Ken Nelson

 

"To jump into water and navigate a river in a swiftwater rescue is common. You get into the river and swim. You have to do it," Branford said. "The fact these guys don’t understand that is disturbing. Making contact immediately with your victim is essential. It’s not about who is in charge. It’s about the safety of a 13-year-old girl. You are going to do everything in your power to insure the safety of your guest, and if that means in Idaho Springs you get arrested, well I guess we’ll just get arrested."

Duke Bradford
Owner, Arkansas Valley Adventures

On one of his guides being arrested for helping a stranded 13 year old girl.

H/T Instapundit

I don’t think the firing squad is cruel or unusual. Cheap and effective better describe it. We will find out June 18th when Ronnie Gardner is executed by firing squad here in Utah.   The state still permits firing squad if the inmate requests it.

The guns are handed out randomly to the officers. One will be loaded with a blank, so no one will know who fired the fatal shot. By law, the identities of those selected for the firing squad remain secret.

That’s silly. Everybody knows when a bullet versus a blank fires. It’s obvious. Look, if they need people to do it, just ask, lots of folks would volunteer. Give victim families first dibbs, although if that were me, I’d be tempted to wing him, so we have to start again.

The 2nd crime, committed by the state in this case, is that this murder happened in 1985, and he is only about to be executed now – 25 years later. That is stupid and cruel to the victims.

I favor stricter standards for evidence in death penalty cases, and much quicker (like days) carrying out of the sentence.

As to method… as long as it is quick and cheap, I don’t care.

Begging to get shot

Parents lose their right to bitch about their kid being shot when he is throwing rocks at federal officers. Don’t they?  Throwing rocks is deadly force and officers have a right, and duty, to protect themselves and their colleagues.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing for the parents to say, instead, “I wish I’d done a better job. Watched him closer”. And then add “I’m sorry an agent trying to protect America now has the death of a child on his conscious, my family extends condolences.”

I wouldn’t want to be in the Border Patrol. Not under the last three illegal loving Presidents we’ve had.

New York is a better place to live than in the 1970s. I, frankly, don’t credit NYPD with any of that improvement, which is largely economic/gentrification related.

NYPD continues to concern as a leading example of politicized policing that is more interested in NYPD and its political masters than the citizens of the city.

Reason magazine is covering the latest revelations of statistic juicing, including not reporting serious crimes, downgrading others, and even misreporting rapes as misdemeanors:

In other words, the statistical manipulation extends beyond property crimes. Journalist Debbie Nathan, who was sexually assaulted in a city park last February, says that she was shocked to learn that the officers who wrote up her report classified the crime as a misdemeanor. It was later upgraded to a felony, but only after Nathan went to the district attorney. And according to the DA’s investigation, the six officers who responded to Nathan’s attack admitted leaving key portions of her story out of the report. As Nathan told the Village Voice, rape crisis centers throughout New York City have documented similar complaints from victims of sexual assault.

I don’t envy NYPD’s brass the task of managing 30,000+ police officers.  But… the Army manages twenty times more through training, delegation and core beliefs.  Instead of hiring from within NYPD or even other police forces, they might want to consider a retiring Army general as their next police chief.   He or she can show them how to manage with integrity and a focus on mission and NYPD values.

Update: NYPD actually put one of their whistleblower cops in the pscyh ward to punish him. 

NYPD has a culture problem. A big problem. It starts at the top (Mayor) and permeates its command culture.  Unfortunately, I think their attitude is common in large and small police forces.

This weekend:

Last month alone, just in one patrol region, we had sixty-four pursuits.  That means people who were driving a vehicle, failed to yield, took off like a bat out of hell, running red lights, creating traffic wrecks, numerous people were killed in these wrecks over the last several months, and who are these people?  Not one of them was a U.S. citizen.

Sheriff Paul Babeu
Pinal County, Arizona

Credit card please

FYI… speed limits don’t help. Speed limits are about $ and the war on drugs not safety.

