--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 198 ASK A COP Ref: F3D00018 Date: 03/04/98 From: MIKE MCCANN Time: 08:42am \/To: SCOTT MCQUILKIN (Read 1 times) Subj: Police Recruits Scott would have a time too in passing background. --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: UltraTech - Nashville, TN (615)356-0453 {V.34/V.FC} (1:116/30) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 198 ASK A COP Ref: F3D00019 Date: 03/04/98 From: MIKE MCCANN Time: 08:44am \/To: TOM RIGHTMER (Read 1 times) Subj: line of duty fatal incidents. In regard to your question #1 oh shute! #2 oh shute then the investigation. while it is still fresh and in your mind and off center. I read the my statement reuced to writing by a Metro Homicide Detective and almost signed a statement worded so as to state something I didn't that could have been a big problem if it hadn't been caught. keep in mind I worked very long strenous hours for many days and under those conditions fatigue happens, and reading suffers. I went home after I was told the matter would be presented to grand jury at some point in future. first call was to an old bosss where I finally broke down and blubbered. THEN I got mad at perp for doing this to me! because I had done everything right but it just didn't work. I still get mad at him when I think about situation Of course a Company attorney was involved and probability of a wrongful death suit explained. Interestingly enough I WAS handled "just like we would do one of our own" Metro was involved in a number of officer involved debacles and was in midst of a "purge" which was needed but didn't help my handling at all. I was dazed for days and if I ever forget the feeling and want it back I need only play the hours of videoon 3 stations for one week. One quirk followed another SNAFU Coroners report showed he was stabbed twice press pursued that rather agressively(during takedown he "bounced" once. He never moved under his own power again, and I'll never forgwet his death rattle. Afte a while I developed a manner to deal with it, mostly "humor". Possibly worst reminder was a teletpe from another division congratulating me on "doing my duty". I realize now that we are NOT trained in how todeal with this situation. Callousness and poor wording choice doesn't heklp In IL my department is #3 on LE memorial after ISP and East St. Louis. csx lost one in 92 in hazard ky---beaten to death in his own squad be a junker. we normally arec the victims... Thganks for asking... good therapy. I kept no papers or other reminders just tape and memories and what baggage is left no true bill 2 months later, never q wrongful death suit --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: UltraTech - Nashville, TN (615)356-0453 {V.34/V.FC} (1:116/30) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 198 ASK A COP Ref: F3D00020 Date: 03/04/98 From: TOM RIGHTMER Time: 03:46pm \/To: DON BOX (Read 1 times) Subj: STREET PEOPLE DB> Most of them know how to take care of themselves at a level I'm sure DB> you wouldn't understand... dumpster diving can reap great rewards to DB> someone determined to live on the fringes. Decent sleeping gear can DB> be very cheap, and last a long time when LEO doesn't confiscate and DB> destroy it. If they came from a family like mine, I would very well DB> understand why they wanted no relations with them. Keeping warm and DB> dry is no problem to experienced "campers," even in the colder DB> latitudes. You will receive another message from me indicating a little bit more understanding in this matter. You are giving me a different perspective and information that nobody else has cared to share with me. The relationship between street people and officers in my community is friendly, unless the street person commits crimes. Many of our officers even contribute their own money to the street people for food and otherwise do the best they can to help them. I probably would not understand your family situation fully, as I've been very fortunate. My family would be considered to be somewhere between poor and lower middle class, but we are very close and have an excellent relationship. I'm sure the family situation would be a major consideration for someone choosing the street over a home and family. You are right, there are a lot of things that I don't understand. Complete understanding might require standing in the other man's shoes or being there, so many will never fully understand. However, some understanding is possible if someone makes an effort to explain like you have. DB> I keep hearing this word responsibility... it makes me want to puke! DB> I don't owe you anything. I pay my bills, carry my own weight and DB> really don't care for your society which lied, stole and and cheated DB> the American Indians out of their land. Broken contracts and less than DB> civilized intent toward your hosts on this continent... this is the DB> result of what you call responsibility. Responsibility came up in a message from Charles Hunter on this subject. I think that Charles Hunter was talking about responsibility to family obligations, not to society. I'm sure that he will correct me if I'm wrong. Don, it's not my society, it is our society. You have just as much ability to change it as I do, 1 vote and 1 voice. Neither of us were alive when the