How the Danske Bank money-laundering scheme involving $230 billion unraveled – Super Reporitng by CBS’s 60 Minutes – kra
I am well acquainted with “Mr. Greed”. He brought me many a criminal defense client, and we see the power of his lure everywhere. But the scale of this stuff, and the fact that soooooo many big banks ignored the obvious, both are mind-boggling.
God Bless the lone whistle-blower!!
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-danske-bank-money-laundering-scheme-involving-230-billion-unraveled-60-minutes-2019-05-19/
Whistleblowers describe culture of racism, abuse and cover-ups at Florida prison
Yes, and it is the same in prisons all over America. READ Culture of Cover Up
Only when the abusers are prosecuted and imprisoned will they get the message: they must obey the law. READ How to avoid the deaths of prison guards and inmates
Excerpts from the Article:
One former Panhandle prison employee said she filed a written complaint about a correctional officer’s racist behavior, then came into work several days later to another officer dangling a noose made of toilet paper in front of her. Another former employee said she walked in on a handcuffed inmate being beaten in the medical unit, surrounded by a group of officers. She was suspended one day after filing an incident report about it, and fired within two weeks.
Though both of those employees are now gone, they aren’t alone.
In interviews with the Times-Union, a dozen former and current employees at Santa Rosa Correctional Institution described a culture of abuse, bullying, racism and administrative cover-ups in the mental health dorms. Officers selected inmates they had problems with for unsanctioned forms of punishment: to include physical violence or withholding their food to the point where prisoners lost considerable weight, employees said.
“It frustrates us and makes us angry every time this happens and we report it and these officers are still there working,” said Betty Young, a former activities technician. “They won’t fire them because they’re so short on staff, and they keep them.”
Several employees complained all the way to the top — Warden Walker Clemmons.
The Times-Union isn’t identifying any current employees, who expressed fears of retaliation. It is naming two former employees and used records to corroborate many of the claims.
The facility has a capacity of some 2,600 inmates but housed more than 3,300 prisoners from across the state as of the last audit in February 2015. It’s unclear how many of those are from Northeast Florida.
The Office of Inspector General is reviewing and investigating the allegations, the department added. Glady said the institution had a “track record of ensuring that any individuals involved in misconduct are held fully accountable.”
Ronald Thornton was one week away from his release date, serving a four-year sentence for cocaine possession, when correctional officers called him out from his cell. Thornton, a black man, had been fighting with several correctional officers who he said used racist language toward him. He had already been badly beaten once before, to the point where his eyes were swollen shut, according to multiple sources at the prison. But Thornton wasn’t staying quiet. He continued to call out officers for racist behavior. On April 9, one month ago, a couple of officers told Thornton they had a going-away present for him, he said — then they told him he had to take a tuberculosis test. The men led Thornton to the medical unit in handcuffs. It’s one of the few areas in the facility that has no cameras, according to several employees.
“They closed the door and put their gloves on and said, ‘You know what time it is,’” Thornton told the Times-Union. “Then they started hitting me.” Thornton identified Sgt. Lee Peacock Jr. as one officer who beat him, but could not name others. He said violence against inmates was rampant in the prison. The Department of Corrections would not say whether Peacock was under investigation but confirmed that he is still an active employee there.
Young, the former activities therapist at the prison, heard what she described as grunting in the midst of Thornton’s beating, and forced her way into the medical office. One officer whistled out a warning, she said, and when she arrived she saw several officers and some nurses were trying to shield Thornton from her view. Young said Thornton leaned away from an officer and looked to her, and she was able to see evidence of physical injury to his face.
Young, who said she had knowledge of Thornton being beaten up once before, said she called out in surprise at the officers that they were beating Thornton again. The officers simply stared at her and said nothing in response, Young said. She went directly to her supervisor to report the incident, she added.
That same day, Young wrote a report about the beating. She identified Peacock and other officers as being in the medical unit surrounding Thornton when she entered. The incident report would be her last. Young was suspended the day after she filed it, then terminated a week and a half later, she said.
Officers regularly coerced inmates in the mental health unit by withholding or ruining their food, according to a dozen former and current employees.
Because inmates at the mental health unit are kept in one-man cells, officers deliver trays directly to them. But sometimes, the officers served “air trays” or “ghost trays,” the employees said. The trays have a lid on top, so they appear to be full on video, but contain no food, they said, adding that officers will also position cups of juice to spill into the tray and soak the meal.
Employees said officers used the trays for coercion or retaliation. For instance, Thornton said that after his beating, an officer came up to the back of his cell, off camera, and told him to file an incident report saying he fell. The officers threatened him with ghost trays, he added. Several current employees and former employees said officers commonly withheld food to get inmates to change their stories for investigations into abuse or to concoct fictional narratives that would cover up the wrongdoing of an officer.
Employees who attended the meeting described it as “punitive” and felt the administration was more upset that they had reported the abuses than they were disturbed about the misconduct by officers.
