Hunting Over Bait

While entrapment is illegal, arresting people for breaking the law in response to someone else being arrested is not.

If we had a properly function justice system, any protests that fell to being a riot would result in scads and scads of people being arrested and the fomenters who changed it from a protest to a riot would suffer heavy charges.

Without bail.

Someone who (allegedly) instigates a riot is clearly a threat to the community and too dangerous to be at large while their innocence is proven.  Though if they're at the center of a second riot because of their arrest...  What a great piece of damning evidence!

For example, (Only) Black Lives Matter protests that turned to violence, destruction and arson because a career criminal's life long arc led to it's logical conclusion to police gun fire should be welcomed as probable cause to get professional agitators locked away for a good long time.

Florida has a good example of doing it right, actually.

Saint Petersburg had a race riot in 1996.

"What do we do next time?" loomed big in everyone's mind.

That the cops came up with was:

1. Identify the leaders.

2. Swiftly arrest them.

3. Hold them incommunicado for as long as the law allows.  24 hours.

4. Hold them for the maximum amount of time allowed without charging them.  30 days, 40 with good cause.

5.Turn them loose, uncharged.

Number three derails the third parties who provide bail money.  In 24 hours the momentum for most riots dissipates without these leaders.

Number four, once a threat to the community is expressed by the arresting department, means they get to stew and be ineffective at foment.

Number 5 kills their ability to use their incarceration as a form of martyrdom.

It works!

It worked in St Pete while Minneapolis burned.

Crossing The Aisle

I still say that the cops are a bit too quick to employ deadly force.

Especially if it turns out that Pretti got shot because the officer that disarmed him had a negligent discharge from Pretti's gun after disarming him.

He deserved to get arrested for what he was doing, but if he was a threat with that dogpile on top of him...

Officers, learn to dogpile better!

If he had a second firearm and was trying to get it out to shoot the dogpile, then good shoot.

But where's that second gun?

I've long maintained that the cops should be held to the same standard as any other citizen when it comes to shooting someone.

The main complaint is that would make it too difficult for cops to do their jobs.

I says that letting us non-cops use the same, looser, rules as the cops wouldn't make it harder for THEM at all.

Just sayin'.

It IS Kinda Creepy

Apparently ICE agents are running the plates of protestors who are following them around.

Then, at the end of the day, the agents drive to the address the car following them is registered at.

The protestors are kinda upset by that.

While it's a bit creepy, I'm not really seeing anything illegal about it.

The worst I can come up with is wasting resources.

I'm, again, caught between wanting the liberty where the cops can't tell where I live from reading my car's tax stamp and wanting people who are actively trying to intimidate and thwart the enforcement of a reasonable law to be punished for it.

Oh, I forgot, yeah that license plate is just supposed to be proof of tax paid and it was promised that it would never be used for other purposes.

When government lies like they do about that kind of stuff, it's no wonder so many people like me are conflicted between the wanting more liberty and the wanting the laws enforced. 

Except It Is

"A masterclass in propaganda. One photo, zero context. The caption says “terrorized innocent man.” The reality - he grabbed the officer’s weapon moments earlier, and that’s pepper spray, not a firearm. This is how outrage is manufactured."

Chef Andrew Gruel on X

Except that 37mm is most certainly a firearm.

There's vid of that officer with something sticking out of that barrel fountaining orange smoke that the scared guy REALLY reacts to.

Are there riot rounds that pop out the end of the barrel and spray CS smoke?  Dunno, but it seems possible. 

 

Flip Flopped

It's weird.

All the time I spent worrying about the government and a possible Civil War 2 Electric Boogaloo, I'd always assumed that it'd be our side shooting the cops.

Mostly because when a nation's government goes full totalitarian the cops go along with the government.  Every.  Single.  Time.  Without.  Exception.

So I did what I could to warn that things were getting too hot and, it seems that I never really needed to.

Because it's not my team shooting cops.

I always figured they'd have the government and the cops on THEIR side...

But they don't!

There's a part of me that's happy they don't while I'm very unhappy they're out there shooting cops.

It's good they never got the government completely behind them; I guess I should have expected them to act like they'd been betrayed and lash out murderously. 

The Hits Keep Coming

The FBI has released a report on the P320 going off on its own.  PDF warning.

Interesting, if dry, reading.

The conclusion is that it can go off by itself if everything lines up correctly, and that can happen during a normal day's duty for an officer. 

It NDs Today

This sure looks like something:

How many LE agencies have dropped the P320 now?

I wonder how long the M17 and M18 are going to last with this bad press.

Never mind the troops honest opinions of the M7 are starting to get attention too.

Hookers and blow only get you so far, eventually you need to make a product that works.

I Guess We'll See How It Goes

I am uncertain that having the same person be the director of both the FBI and BATFE is a good idea.

My objections are pretty nebulous, but I cannot help but think they are separate organizations for a reason and separate orgs need separate leadership.

I've been wrong before.  I could be wrong now and worrying about nothing.

I hope so.

Not Sure It's The Right Word

The more that comes out about the failed assassination of former president Trump the more I think that it's not incompetence but complacency.