white men came to America, but a significant portion of my ancestors were already here. Maybe Charles Hunter was talking about responsibility in the manner you refer to, but I don't think so. How about it Charles? You've brought up some very interesting subject matter. By the way, I don't individually take responsibility for the actions of our society, that burden must be shared by all who have an opportunity to vote or be heard. I certainly don't agree with everything our society has done in the past, and I'm sure the same will be true of the future, but I will only have 1 vote and 1 voice. Maybe I could be held individually responsible to some degree if I fail to exercise that 1 vote and 1 voice. You are right, you owe me nothing, and I owe you nothing. I'm curious, do you suggest that purely white people, if such a thing exists, individually owe a debt to the American Indians? Tom Rightmer - A Victims' Rights Advocate ... Hunting is no fun when the rabbit has the gun. --- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 * Origin: 357 MAGNUM *Lawton, OK* 405-536-5032 (1:385/20) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 198 ASK A COP Ref: F3E00000 Date: 03/05/98 From: DON BOX Time: 06:37am \/To: TOM RIGHTMER (Read 1 times) Subj: HUMANE SOCIETY TR> little bit curious about the trauma you speak of. As an example, TR> are you talking about a natural disaster with no insurance, some TR> sort of system victimization, a mental breakdown, or something TR> entirely different? It varies. Instead of system victimization it is more like social victimization. Usually, these are people who spit into the wind, or worse. They've be subjected to everything from OTJ harassment and other forms of mental abuse... including police, school, religious or just about any type of meanness any one group of humans can impel on another human. Any single "camper" usually has been subject to one or all of the above and in any combination. I was surprised to find the great majority of the ones I got to know rather well were Viet Vets. Also, a great many are just people who can't hold a job, for whatever reason. Again, many who claim to be vetrans aren't; and most now are too young to have ever seen the wrong end of an AK, or grenade. Substance abuse is the general underlying theme. It is_not_the_cause but is a symptom. Many, however, are "natural" substance abusers and their "hobby" usually begins to take hold around age 14-15, which renders them hopelessly socially unproductive. This I know about as I'd been an abuser of some euphoric or another for over 35 years. Fortunately, I'd possessed skills which society needed and also enough discipline to know when and when not to go nuts on one thing or another. (Now, I just like my beer... at home... when no responsibilities are pending!) :) Others are just mentally unsound. "Teched" if you will. They've never been able to quite take care of themselves and when the Regan era began, many mental hospitals were emptied and the patients supposedly taken care of in "satellite centers" until they were "well." Right, and I'm Napoleon! There are a rare few who have entered the social underbelly due to financial loss or physical impairment. Usually they'll find some way to leverage themselves out of the situation in less than a year. Many years ago they were called "Hobos and Tramps." The difference being hobos were more like migrant farmworkers and tramps were just ne'er do wells. Their favorite form of transportation was a freight train. When I was a 16 year old runaway, I ended up working on a farm in Oregon driving a grain truck from the fields a few miles down the road to the grain elevators. The people who worked the harvest were of the train ridin' wine drinking migrant farmworking good time loving happy folk. Geeze! I sure learned a lot...! :) Their modern day counterparts are a little hamstrung by the social and economic changes of the times. Easy to locate work is no longer easy to find. How long has it been since you've seen a Classified Ad stating "Man wanted, or General Labor?" I left San Francisco at the end of the 80's to go back to Oregon. The farm was still there, now run by a corporation and 90% of the work being done by machine. The very few staff left were very underpaid. The bunkhouse condemned and the kitchen abandoned. This has happened all over the country. Last, but not least... a few of the homeless are people on the run. Wanted for some serious crime they feel the anonymous existence of the streets is a way for them to continue evading whomever it is searching them out. There are not very many of these, but they're there. That explain it to you Tom? DB --- * RM 1.31 3089 * IF YOU GET PAST THE DOG, YOU *AND* THE DOG ARE IN TROUBLE --- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.12 * Origin: Computer One BBS (818) 763-0678 - bbsinfo@comp1.com (1:102/836.0) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 198 ASK A COP Ref: F3E00001 Date: 03/06/98 From: LAWANDA TAYLOR Time: 01:48pm \/To: CHARLES HUNTER (Read 1 times) Subj: Masons and LEOS -> CH> Now, it is no secret that many LEOS in the United States are Masons; -> CH> and I wonder if anyone has any thoughts as to what effect this -> CH> organization (Masons) has on proper law enforcement in the United -> CH> States? Although I am familiar with the