One of his recent gigs involved playing someone from the last category: a distraught father who’s holed himself up in a house with his kids and threatening to kill them.  While I didn’t learn a lot of details, he apparently played his role so well that a frustrated cop ended up giving him a black eye.

I was struck by the irony of someone who volunteers to put himself in harm’s way by our Protectors and Servants (granted, he’s paid for it), when they will freely dish out the same punishment to any slob on the street unfortunate enough to find themselves in a cop’s crosshairs. It also disturbs me that whatever training the police take to deal with unstable individuals, it doesn’t seem to be working very well.

I mean, if an actor can get clocked by the police during a simulated exercise, what does that bode for genuinely troubled people when the cops have access to their Tasers and sidearms? Unfortunately to ask is to answer.

(Cross-posted from The Libertarian Standard)

Ramon Espinosa / AP

When can you trust the state?  Never.  It’s a hard lesson to learn, made even more terrible by circumstances beyond anyone’s control.  Nearly five years after Hurricane Katrina, I still remember how cops manhandling an elderly woman and confiscating her gun — her only means of self-defense in a city gone mad.  And then there was the murder of two unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge, which the New Orleans police later tried to cover up.

You can’t trust the state, even when it appears no one else can save you.   And now survivors of the terrible earthquake in Haiti are learning the same, painful lesson:

More than two months after the earthquake that devastated Haiti, at least 30 survivors who were waved onto planes by Marines in the chaotic aftermath are prisoners of the United States immigration system, locked up since their arrival in detention centers in Florida.

These are not criminals — just people overwhelmed by the quake and subsequent aftershocks, looking for food, water and shelter.  When the Marines evacuated them, they were under the impression that they could join relatives already in the U. S., but instead they were immediately arrested and held for deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement — despite a current suspension of deportations to Haiti.  All of this, because they didn’t already have a piece of paper from the U. S. government granting them permission to come here.  And yet more immigrants have all but disappeared into ICE’s detention center network, with family unable to find them.  Some that were lucky enough to be freed were granted tourist visas, allowing them to stay for a short while, but not to work.

But even when their loved ones are put in cages for no reason by the government, people can’t seem to let go of their implicit trust of the state:

The government’s actions have been especially bewildering for the survivors’ relatives, like Virgile Ulysse, 69, an American citizen who keeps an Obama poster on his kitchen wall in Norwalk, Conn.  Mr. Ulysse said he could not explain to his nephews, Jackson, 20, and Reagan, 25, why they were brought to the United States on a military plane only to be jailed at the Broward center when they arrived in Orlando on Jan. 19.

The cognitive dissonance of that paragraph is almost dazzling: an Obama supporter who doesn’t understand why the Obama-led government jailed his nephews.  Even with the boot on their neck, people still look to the state to save them.  Will they ever learn?

Never trust the state.

[Cross-posted from The Libertarian Standard]

159. Puppycide in Buffalo during a police raid that fails to turn up any drugs or make any arrests.

160. Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, no friend of fugitives, illegal immigrants or civil rights, spends an unknown amount of taxpayers’ money on production costs for a Fox reality show.  Then his boys arrest some people applauding a speech critical of Arpaio during a county supervisors meeting.  And Phoenix police raid the home of a blogger who’s been criticizing them.

161. I’m from the government, and I’m here to check out that funny noise under the hood: President Obama can’t save the banks or balance the budget, but he’s now backing your transmission.  More details about the warranty from those helpful folks at reason:

162. “One of liberty’s great benefactors”, Burt Blumert, chairman of the Mises Institute and a champion of many libertarian causes, passes away at the age of 80.

163. After a student is kicked in the groin, a Connecticut school bans all physical contact.  Because today’s hug could be tomorrow’s headlock.

164. Michigan woman charged for her son’s stay in juvie hall, then is sent to jail herself after she’s unable to pay.

165. More than half of California’s service stations face hefty fines or even closure for failing to install expensive vapor recovery nozzles on their pumps.  The CARB-mandated systems run about $11,000 per pump.

166. Congress seeks to give the FDA the power to regulate tobacco, while also limiting safer choices for people looking to cut back or quit.

167. Speaking of tobacco, remember Obama’s promise not to raise taxes on people making less than $250,000?  Well, he lied, unless you think only rich people smoke.  They don’t, at least not as much as the poor do, making the new cigarette tax increase highly regressive.

On to the Daily Cuts:

148. After a six-year battle with the Feds over obscenity charges, two porn film entrepreneurs plead guilty to reduced charges, earning them up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, a far cry from the five decades they faced on the original indictment.  As Jacob Sullum points out, the prosecutor, U. S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, “seems to be a sincere moral crusader and therefore a public menace”.