The objectives of this research was to determine the effects of raising and lowering posted speed limits on driver behavior and accidents for non-limited access rural and urban highways. Speed and accident data were collected in 22 States at 100 sites before and after speed limits were altered. Before and after data were also collected simultaneously at comparison sites where speed limits were not changed to control for the time trends. Repeated measurements were made at 14 sites to examine short – and long-term effects of speed limit changes.

The results of the study indicated that lowering posted speed limits by as much as 20 mi/h (32 km/h), or raising speed limits by as much as 15 mi/h (24 km/h) had little effect on motorist’ speed. The majority of motorist did not drive 5 mi/h (8 km/h) above the posted speed limits when speed limits were raised, nor did they reduce their speed by 5 or 10 mi/h (8 or 16 km/h) when speed limits are lowered. Data collected at the study sites indicated that the majority of speed limits are posed below the average speed of traffic. Lowering speed limits below the 50th percentile does not reduce accidents, but does significantly increase driver violations of the speed limit. Conversely, raising the posted speed limits did not increase speeds or accidents.

I’ll add that I believe speed limits are set below reasonably safe speeds for typical vehicles so as to maximize money and basically permit police to stop and check you and your passengers at any time.

Speed limits are part of the governments assault on your wallet and freedoms.

So what are you saying Ken – should there be no speed limits?  On unrestricted highways, probably not. On major city streets, probably not. On residential streets, probably yes.

But I would have legal punishment, not fines. I do not want police officers to be fund raisers.

This is a good idea, unfortunately necessary because the political class in Washington D.C. is too corrupt (Democrats) and feckless (Republicans) to actually defend the country.

Now is the time to pass laws like this on the state level because fewer people are making money off illegals now, but we still pay their social costs. Now is an opportunity that may disappear should the economy somehow overcome the Obama brake.

I don’t know how police “suspect” someone is illegal without just deciding to stop any Mexican heritage person they see. So I’m sure some namby pamby judge will stop this, as ordered by his socialist higher command elements.

If I were Jan Brewer, I’d sign the law, and state that it WILL be enforced vigorously no matter what any judge says, and that when the Federal government did their job, we in Arizona might pay attention to what idiot Federal judges say.

Vive’ la revolucion!

Remote control highway robbery
(from those supposed to protect us)

Only 7 of 65 traffic lights a red light ticket fighter measured had long enough yellow lights.

The speed limit on Collier Boulevard, where she was cited, is 45 mph. According to county guidelines, the yellow light should be 4.5 seconds.

Mogil said he tested it 15 times with an average of only 3.8 seconds.

The county bureaucrat in charge claimed the errors were “oversight”, but I wonder how many were too long a yellow?  That’s an oversight that just doesn’t seem to happen.

As my title implies red light cameras are not about safety, but about money. I maintain that most traffic enforcement is about money not safety as well.

The only “safety” involved is for municipal, county and state coffers.

It pains me that on a typical morning driving my daughter to school, I’ll see 3 or 4 motorists pulled over paying their morning tax.

Yet.. at 2AM when thugs were stealing my truck, those retail coppers were home snug in bed.

It ain’t about us, it ain’t about safety, its all about taking money.

http://www.crimereports.com/map/index/?search=+St.%20George+UT

It looks like about 500 crimes happen every 7 to 10 days.

How local governments view your car

You may have figured out that I think many cities use traffic enforcement as a random tax on its citizenry.  If you disagree with that, you aren’t paying attention.

Folks in Knoxville, TN noticed that traffic enforcement has gone up with the city’s budget woes. In a blog posting about it I found this sage advice:

"Can citizens fight back?"
YES!: If EVERYONE who gets a ticket contests it in court, the judicial system simply can’t handle the volume. Right now, only a tiny fraction of citations are contested, even if that tiny fraction merely doubled (a small increase overall) the system would grind to a halt.
Always contest a ticket. (1) you take the chance that the officer won’t show and you win by default (2) You deny them any profit: because even if you go in and plead ‘no contest’ and ask for a reduced fine you eat the judges time, the officers time, the bailiffs time, the court recorders time, etc…
Fight the ticket = deny them the profit.