The Department of Corrections faces wrongful death lawsuits not uncommonly, including those that raise questions about deaths that were ruled as suicides by the department’s Office of Inspector General.
Ohio State Finds Team Doctor Sexually Abused 177 Students
ALL who knew of this dastardly exploitation of those in his trust and HID IT OR DID NOTHING, when they should have, MUST be held accountable!
Excerpts from the Article:
Ohio State said Friday that an investigation had confirmed — in voluminous details gleaned from hundreds of interviews — that a team doctor had sexually abused at least 177 men, including many varsity athletes, while working for the university in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.
The university also revealed that dozens of Ohio State officials, including more than 50 athletic department staff members, were aware of the doctor’s actions during his nearly two-decade tenure yet did not act to stop them.
In a 182-page report issued on Friday, Ohio State detailed how the doctor, Richard H. Strauss, had groped students, required them to strip unnecessarily during examinations, and asked intimate questions about sexual practices under the guise of providing medical treatment.
“The findings are shocking and painful to comprehend,” the Ohio State president, Michael V. Drake, said in a statement.
“Our institution’s fundamental failure at the time to prevent this abuse was unacceptable,” he added, “as were the inadequate efforts to thoroughly investigate complaints raised by students and staff members.”
The university said that college personnel knew about the accusations against Dr. Strauss, who committed suicide in 2005, as early as 1979. In fact, many former students interviewed for the report said they believed Dr. Strauss’s actions were an “open secret” on campus and among athletes, coaches, trainers and other team physicians. But again and again, the report made clear, those in position to take action against Dr. Strauss seemed unwilling or unable to intervene.
Some of those interviewed, for example, said there was much talk about Dr. Strauss’s tendency to shower with students, sometimes several times a day, and to loiter in the locker room area. Two students said that their reports of abuse had been relayed to higher authorities in the athletic department, including at least two former athletic directors.
But the report also revealed that a “self-described” investigation in 1994 by Ohio State’s director of sports medicine, Dr. John Lombardo, dismissed accusations against Dr. Strauss as “unfounded rumors.” Dr. Lombardo, who said he had conducted the investigation after a former fencing coach had raised concerns about Dr. Strauss’s interactions with fencers, declined to be interviewed by the investigators.
The report released Friday was based on a yearlong investigation by Perkins Coie, a law firm that said it had conducted more than 500 interviews. “With rare exceptions, we found the survivor accounts concerning their experiences with Strauss to be both highly credible and cross-corroborative,” the report said.
There are numerous lawsuits pending against the university from victims of Dr. Strauss.
The Whole Story:
Legal Weed Bill Returns. And a Battle is Brewing – With Letter to the Editor – kra
Here we go again. Delaware should legalize pot. Period. See so many articles about it on this website.
Opponents say things like “too little is known” and other nonsense to try to make sense of their “Reefer Madness mentality”! READ my Letter to the Editor, below!
Excerpts from the Article:
Delaware lawmakers have fired up the fight to legalize pot. It’s good news for pro-ganja Delawareans, many of whom hope that recreational use of the plant could turn into a tax cash cow.
There are signs that the bill could get more traction this year than last year. The General Assembly had a turnover of about one-third — with many younger than the people they replaced — and Democrats now have their largest majority in over a decade. Lawmakers have also tweaked the bill since last year in an attempt to make it more palatable.
Delaware’s latest attempt before this one failed by four votes in the House. Two of the leaders of last year’s effort, then-Rep. Helene Keeley, D-Wilmington, and then-Sen. Margaret Rose Henry, D-Wilmington, have since retired.
“If we had a referendum process in this state, it probably would have passed three or four years ago,” Paradee said. “People are becoming more accepting of it, and understand that, in a lot of ways, alcohol and cigarettes are far more dangerous.”
You’d be able to buy it in specialized stores — up to an ounce at a time — as long as you’re at least 21 years old. You still wouldn’t be able to grow marijuana at home, according to the bill. You also wouldn’t be able to consume it in public or in the car. Municipalities would be able to decide if they want the plant to be sold in their jurisdiction. Employers and some residential property owners could also decide not to allow recreational use.
Beyond buying and selling, the bill would also allow people to have prior marijuana offenses cleared from their record if they don’t have any convictions for violent felonies.
Delaware would tax the drug at 15 percent, under the current draft of the bill, which could raise millions in taxes. Supporters also hope that consumers will be enticed by what they argue is a safer product. It would be sold in opaque, child-resistant packaging with a warning label.
The sponsors said Thursday they don’t know yet how much revenue it would generate, or how much any added law enforcement would cost. Last year supporters said legalization would raise more than $20 million in taxes and the current estimate ranges from $9 million to $50 million.
California, for example, earned far less than anticipated in revenue, while legalization leader Colorado earned far more. Analysts attribute the difference in part to a persistent black market, where prices can be lower.
But some argue that Delaware would be at a competitive advantage if it becomes one of the first in the region to legalize and tax the drug. The state essentially would be in a race with New Jersey to do it first. Pennsylvania officials also have talked about legalizing pot.