term... I have no idea what it means. What is a Mason and, too, how does being a Mason affect law enforcement? LaWanda --- Platinum Xpress/Win/Wildcat5! v2.0 * Origin: Solar Quest Online - Omaha, Ne - (402) 341-4951 (1:285/85) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 198 ASK A COP Ref: F3E00002 Date: 03/06/98 From: LAWANDA TAYLOR Time: 02:27pm \/To: RICH WILLBANKS (Read 1 times) Subj: Zero Tolerance -> If more people would say "Wait a minute, that rule's -> stupid!" BEFORE it was ever enforced things would be a -> lot different. Stupid... no! Those who are in the position of making rules must realize that there could and almost always will be exceptions because rules don't apply to everyone in the same way. Agreed? LaWanda --- Platinum Xpress/Win/Wildcat5! v2.0 * Origin: Solar Quest Online - Omaha, Ne - (402) 341-4951 (1:285/85) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 198 ASK A COP Ref: F3E00003 Date: 03/07/98 From: RICH WILLBANKS Time: 07:30pm \/To: CHARLES HUNTER (Read 1 times) Subj: STREET PEOPLE DB>I think the freedom to make one's own life choices pretty much sum it >up. CH> I prefer the "freedom" that involves a warm bed, trustworthy CH> freinds and loved ones and three squares a day. Sounds like military or prison to me. Remember: Freedom isn't Free! --- timEd-B11 * Origin: My BBS * Dover, TN * (1:379/301.1) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 198 ASK A COP Ref: F3E00004 Date: 03/07/98 From: RICH WILLBANKS Time: 07:32pm \/To: TOM RIGHTMER (Read 1 times) Subj: zero tolerance JFD> My point is that some places go a bit.... Overboard. JFD> Schools, which are supposed to be teaching tolerance (among other JFD> things) are one of top perp's in the "overboard" department kicking TR> I agree that some of the schools go overboard, but you have TR> to remember that school policy is not the law. Schools are In some cases it is. The rules on weapons and drugs at schools are backed up by law. Carry either on school grounds and go to jail. TR> sounds like it might work. Please keep in mind two beginning TR> points: 1) school policy is not public law; 2) the police TR> enforce public law, not school policy. This may confuse some You're missing the point I'm trying to make. Schools now have ZT and it has gotten out of control. What is to prevent it to get out of control is the police forces? TR> dual role. The police officer is a school official until a TR> public law is broken in their presence, and then they have TR> full police powers and are acting as a police officer. I TR> realize that I opened a can of worms. Even after And a police officer is just a city worker until a crime is committed, so? BTW, the crime doesn't have to be committed if front of him. TR> to the discussion. If there is a complaint to be filed TR> against the police officer while he or she is working for TR> the school, the complaint is filed with the school board, TR> not the police department. I told you that I opened a can of Not from the way I understand it. The only difference between an office in the school and one on the street is his beat. Some schools, I have heard, have security guards who are off duty cops. If that was the case I might buy it. Also I've seen LEOs in full uniform acting as security guards at the local Wal Mart. I would think this would bring some really sticky questions if something happened. Was he acting as a Wal Mart employee, a private contractor or as a city employee? TR> most of the rules. You might also wish to consider that TR> these rules are generally made at the school board, not by TR> the individual school principal. The school board makes some To go to the extreme, the rules for the SS guards were made by higher ups but they were enforcing them. That makes them responsible. If a principal enforces a rule, such as the one they tried to use with my daughter, that causes harm then he is going to be held responsible. The 'just following orders' only appears to work for FBI employees. TR> step further. If you didn't address the carrying and TR> distribution of unknown substances, knowing of the potential TR> problem, would you have a liability problem? I think that TR> you know the answer to this question, "YES". I mentioned TR> sugar cubes because they have already been mentioned in TR> previous messages, and they have been used to distribute TR> potent and dangerous illegal drugs. If you had the TR> RESPONSIBILITY of dealing with this, what kind of rules TR> might you make? Simple rules that allowed for a fair redress of grievances. IOW, I wouldn't want a rule that forced me to expel a straight A, never been in trouble before, college bound student because the police found a single marijuana seen in the floor of the car he had driven to school that day. I'd want to be able to use some common sense to say; 'One seed. That could have gotten in there in any number of ways. His father might have dropped it for all I know.' TR> rules. I would simply ask you, what kind of rules would you TR> make if you were the one responsible? Ask yourself this TR> question before you are too critical of the school policies TR> in your neck of the woods. I did and as I stated once the school officials realized that they were placing themselves in a spot that could cost them big time they changed the rules. Rules made out of ignorance