his emergency equipment activated because he was responding to an unidentified “disturbance.” But the other driver, Raymond Olson, never noticed any lights or sirens.
And the equipment was in the off position when another officer arrived at the scene at the crash to investigate, the report said.
It’s also unclear why Fleming was in a rush. State Police records indicate that Fleming had been called to assist another department to deal with a complaint about a hunter — but he had been waved off the call about 13 minutes before the crash. (State Police later said Fleming decided on his own to continue onto the call anyway “in an abundance of caution.”)
Nevertheless, the State Police cited Olson for not yielding to the officer. A district judge later dismissed the ticket.
Olson, who has a wife and four children, said he was stunned when he received the citation in the mail. “It was so overwhelming, I just cried,” he said. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
Hey, YOU WERE IN THE WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Of an OFFICER PERFORMING HIS DUTY!!!!!!!!!
Olson, 60, said he has been unable to work since the accident and is saddled with thousands of dollars in medical bills.
He said he can’t even buy life insurance to protect his family because of his injuries, and still suffers from headaches, halting speech, and short-term memory loss.
“It’s changed my life completely,” said Olson, who filed a lawsuit against the state in June. “Now it’s just sitting each and every day figuring out how to pay my bills.”
It's called freedom and security, buddy.
Unbelievable ungrateful!
State Police insisted the trooper was using his sirens and said Olson — unlike some other drivers — failed to move out of the way.
I can't emphasize that enough. His fault!
“Trooper Fleming did everything he could to avoid the crash, turning suddenly to the left while braking,” said Procopio, the police spokesman. “The public has a legal obligation to pull over for emergency vehicles trying to pass.”
Damn bastard!
Similarly, Richard Chmielinski told the state his daughter was wrongfully cited for failing to yield after she was “rammed by an unmarked speeding State Police cruiser” in June in Truro, near the family’s summer home.
Yeah, so? You doubt authorities account, do ya?!!!!!!!
The State Police refused to provide a copy of the accident report or photos of the crash to the Globe, saying it was still under investigation.
(Blog editor snorts and shakes head)
Chmielinski said his daughter was not seriously hurt in the crash.
So what are you complaining about then?
But not everyone is as fortunate.
In a particularly tragic accident six years ago, State Trooper Mical O’Brien fatally ran over a good Samaritan who had fallen and was lying on the edge of Route 2 on a wintry evening in Phillipston. A few minutes before the crash, Andrew S. Castonguay had been trying to help another driver on an overpass when he apparently hopped over a guardrail to dodge another car and wound up toppling roughly 20 feet onto the road below.
Procopio said there was no way for the officer to have seen Castonguay in time, given the darkness and other conditions, though Castonguay’s father remains haunted by the crash.
“I am 100 percent convinced that I would have seen him,” said James Castonguay.
The State Police settled a wrongful death suit brought by the family for $10,000 in January.
That's all their life was worth, huh, a measly $10,000 bucks?
The danger to police
It’s not just civilians at risk from accidents.
Three State Police officers have died in one-vehicle crashes in the last decade: Captain Richard J. “Rick” Cashin died in 2009 when his car struck a utility pole on Route 1 in Saugus. Trooper Paul Barry was killed in 2006 when his patrol car drifted into the breakdown lane on Interstate 495 in Wrentham and hit a parked dump truck. And Trooper Vincent Cila died in 2005 after he lost control of his motorcycle on the Massachusetts Turnpike in Boston. Two other officers, Trooper Ellen E. Engelhardt and Sergeant Douglas A. Weddleton, were killed by drunk drivers during that span.
Tragic and all, but it is hard to feel sorry for the over-weaponized security goons these days. The thin blue line that protects wealth and privilege.
State Police said they took several steps to upgrade its system for investigating and reviewing crashes four years ago. The agency also noted in its most recent annual report that it began using new reflective material for cruiser decals and modified the emergency lights after noticing “an inordinate number of cruiser crashes occurring during night-time hours.”