Supporters of legalization say it could benefit agriculture workers across the state. Paradee thinks farmers would likely find opportunities in growing cannabis for concentrates — especially if they grow it outdoors.
“There’s simply not enough known,” said Delaware Healthcare Association President and CEO Wayne Smith. “It makes it a big medical uncertainty.”
Patrick Ogden, chairman of the Police Chiefs Council, worries about increases in impaired driving leading to more fatal car crashes. He’s also one of many who doesn’t expect the black market to go away. “The illegal market, their THC level is higher and people are going for the illegal amount versus the legal amount, because you can get higher,” Ogden said. “Once you take it out of its original packaging, we wouldn’t be able to tell if it was sold legally or on the black market.”
As of Thursday afternoon, the Delaware Fraternal Order of Police hadn’t taken a public stance on marijuana legalization, but the Delaware State Troopers Association is against legalization.
Proponents are hopeful that lawmakers will be swayed by public polling that indicates most residents favor recreational use. It’s the same kind of argument that pro-gun control advocates used before three of their favored bills failed to make it to a floor vote last week.
Among those who would have to be swayed is Gov. John Carney, who has the final say as to whether a bill becomes law. Carney opposed the measure last year and recently signed legislation that will raise the legal age to buy tobacco products from 18 to 21. Marijuana legalization could be inconsistent with that public health message, a spokesman said earlier this year.
Under another bill, doctors could get wider discretion to recommend marijuana to patients. Sen. Anthony Delcollo, R-Elsmere, also has legislation that would allow nurse practitioners and physician assistants to OK its use.
Letter to the Editor – Criminalize Being a Macaroon! – 5/18/19
What a bunch of macaroons! Yes, I am talking about state legislators who oppose the legalization of marijuana, a measure favored by most Delawareans and people with common sense.
Opponents say things like “too little is known” and other nonsense to try to make sense of their “Reefer Madness mentality”! It is true that we could use more research on the effects/hazards/benefits of Pot, but that will never come until the feds make it legal: labs at research hospitals and universities are afraid of violating federal law. Many studies already done show great benefits of marijuana. Most of what we read about the hazards (increased traffic deaths, for example) is pure bunk.
We DO know that the current state of affairs, with marijuana criminalized: a) does not reduce crime, b) does not prevent people from getting marijuana, c) keeps employed hundreds of people benefiting from it, like cops, prison guards, and many more, who lobby heavily to block needed changes, c) ruins lives needlessly, with scores of people being arrested annually on pot charges. Yes, despite what some lawmakers say, the truth is that many continue to get arrested and jailed. Anyone saying differently either does not know what they are talking about or is outright lying. I get calls and emails weekly from families of those affected!
Quit the crap, and do what is inevitable: legalize marijuana now.
Ken Abraham, former Deputy Attorney General, founder of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE, Dover, DE 302-423-4067
…………………………
I get lots of letters published, and ghost write for others.
THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO REACH THOUSANDS OF READERS!
The keys to getting your Letter published are:
1. Keep it to 250 words or fewer.
2. Do not make it about “poor little old me”. Describe the problem as one which not only affects the individual, but is a senseless or ineffective measure, policy, or law which also harms communities and society. For example, with reentry, the obstacles make it unnecessarily difficult for the individual, but also harm society by making it hard to become productive, spending money and paying taxes in the community, and they cause increased recidivism = increased crime.
3. Speak from your heart.
4. Google any facts you are not sure about.
5. Do not name-call.Do what works: Write that Letter!…………Letter to Editor – sign name, town, state, and your phone number (they often call to verify that you sent it), and “Member of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE” if you like – shows you are part of a large group.
Send the email to yourself, and put on the “bcc” bar the email addresses for Letters to the Editor for the top ten newspapers in your state and several national ones – The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, U S A Today (google the Letter to Editor email addresses).
Any questions, CALL me at 302-423-4067!GOOGLE THE EMAIL ADDRESSES FOR “LETTERS TO THE EDITOR” FOR THE TOP TEN NEWSPAPERS IN YOUR STATE AND SAVE THAT INFORMATION FOR REPEATED USE – Some papers will print a letter from you every 2 weeks, some every 30 days, some every 90 days.They have varying policies. But if you really want to make a difference shoot them a new letter once a month!
I send one out every 2 weeks.
Need a Letter on some criminal justice issue and not a great letter writer?
NO EXCUSE! Email me a rough draft and call me and I’ll polish it up! kenabraham3138@gmail.com .ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME AT 302-423-4067.
Prison workers accused of harassing woman at park in Glasgow – NO surprise! – kra
Nothing particularly noteworthy about 4 people harassing someone in a park. What is noteworthy is that these S O Bs were law enforcement officers. I say S O Bs because, although the others are not named, Warden Carole Evens is a well-known abuser of inmates who tolerates much abuse on her watch! Also worth noting are the lies told by the D O C spokesperson, and the police officer’s head in the sand, refusing to arrest the bastards.