are more danger then no rules at all. Look at the gun control issue if you want to see what I mean. In most major cities it is illegal to carry a firearm. This was to make sure that people were safe from bad guys. What they didn't think of was all this did was make the good guys nice fat targets for the bad guys who never followed the law to began with. As more and more strict laws were passed the good guys became easier and easier targets. A bad guy with a stick had nothing to worry about because his target was unarmed and he could always wait until there wasn't a cop around. With ZT on illegal firearms you wind up jailing some poor slob who just used said illegal firearm to save his life. You also made it a lot easier for anyone he had to shot to sue him. Now he winds in jail and trying to save his home because he was trying to stay alive. Remember: Freedom isn't Free! --- timEd-B11 * Origin: My BBS * Dover, TN * (1:379/301.1) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 198 ASK A COP Ref: F3E00005 Date: 03/05/98 From: TOM RIGHTMER Time: 10:18am \/To: RICH WILLBANKS (Read 1 times) Subj: Teenage Smoking RW> It seems to me that you are the one who don't understand HOW it is RW> used. I've seen it FIRST HAND. Zero Tolerance (ZT) means just that RW> ZERO, none, nada, zilch tolerance for any violation of the rules. Ok, Rich, do you wish to talk about schools or law enforcement? I read the rest of your message, and you are using school examples as an argument against zero tolerance programs in a law enforcement environment. The two are completely different. There is also a HUGE difference between a SCHOOL RULE and a PUBLIC LAW. You are mixing the two while discussing law enforcement. It is probably against the rules to chew gum in class, but that is not against the law. Glucose tabs may be against the rules in school, but they are not against the law. If you talk in school without raising your hand and waiting to be recognized, the teacher might take away the happy face next to your name, but there is no public law regarding this. So, there are TWO completely different discussion topics: 1) school rules and policies; 2) public law enforcement. The TWO are not the same. RW> The rules say no student may have "drugs" in their possession. RW> It doesn't matter if the "drugs" are 100 hits of LSD and a pound RW> of cocaine or a single marijuana seed or a metered dose inhalant RW> (MDH) prescribed by a MD and maybe necessary to prevent a trip to RW> the ER or even death. The student can not have either on them or RW> they will be expelled. This is a perfect example of a school rule, not a public law. If you wanted to talk about a law enforcement program, this would not be part of the discussion, as this is a school program. If you wanted to give an example of a SCHOOL POLICY or RULE taken too far, this would be a great argument. LSD, COCAINE, and other street drugs are obviously covered by PUBLIC LAW. The prescribed medication is completely legal in the hands of the person it was prescribed for, even though it may be against the school policy or rule. RW> If the rules say no weapons allowed, defines a weapon as a knife RW> and anyone caught with a weapon will be expelled. If you bring a RW> butter knife in your lunch box and the teacher sees it you are RW> expelled, you're gone, ada there, goodbye. This is another perfect example of a school rule, not a public law. Again, if you wanted to talk about a law enforcement program, this would not be part of the discussion, as this is a school program. Rich, I think your points are extremely valid in the discussion of school policies and rules, but they have nothing to do with law enforcement. I think your examples of school policies taken beyond common sense are very logical. Rich, I would simply ask you to make a distinction between school policies and public law. A zero tolerance law enforcement program would not utilize school policies or rules, rather existing PUBLIC LAW. Tom Rightmer - A Victims' Rights Advocate ... Captain! Someone snorted the dilithium crystals. --- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 * Origin: 357 MAGNUM *Lawton, OK* 405-536-5032 (1:385/20) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 198 ASK A COP Ref: F3E00006 Date: 03/05/98 From: MIKE MCCANN Time: 06:32am \/To: DON BOX (Read 1 times) Subj: STREET PEOPLE-confiscated gear Interstingly enough, Nashvile, known as homeless central, the problem of property misappropriation. The following scenarios are most common: Property is most commonly stolen by their peers or abandoned when it expedoent to do so. In general, since things mean little to them, they consider it part of the chosen lifestyle. Homeless groups themselves areinteresting. I had one take up residence under a bridge near tracks. It was so formalised that they had mail delivery to a marked rural maibox They had a "mayor" who was their rep and advocate in frequent police contacts and a "bull" (I think was his title) who was the enforxcer for the group and enforced only the groups living rules and drug agreements. Hierarchy is commonly determined by last man up rules. Females are in cluded in the group and may either bond or be commonly available. --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: UltraTech - Nashville, TN (615)356-0453 {V.34/V.FC} (1:116/30)