They often lead to the same results, but have different causes and require different routes to fix what's wrong.

If it was complacency, then a wake up call of almost failing in their mission is exactly what they needed to get things right.

If it was incompetence...

The Picture Is Coalescing

It's an interesting vid on what might have been going on.

 

 

Trip Observations

First, Mascotte is still a speed trap.

Second, I still hate to see emergency vehicles all gathered around a crashed motorcycle.

No car nearby, single vehicle crashes and bikes are common around here.

Oddly, twice in a row I've seen a wrecked bike and lots of law enforcement less than a mile away...

Makes you wonder if it's related to someone fleeing the scene.

A Light Dawns

If this is how most people that the cops deal with are, I totally understand their attitude towards the rest of us. 

WARNING: This is 16 minutes and 50 seconds of your life that will be gone and won't ever come back.

Holy shit.

At least three times with mom I'd have been, "fine, she's going to jail; buh bye!"

The Unpopular Observation

I notice that a garden variety criminal got a 4:1 kill ratio on a warrant service and an 8:1 casualty ratio.

That math does not bode well for a "Mr and Mrs America, turn them all in," confiscation scheme.

There's a considerable number of people who are far better prepared to repel law enforcement than the deceased criminal in question.

Enough that I think that law enforcement organizations should get on our side here rather than maintaining their third side in the debate about gun control.

In truth, they need us on their side in the everyday performance of their jobs.  Note, I don't say, "duty," because the courts have stripped duty from the job description.

The common citizen and the police, in a healthy society, have common cause and are aligned in their wants and needs.

This present, unhealthy, state isn't a good thing.

It Wasn't 96

I watched all five of the body cam videos of the officers involved in the shooting of Mr Reed.

Just two reloaded.  One was done shooting when they noticed they were slide locked and put in a fresh magazine.

One officer never fired a shot because he'd dropped his pistol when he reacted to being shot.

Four officers shooting.  One firing more than one magazine's worth.

Assuming the full load of 16 at the start and another 15 in the reload who kept firing.

79 shots, max.

If 96 rounds were fired, 17 belong to Mr Reed.

Two officers spend much of the fight running around not doing much constructive.  One of these is the reload after noticing slide lock after the fight.

The officer who reloaded and kept firing seems most focused on being in the fight.

The fourth firing officer spends a portion of the fight noticing he's down range from his partners, so loses some shooting time deconflicting.

It's likely less than 79 shots fired.  Especially since many cops I've talked to don't top up after chambering a round.  15 in the magazine, drop the slide, 1 in the pipe, 14 in the hole.

We're probably talking 50 shots.  I suppose I could go back and count.

Update:

Hey, there's reports in that big dump CPD put out.  Not the 15+1 Glock 22's that Not-The-Bee says.

Officer 1: Glock 17, 12 shots fired.  17+1 capacity.

Officer 2: Glock 19, 16 shots fired.  15+1 capacity.  This is the slide lock reloader, the video shows the 15 shot magazine clearly during the reload.

Officer 3: Glock 45, 34 shots fired.  17+1 capacity.

Officer 4: Glock 17, 17 shots fired.  17+1 capacity.

Officer 5 (the injured one): No shots fired.

79 rounds!  Yet every single media report is saying 96 rounds.

Not Even Full RoF

Police fire 96 shots in 41 seconds.

Five cops, each firing one pistol each.  15+1 capacity.

So, five seconds to empty.  3 to reload.  Five more to empty...

41/8 = 5.125 magazines.

Let's call it five each.  15*5 is 75 shots per officer.  Five officers is 375 shots.

So they fired just more than 25% the full rate of fire.

That means that they were pausing to assess or move to and from cover.

It wasn't a panicky mag dump.

Real panic would have been every one of them firing 15 and cowering someplace.

One cop didn't even get off a shot before he was wounded.

So 15*5*4 for 300 shots at max rate.  So about 1/3 the potential ammo dump.

But 96/4 is 24 shots per cop.  Or almost 2 magazines each.

Heavy Police Presence

As I was tucking in The Lovely Harvey I did my normal "Gladys mode" look out the front window only to see at least four cop cars in front of the neighbor's across the street.

Sticking my nose further into other people's business, I went to the end of my driveway and saw six more cars parked up the street.

Two K-9's were part of this response.

We have no other facts, just speculation.

Speculation that I'm not putting here.

Nashville Is Not Uvalde

 Body cam of the scumbag being stopped has already been released.

Clicky here to see.

Assault immediately is the successful way of stopping a mass shooter.

Nashville Metro seems to know that.

Good shoot.

A Little Dissent

ATF Agent Pens Epic Resignation Letter.

Well worth your time.

Excitement

The sheriff had at least two of their JetRanger/Kiowas, flying in relays, circling my neighborhood this afternoon looking for a felon who'd escaped from a work camp in the county to the south.

Looks like they caught him, but there sure were a shit-ton of deputies around here for a while.

There's An Explanation But It's Considered Racist

 Check out this excerpt at NotTheBee.

I bought the Kindle edition.