As long as these fools can act the way they do, without consequence, they will continue to violate the law.
Excerpts from the Article:
Delaware prison officials are investigating allegations that a group of correctional employees including a warden verbally and physically harassed a woman overseeing a group of preschool children during a park outing. The May 10 incident involved a dispute over parking at Glasgow Park in northern Delaware, where the prison employees were having a barbecue to celebrate National Correctional Officer Appreciation Week.
Amanda Hobson said the Department of Correction employees, including Warden Carole Evans, targeted her with vulgar language and an obscene gesture in front of the preschoolers because the prison officials thought they were entitled to the parking space she was using.
Hobson, owner of Imagination Station in Elkton, Maryland, said the prison employees refused to agree to watch the children temporarily so she could move her car. She called police after they then blocked in her car with one of their vehicles and with a grill, preventing her from leaving.
Hobson also said the prison officials, three of whom were in uniform, circled her and the children and took photos of them. At one point, Evans spoke into her phone, reciting Hobson’s license plate number and acting like she was directing another person to obtain information on Hobson, she said.
“She repeated my license plate, and then she said, ‘I want her name and information.’ She was purposely saying it loud enough so I could hear her.” Another prison official, meanwhile, called her a vulgar name and gave her the middle finger, Hobson said.
“I was upset, I was crying,” Hobson said. “I had seven kids I was caring for. … They were freaking out.”
Evans, warden of the Plummer Community Corrections Center in Wilmington, declined to speak about the incident Friday, saying DOC officials are not allowed to speak to the media.
A DOC spokeswoman said the “alleged incident” was under investigation and the department could not comment further.
Hobson said that during the incident, a child fell and hit his head hard on the concrete, but that the DOC employees showed no concern and did nothing to help. “They just continued to stand there. They were laughing and making jokes about their grill,” she said.
Hobson said that after she called New Castle County Police, an officer who arrived seemed to side with the prison officials, and at one point spoke privately with Evans. Jason Miller, spokesman for New Castle County, said the officer worked with both parties to resolve the matter. Miller confirmed that the correctional officers had reserved a park pavilion by submitting a permit application and paying a $150 reservation fee. “The group contends this vehicle took up space they were entitled to use for their gathering and they subsequently parked a grill next to the vehicle, which blocked it in,” he said in an email.
Miller noted that county park pavilion reservations do not come with reserved parking spaces. Moreover, the incident occurred on a short access pathway connecting the pavilion and the roadway that is used by maintenance staff and for temporary drop-off access for pavilion users, but is not a designated parking spot.
Miller also said that because the correctional officers brought in an outside grill without prior authorization, in violation of park rules, the county withheld $50 from the group’s security deposit.
Hobson said that as she and the children left the park, one turned to her and said, “Ms. Amanda, I don’t understand. I thought the police were supposed to be the good guys.” “That just broke my heart,” she said.
Drivers Beware: The Deadly Perils of Traffic Stops in the American Police State
I have posted similar articles. The best advice is: do what they say. Tell the officer what you are doing, i.e. “I am getting my license”. Move slowly, with your hands visible at all times. Do not reach under the seat; if you need to, tell the officer why you need to. Record the encounter. Complain later if you have a complaint.
For more examples of extreme abuse open the Whole Story.
Excerpts from the Article:
We’ve all been there before. You’re driving along and you see a pair of flashing blue lights in your rearview mirror. Whether or not you’ve done anything wrong, you get a sinking feeling in your stomach.
You’ve read enough news stories, seen enough headlines, and lived in the American police state long enough to be anxious about any encounter with a cop that takes place on the side of the road. For better or worse, from the moment you’re pulled over, you’re at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.”
This is what I call “blank check policing,” in which the police get to call all of the shots.So if you’re nervous about traffic stops, you have every reason to be.
Zachary Noel was tasered by police and charged with resisting arrest after he questioned why he was being ordered out of his truck during a traffic stop. “Because I’m telling you to,” the officer replied before repeating his order for Noel to get out of the vehicle and then, without warning, shooting him with a taser through the open window.
Unfortunately, as Gregory Tucker learned the hard way, there are no longer any fail-safe rules of engagement for interacting with the police. It was in the early morning hours of Dec. 1, 2016, when Tucker, a young African-American man, was pulled over by Louisiana police for a broken taillight. Because he did not feel safe stopping immediately, Tucker drove calmly and slowly to a safe, well-lit area a few minutes away before stopping in front of his cousin’s house. That’s when what should have been a routine traffic stop became yet another example of police brutality in America and another reason why Americans are justified in their fear of cops.
According to the lawsuit that was filed in federal court by The Rutherford Institute, police ordered Tucker out of his vehicle, and after he had stepped out, immediately placed him under arrest for “resisting” (in this case, not immediately stopping) and searched his person and his vehicle. Tucker was then ordered to move to the front of the police vehicle and place his hands on its hood.