I agree. I haven’t had a ticket in 20 years, but if everybody fights back together we can beat this scourge.

My brother is a cop. I’m friends with a number of cops. Most claim “ah that traffic stuff is penty anty, I don’t do that”.  But I’m old enough that most that I know are high ranking or senior and have their pick of jobs – and they aren’t on patrol anymore. They don’t do it, but their departments almost certainly are.

St. George’s department used to post traffic stop statistics. But then I brought to their attention, and the local newspaper’s attention, that the statistics did not vary with population in our seasons… implying a quota system was in effect.

Now they don’t publish it anymore.

They just want the money – safety has little to nothing to do with it.

http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

WAY too many red “death of an innocent” flags. Click on the link above to show the interactive map. Then click on flags to see each story.

Source; internet. I’ve no idea of the background of this event.

 
Spray paint put to good use for once

The town next to us, Hurricane, UT, has a state road leading to Zion National Park through it. The road is 4 lanes, with varying speed limits, but not really any road differences to account for the speed changes. Their police force just hangs out there all day printing money from drivers.

Defenders of aggressive speed enforcement will tell you traffic stops often lead to other arrests, and I suppose it does, but I suspect we would catch those people eventually some other way, without robbing the citizenry along the way.  I’d prefer harsher sentences to constantly recapturing them after first stopping hundreds of good citizens.

Individual cops will tell you they have quotas, while their chiefs blatantly lie about it.

I don’t mind speed limits, but I think the ticketing ought to start at 75% over, or what is reckless for the conditions.

The mayor of Salt Lake City wants to permit more bars. He says the move will attract more businesses.  Naturally, the predominant religion comprised of non-drinkers is blamed for wanting to force their views on everybody.  But I don’t think that is the case.  Not wanting bars seems a good idea, no matter your religion.

I’m not a teetotaler, but it seems to me the costs outweigh the benefits.

Here in St. George, we have one bar, aptly named “The One & Only”. I’ve been there once, to see my guitar teacher’s band play. I left after 2 sets, 3 expensive diet cokes, and my smoke filled clothes sat in the backyard for a week so as to not stink up my closet.   And when I left, I saw plenty of intoxicated people leave in their cars too.

One evening, three years ago, a drunk woman left The One & Only, got on I-15 Southbound, HEADING NORTH. She killed two friends of mine in a head on collision, leaving two children orphans.

So from my perspective, the tax revenue from The One & Only is small and unworthy compensation for the risk its patrons present.

I’d gladly pay off the owner to shut down. That would be tax money well spent.

Until then, every time I come home late, I wonder, is some One & Only drunk going to weave into my path?

I guess I’d prefer a bar named “Closed”.

Here is a long, but interesting, video by a lawyer and former police detective:

My brother, who is a policeman, has advised the same to me for years. He assured me the police are not at all interested in helping you. That is vaguely disappointing but over the years it does seem true based on my social contact with him and other policeman.

The only time I’ve really talked to police in a criminal context  is when I’ve been a victim of a crime. Alas, too often of late.

In no case did talking to the police help solve the crime. In fact every crime committed against me remains unsolved.  Some information was required to get my stolen items back.  But you have to be careful because they are just as happy to lock you up for something inadvertently disclosed during a conversation. After all, you are there and easy to arrest.

I’ve come to the conclusion that police are at best, slightly helpful, and at worse, a real risk to have around.  This isn’t their fault, exactly.  There are too many laws.  Who knows what is illegal anymore. The law is too complex to really understand and to vast to know. Just the Utah statutes are almost 35 megabytes of compressed text.  They comprise a vast fishing ground for police and government to troll for things to use against you as you speak. So don’t speak!

I would prefer to have a lot less laws, strictly enforced by much less police. 

After all, the number of police seems to rise in proportion to how crappy a place is to live. 

Anyway… I plan to keep my mouth shut around them except for whatever is required to get my stuff back (should it ever be recovered).