Yeah, whatever. Authority always says this CYA crap.
But the agency declined to provide copies of any memos or studies the agency may have issued related to car crashes.
Meaning they didn't so it and were blowing smoke!
And Procopio, a State Police spokesman, said the agency never completed a safety report it publicly announced three years ago after several officers were hurt in accidents.
Yeah, we all forgot about it anyway. Public relations and damage control mission a success!
In addition, State Police took eight months to provide the Globe with five years of crash statistics and resisted providing more detailed records.
But they are working and serving us all, yup.
For example, the State Police estimated it would cost as much as $130,000 for copies of all the accident reports over the last decade.
Now they are worried about cost!
A spokesman justified the estimate by saying there were so many reports that would need to be reviewed and redacted.
I'm tired of lame-ass excuses from Amerikan authority, how about you?
The department eventually agreed to provide a sample of 30 reports for free, but wound up withholding half of them because the collisions were still under “investigation.” The state also provided a list of cruiser crashes, but it was missing some key information, such as the name of the trooper involved and the cause of the crash. That makes it hard to know why the crashes occurred or whether a small number of troopers account for a large percentage of collisions.
(Blog editor scornfully chuckles at the disrespectful tyranny and cover-up by the cops)
Even so, the Globe found several officers who were involved in multiple crashes or had a history of traffic violations. For instance, the State Police said Trooper Nicholas Internicola has been involved in 10 on-duty crashes, in addition to a half-dozen other collisions listed on his personal driving record from more than two decades ago.
At least one of the crashes caused significant injuries. Internicola was working a road maintenance detail at Logan Airport when his cruiser suddenly drove forward, pinning a worker against a truck and partially crushing his legs in 2009.
Internicola said he put the car in park, but it slipped into drive because of problems with the automatic transmission. However, the State Police said they found no defects with the vehicle. The state wound up settling the lawsuit for $98,000, close to the statutory $100,000 maximum.
“It’s just a freak accident,” Internicola told the Globe, though the State Police found Internicola “fully at fault.”
A few months earlier, Internicola was reprimanded for failing to report a more minor accident to supervisors – he said he hit a concrete barrier in a crowded parking lot in the rain.
But Internicola said he recalled only one of the other eight on-duty crashes (which he said was the other driver’s fault) and insisted he wasn’t responsible for any off-duty crashes. “I have a perfect driving record,” he said.
Procopio said the State Police took “appropriate remedial action” for all the on-duty accidents where Internicola was found at fault.
Like the Logan accident, a number of State Police crashes have resulted in lawsuits, including the one in Chelmsford last year involving the Greeleys. The State Police said the couple were “treated and released relatively quickly.” But the couple’s attorney told the agency that Nice Greeley suffered multiple injuries, including a sprained ankle and bruised leg, while Michael was diagnosed with neck strain.
Stewart, the trooper involved in the crash, apparently had his emergency lights activated when he sped through the red light to catch another driver who went against the light, but the State Police found he should have stopped at the intersection first to make sure it was clear.
The trooper previously received a pair of tickets for failing to stop at a stop sign or signal, and a half-dozen others for speeding, including one in Burlington in 2011, the year before he joined the State Police, according to his personal driving record. In fact, he received so many citations that his license was briefly suspended in 2001. He also has three at-fault accidents on his personal driving record since 1995. “It is what it is,” Stewart said, referring additional questions to the State Police.
Some other police departments have taken steps to reduce accidents. The Prince George’s County police department in Maryland, one of the larger local agencies in the country, started a campaign a year ago to talk to officers every week about the importance of safety and issue other reminders after several officers died in crashes. And the Worcester police reduced the number of crashes per year by nearly half over the past decade by creating an accident review board to investigate every crash.
But nationwide, some say more needs to be done to reduce the number of crashes and protect civilians and officers alike.
“We have to have a new way to deal with this,” said Alpert, the South Carolina researcher. “It hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.”
You know who I blame, and I predict this will be a one-day wonder.
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Maybe I should just let go of the anger right now.