Two more police officers arrived on the scene, walked up behind Tucker, and grabbed his arms to restrain and handcuffed him.
Then the fourth police officer arrived on the scene. According to police dash cam footage, Tucker was thrown to the ground and punched numerous times in the head and body. The police also yelled repeatedly at Tucker to “quit resisting.” Tucker, bleeding with injuries to his face, head and arm, was then placed into the back of a police vehicle and EMTs were called to treat him. He was eventually taken to the hospital for severe injuries to his face and arm.
Mind you, this young man complied with police. He just didn’t do it fast enough to suit their purposes. This young man submitted to police. He didn’t challenge police authority when they frisked him, searched his car, handcuffed him, and beat him to a pulp. If this young man is “guilty” of anything, he’s guilty of ticking off the cops by being cautious, concerned for his safety, and all too aware of the dangers faced by young black men during encounters with the police.
Frankly, you don’t even have to be young or black or a man to fear for your life during an encounter with the police.
Just consider the growing numbers of unarmed people are who being shot and killed just for standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety. According to the Justice Department, the most common reason for a citizen to come into contact with the police is being a driver in a traffic stop.
On average, one in 10 Americans gets pulled over by police.
Black drivers are 31 percent more likely to be pulled over than white drivers, or about 23 percent more likely than Hispanic drivers. As the Washington Post concludes, “‘Driving while black’ is, indeed, a measurable phenomenon.”
Indeed, police officers have been given free range to pull anyone over for a variety of reasons. This free-handed approach to traffic stops has resulted in drivers being stopped for windows that are too heavily tinted, for driving too fast, driving too slow, failing to maintain speed, following too closely, improper lane changes, distracted driving, screeching a car’s tires, and leaving a parked car door open for too long.
Motorists can also be stopped by police for driving near a bar or on a road that has large amounts of drunk driving, driving a certain make of car (Mercedes, Grand Prix and Hummers are among the most ticketed vehicles), having anything dangling from the rearview mirror (air fresheners, handicap parking permits, troll transponders or rosaries), and displaying pro-police bumper stickers.
Equally appalling, in Heien v. North Carolina, the U.S. Supreme Court—which has largely paved the way for the police and other government agents to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance—allowed police officers to stop drivers who appear nervous, provided they provide a palatable pretext for doing so.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the lone objector in the case. Dissenting in Heien, Sotomayor warned, “Giving officers license to effect seizures so long as they can attach to their reasonable view of the facts some reasonable legal interpretation (or misinterpretation) that suggests a law has been violated significantly expands this authority… One wonders how a citizen seeking to be law-abiding and to structure his or her behavior to avoid these invasive, frightening, and humiliating encounters could do so.”
Remember Walter L. Scott? Reportedly pulled over for a broken taillight, Scott—unarmed—ran away from the police officer, who pursued and shot him from behind, first with a Taser, then with a gun. Scott was struck five times, “three times in the back, once in the upper buttocks and once in the ear — with at least one bullet entering his heart.” Samuel Dubose, also unarmed, was pulled over for a missing front license plate. He was reportedly shot in the head after a brief struggle in which his car began rolling forward.
Technically, you have the right to remain silent (beyond the basic requirement to identify yourself and show your registration). You have the right to refuse to have your vehicle searched. You have the right to film your interaction with police. You have the right to ask to leave. You also have the right to resist an unlawful order such as a police officer directing you to extinguish your cigarette, put away your phone or stop recording them.
However, there is a price for asserting one’s rights. That price grows more costly with every passing day.
In a nutshell, the following are your basic rights when it comes to interactions with the police as outlined in the Bill of Rights:
You have the right under the First Amendment to ask questions and express yourself. You have the right under the Fourth Amendment to not have your person or your property searched by police or any government agent unless they have a search warrant authorizing them to do so. You have the right under the Fifth Amendment to remain silent, to not incriminate yourself and to request an attorney. Depending on which state you live in and whether your encounter with police is consensual as opposed to your being temporarily detained or arrested, you may have the right to refuse to identify yourself. Presently, 26 states do not require citizens to show their ID to an officer (drivers in all states must do so, however).
As a rule of thumb, you should always be sure to clarify in any police encounter whether or not you are being detained, i.e., whether you have the right to walk away. That holds true whether it’s a casual “show your ID” request on a boardwalk, a stop-and-frisk search on a city street, or a traffic stop for speeding or just to check your insurance. If you feel like you can’t walk away from a police encounter of your own volition—and more often than not you can’t, especially when you’re being confronted by someone armed to the hilt with all manner of militarized weaponry and gear—then for all intents and purposes, you’re essentially under arrest from the moment a cop stops you. Still, it doesn’t hurt to clarify that distinction.
While technology is always going to be a double-edged sword, with the gadgets that are the most useful to us in our daily lives—GPS devices, cell phones, the internet—being the very tools used by the government to track us, monitor our activities, and generally spy on us, cell phones are particularly useful for recording encounters with the police and have proven to be increasingly powerful reminders to police that they are not all-powerful.
A good resource is The Rutherford Institute’s “Constitutional Q&A: Rules of Engagement for Interacting with Police.”
Clearly, in the American police state, compliance is no guarantee that you will survive an encounter with the police with your life and liberties intact.
So if you’re starting to feel somewhat overwhelmed, intimidated and fearful for your life and the lives of your loved ones, you should be.
Only at Kenyon! Top grade for answering: “I don’t know”.
Sometimes you have to be a little daring; the trick, of course, is to know when. I made a few daring moves in the courtroom*, but I got the urge while in college.
- Read A True, Funny Courtroom Story The exam question at the end of a Political Science class – political philosophy – course at the end of the first semester of my senior year (final exam = very important test) was three words: “What is Justice?”
This course was taught by Professor Shavzin. I shall never forget him. This guy was all brain. Did he eat? Did he sleep? Did he ever do anything but think? I still wonder.
I had already been accepted into law school [I still wonder how, for I damn near flunked out my freshman year – came home on academic probation after the first semester; I had majored in four subjects: chasing wild women, drinking Jack Daniels, shooting pool, and rafting down the Kokosing river. I started a craze there, when I bought a raft at the Army Navy store in town and spent many a day pursuing 2 of my other 3 majors on the river!] so the grades, at this point, did not matter much to me.
I snapped out of it by second semester – or my parents would have killed me – got ok grades, and later aced the LSAT test, which saved my ass so far as law school was concerned. That was weird too. My Mom had always told me to study, but to be sure to get a good night’s sleep before any exam. The night before the LSAT I was so scared that I did not sleep at all… maybe 5 or ten minutes. I was shocked when I got the score a couple of weeks later.
So there I was, to answer “What is Justice?” For about 40 minutes I wrote feverishly the usual stuff: Plato said this, Socrates said that, and Aristotle said blah blah blah. Then the bright idea hit me. Why not answer Shavzin’s three word question with a three word answer?! I crumpled up my paper. The professor did give me an odd look; he could not miss it, for there were only about a dozen of us in the course (such was Kenyon: very small classes, which was great). I wrote “Justice is Fairness” and sat there for a minute thinking that was good, then I crumpled up that piece of paper and I wrote: “My answer to your three word question is three words: “I don’t know”. I figured he was so odd that he might give me an A for “bravado”, or he might give me an F. As I say, it didn’t matter, so I turned it in.
A few days later he announced that I had gotten the highest grade on the exam: an A-. In those days anything above a B was very, very, rare. An A, without the minus, was impossible.
He caught me on my way out of class, and said: “You know, I had to sleep on it before marking your paper. I wasn’t sure whether to give you an A- or an F. I knew that you knew what the philosophers said, so I gave you the A-. Why did you write that?”
I said: “I don’t know”, and he laughed. The strict professor who put you on the hot seat every day – you had better know the answer to the question when he called on you – was a nice guy after all.
The moral of the story: take a chance, be bold.
KRA
Small Delaware police departments struggle to stay fully staffed
This is a major nationwide problems, and cities, counties, and states should allocate money toward fixing it. Make it a priority. The system is so screwed up that, for several reasons, it has affected the front line of defense against crime: our police. READ It is a tough time to be a cop
Is this a crisis yet? Maybe. There is much more to this article. If you’re interested in safety, open it up and read it.
Agencies should:
Increase pay and benefits
Provide bonuses to make it worthwhile to stay; a 5 year bonus, a 10 year bonus
Improve training
Become increasingly involved in community affairs – mix and mingle with those they serve.
Target minorities as employees
Emphasize integrity
Excerpts from the Article:
Officer Kyle Borden steered his black-and-white patrol car onto U.S. 13 and cruised past the farmers market before darting in and out of New Castle neighborhoods. The young cop, with only two years on the job, was the only officer that night patrolling the streets, covering the city’s 5,500 residents. The City of New Castle has 18 positions for police officers, but rarely are they all filled. Well-paying jobs sit open for months, waiting for qualified and willing candidates. Even when jobs are filled, turnover remains high as officers leapfrog to larger departments.
“Now, we’re all competing for the same person,” New Castle’s Chief Richard McCabe said. “And small guys like us are losing.”
Delaware’s police departments are struggling to stay fully-staffed amid a growing state population. Understaffed departments are leading to fewer patrols and slower response times in some towns.
In an era in which police are highly scrutinized and the profession is easily tainted by a few bad cops, police agencies across the nation are struggling to fill their ranks.
Delaware has 46 police departments, and most of them have fewer than 50 officers. Only five police departments — Delaware State Police, New Castle County, Wilmington, Dover and Newark — have bigger forces. Over the past few years, the smaller departments have seen a declining interest in police work and have struggled to lure experienced cops with the salaries they offer. Even when small stations hire a fresh face, they bear a high cost of putting them through seven months at the police academy and three months of field training. And within a few years, many of those rookies are lured away by larger agencies.
For Borden, becoming a cop came with its difficulties. He feels constant pressure that everything he does reflects on his badge. Borden doesn’t feel like he can stop being an officer when he gets off work, and because of that, he has lost friends along the way.
Borden is thankful New Castle took a chance on him and likes getting to know the community he protects. But, he also realizes there are opportunities he is missing out on, including more training and more specialized work. “At some point, it might weigh on me more, but positives outweigh the negatives for me now,” he said.
The City of New Castle currently has three of its 18 positions vacant. One job posting for more than $50,000 has been open for four months. “It’s horrible,” New Castle’s Chief Richard McCabe said. “We can’t find people who want to do this for a living anymore.”
In the suburban and university town of Newark, interest in police jobs has been erratic. In 2010, the department received 162 applicants for five positions. By 2016, that number dropped to 58 applicants for six spots. Between retirements and resignations, the department has not been fully-staffed in years, Lt. Andrew Rubin said. “We lose people, and we’re running short,” he said. “We are constantly playing catch-up.”
No department is immune to public backlash after cell phone videos of aggressive police interactions surface.
In South Bethany, all but one of the police department’s officers deserted the Sussex County station about a month ago, leaving Sgt. Patrick Wiley to man a town of 1,400 homes. Much of South Bethany’s homes are seasonal, so Wiley hopes they hire at least a police chief before the summer months hit. The department has two officers in training and is hiring for two remaining positions.
Pay is a big part of retaining officers in small towns, said Von Goerres, who retired from the state police after 30 years. Without his state pension, he couldn’t live on the salary provided by the town, he said. “A young person couldn’t live alone on this,” Von Goerres said.
Milford faces a pressing population increase, at an estimated 130 new homes each year, Mayor Campbell said. The current size of his department cannot effectively handle the increased crime a bigger town brings, he said. “With the growth we are having in Milford, I’m hurting for police officers,” Campbell said. Milford was approved for five more officers last year. They once had around 100 applications for a spot, but these days they get about 30, said Mayor Archie Campbell.
The process to become a police officer is long and intensive. It can take two years before a candidate can hit the streets as a patrol officer.
Paying a candidate’s salary and benefits through the academy and field training can cost departments around $90,000 per officer. That’s a risky investment for smaller departments knowing fresh graduates can leave as soon as a year after finishing the academy.
The path to becoming an officer includes:
A several month-long interview process
A physical fitness test
An aptitude test
An extensive background check, where the department interviews families, schools, and anyone the candidate had relationships with
an interview with the chief
Then, those accepted head to academy.
The academy includes about seven months of classroom work, while recruits face military boot camp-like training. Graduates then have three months of field training, before they are on the streets by themselves.
“From the day we hired you, you aren’t beneficial to us for a while,” Lt. Andrew Rubin of Newark police said. Delaware law requires a recruit to work two years at the police department sponsoring them, but that’s not enough time for smaller departments to feel like that burden is worth it.
Including ten months of training, the two-year agreement hardly makes sense for small departments, said Chief Lisa Giles of Elsmere police. Elsmere and a few other departments like Delaware City and Middletown now require potential recruits to sign a 5-year agreement.
It’s common for officers at smaller departments to move to large departments like Wilmington, New Castle County and the state police after a few years. The tug of a bigger salary, better benefits, better retirement plans and specialized fields draw them in. A small-town officer could see a salary increase of more than 60 percent at the larger agencies.
Wilmington police recently began its 99th academy with fewer applicants than they hoped. City councilman, Bob Williams, a former Wilmington cop, said the 179 applicants received this year is a dramatic reduction from the 800 applicants when he applied 20 years ago.
More than 63 percent of departments across the country reported a decrease in job candidates, according to a Police Executive Research Forum survey reports.
Agencies are using trial and error tactics to get more badges on the street. Most of the ideas include incentives like signing or academy graduation bonus, while others offer support outside of work with housing, childcare or relocation assistance.
Some have reduced education requirements. Horvath of the Delaware Police Chiefs’ Council agrees that agencies in the state could ease educational standards. Having a college degree doesn’t equate to being a good cop. “It’s a job that requires a high degree of integrity and a lot of common sense,” Horvath said.
In Delaware police chief meetings, they are trying to figure out how to make the best with the current situation. Chiefs share information about good applicants, and have talked about creating an applicant pool for smaller police departments, Horvath said. Someone who applied to Middletown but didn’t make the cut could be a good candidate for Elsmere.
A proven source to find candidates is through a summer police program. Seasonal help has brought younger candidates into smaller departments, McCabe said. The seasonal hires work the summer months walking or biking around, handing out citations, checking out suspicious activity, and investigating complaints. Police chiefs encourage anyone considering the job to test it out for summer.
Rep. Adam Schiff introduces constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United
This would be the best thing to happen for Americans in a long time! Citizens United, which ruled that corporations are “people” for campaign finance purposes, and thus have the right to free speech, was one of a handful of predictably awful U S Supreme Court cases, opening the floodgates for special interests to pour billions of dollars into politics, poisoning the system.
Excerpts from the Article:
Rep. Adam Schiff on Wednesday introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which helped usher in a new era of big money in American elections.
“Our democracy is not for sale. We must stop the flood of dark money from drowning out the voices of everyday citizens,” the California Democrat said in a statement on Twitter. He said such an amendment would “restore power to the American people.”
By a 5-4 ruling, the high court in 2010 swept aside a ban on independent spending by corporations and unions in candidate elections, saying the restrictions amounted to censorship. Outside spending in federal elections has soared from $338 million in 2008, the last presidential election before the ruling, to $1.4 billion in 2016, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Overturning the blockbuster ruling has become a rallying cry for many progressives in the Democratic Party, and other lawmakers have introduced a similar measure this year. But efforts to revise the Constitution have failed to gain traction. Two-thirds of the House and Senate must approve the change. Then, three-fourths of states must ratify it.
Two-thirds of states also can call a constitutional convention to propose amendment, under Article V of the US Constitution, but that option has never been exercised.
The Use of Solitary Confinement in Virginia Is Inhumane and Unlawful
It is nothing short of outrageous the way prison officials abuse solitary confinement and then ignore Court Orders to correct their policies and practices. What most of these articles do not tell you is that solitary is often used to punish, totally illegally, inmates who speak out about the many abuses, as they did with me, keeping me in isolation for 1,510 days, when I should not have been in prison at all for those 4 years! READ It’s not about What They Did to Me -Prison Abuse – My Mission
The only solution to this is to PROSECUTE the abusers! READ why here: Why only PROSECUTION and IMPRISONMENT Will Stop Prison Abuse and Police Abuse! Demand It!! How to Avoid the Deaths of More Prison Guards!
Excerpts from the Article:
William Thorpe has spent nearly 24 straight years in solitary confinement in Virginia prisons stuck in a cell about half of the size of a parking space for more than 22 hours a day, every day, with no outside light and almost no human contact.
In his nearly two and a half decades in solitary, Thorpe has seen changes in leadership at the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) and attempts to reform how solitary confinement is used in our state prisons.
The most recent, change to VDOC’s solitary practices was creation in 2011 of its so-called Segregation Reduction Step-Down Program. This program is a behavior modification system VDOC officials have repeatedly touted as an evidence-based approach to corrections that provides a pathway out of solitary for those who follow the program’s rules. But for Thorpe and others, there is nothing new or special about the program. Instead, it’s a resurrection of a failed strategy that was discredited and discarded 35 years ago at another now-closed Virginia prison. Built in 1977, the Mecklenburg Correctional Center was a maximum-security prison supposedly built to house the most dangerous, disruptive people held in solitary confinement by VDOC under close supervision with minimal privileges.
But when it came time to fill the prison’s 360 beds, VDOC found there weren’t enough people in Virginia who were such a security risk that they needed the kind of restrictive supervision Mecklenburg provided. A 1984 state Board of Corrections investigation revealed VDOC had solved the problem by filling Mecklenburg’s many empty beds using relaxed, inconsistent criteria. VDOC officials even had cold-called other Virginia prisons seeking referrals to keep Mecklenburg full so they could justify its massive operating costs.
As a result of a class-action lawsuit brought in 1981 by the ACLU’s National Prison Project, VDOC agreed in 1985 to end the SMU and the Phase Program, and not reinstate similar programs in the future. The lawsuit alleged unconstitutional conditions at Mecklenburg that the Phase Program worsened by allowing arbitrary, indefinite placement of people in solitary.
In 2011, VDOC started the so-called Step-Down Program, which is disturbingly similar in purpose and practice to the old Phase Program, and is yielding similar results: An endless maze of classifications, vague and confusing processes, and highly subjective decision-making authority granted to VDOC staff effectively make it impossible for many people to be released from solitary, ever.
Today, the ACLU of Virginia and global law firm White & Case LLP, filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of Thorpe and other people who have been held in solitary confinement at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge.
The lawsuit alleges the Step-Down Program has been used in much the same way as the failed Phase Program: to fill underused prisons and justify the exorbitant costs of keeping them open. Although numerous studies have shown solitary can cause psychological and physical damage in as few as 10 days, VDOC has remained deliberately indifferent to the permanent harm it is inflicting. The ACLU of Virginia’s report on solitary confinement in our state prisons – Silent Injustice – shed much light on the human toll of this practice.
VDOC’s use of solitary has been carried out with blatant disregard for the Mecklenburg settlement agreement, violating a variety of constitutional and statutory rights of incarcerated people at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge. This includes their right to due process, equal protection, and to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, as well as their right to accommodations under federal disability statutes.
On behalf of William Thorpe and every person VDOC has harmed in this way, we have sued to end the Step-Down Program and close the solitary units at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge. VDOC must be held accountable and forced to stop enacting these inhumane practices.
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