149. Even though members of their own party seem lukewarm on the idea, it appears that the Obama administration still doesn’t have enough on its plate, and wants to add a revival of the Federal assault weapons ban.  This time it’s not for the children, but for the poor Mexicans caught in the crossfire of a vicious drug war.  Of course, if we Americans would just stop being such loser dope fiends, we wouldn’t need a drug war in the first place.

150. A Congresswoman from Ohio introduces a real clunker of a bill: $5,000 for any car you can drag to a dealership, to be applied towards the purchase of a new car.  Of course the automakers are supportive of this boondoggle.

151. Comic relief: What, would you rather have the cops kicking in your door?

“If I see three or four young black men walking down the street, I have to stop them and check their names,” said Mills, who is white. “I want them to be afraid every time they see the police that they might get arrested.

“We’re not out there trying to abuse and harass people — we’re trying to protect the law-abiding citizens locked behind their doors in fear.”

Oh, but abusing and harassing black people—that’s just good police work.  I guess we should at least thank Mills for the tacit admission that cops engage in racial profiling.

144. Another drug raid gone wrong, this time resulting in an unarmed Michigan college student getting shot by a cop.  For what?  The police are tight-lipped so far.  But apparently the victim’s Facebook page is filled with drug references, so he must have been a dope-dealing punk, right?

145. President Barack Obama didn’t immediately make good on his campaign promise to end DEA raids on medical marijuana facilities, but eventually Attorney General Eric Holder directed Justice to call off the dogs.  At one point the U. S. Attorney for Los Angeles got the memo—then he didn’t.

146. Jacob Sullum on John Yoo’s disturbing post-9/11 Justice Department memos, which laid out justifications for wholesale curtailments of civil liberties, including suppression of the press:

Yet civil liberties do not mean much if they are abandoned whenever the government thinks it has a good reason to violate them. It is precisely in times of crisis, when politicians are most tempted to take legal shortcuts and the public is most inclined to go along, that constitutional protections are most needed. Although Attorney General Eric Holder claims to understand this, his embrace of Yoo-like rhetoric and reasoning suggests his differences with the former Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) lawyer may be a matter more of circumstance than of principle.

Read the whole thing here.

147. Comic relief: “Take a number, wait your fucking turn” (uh, NSFW).

He cites an unnamed source who claims that a second informant was involved in the break-in of Frederick’s home that ultimately led to the deadly no-knock raid:

Last week I received a tip that there may have been a second man involved in the break-in at Ryan Frederick’s house. My source has spoken to the man a few times over the last few months, and says the man has confirmed not only that he and Steven [the initial informant in the case] together broke into Frederick’s house at the behest of the police, but that the two had been working as paid police informants for months—and had actually broken into several houses around Chesapeake, all with the blessing of Chesapeake police officers. [emphasis mine]

Balko later interviewed this alleged second informant (whom he identified as “Reggie”), who revealed that Steven had struck a deal with the police to get evidence on an alleged pot-growing operation in Frederick’s garage, in exchange for “help” on credit card fraud and grand larceny charges he was facing. Reggie and Steven then broke into Frederick’s garage, although Reggie refused to confirm that they had pulled the burglary with the cops’ knowledge, apparently fearing retaliation.

A few days later, Chesapeake cops hit Frederick’s house on a no-knock warrant. Frederick fired through his front door, killing detective Jarrod Shivers. He now faces capital murder charges in Shivers’ death, as well as a felony charge of manufacturing marijuana, even though police found only a small amount of pot in the home.

Like most police informants, Reggie is no angel; he has served time for burglary and grand larceny. But he says he was slapped with a bogus burglary charge in February to keep him quiet about his involvement in the Frederick case, a claim Balko says has support in the public record:

A search of the Chesapeake General Court’s public records presents a time-line that supports Reggie’s story. He was arrested on February 12 on charges of burglary, grand larceny, and credit card larceny. He spoke to my source a few times over the next several weeks. On June 5, the police then added another grand larceny charge, and a charge of entering a house to commit assault and battery. At that point, Reggie stopped talking to my source.

Steven is also still facing credit card fraud charges, which were reinstated after having been dropped in April. He isn’t talking to anybody right now, and in fact is currently on the run from the police, according to WTKR-TV.

Just these allegations alone, if they can be proven beyond Reggie’s word, reveal an alarming pattern of misconduct by the Chesapeake police. Enticing someone to break into other people’s homes is a criminal act, even when the police do it. Even if they had gathered legitimate evidence of drug manufacturing or trafficking, none of it would be usable in court or even to secure a search warrant. This should throw every drug raid the cops have pulled recently into question, assuming the accused experienced a break-in of their home prior to the raid.

But that’s not the end of it.

The police have claimed since the January raid that officers never fired a shot at Frederick. But WTKR reports that six detectives tested positive for “primer residue”, a substance sometimes left on hands after firing a gun or handling a gun that has been fired. And Frederick’s family claims they have evidence of a bullet hole in his home, even though the police allegedly returned after the raid to fill it in.

But here’s the most interesting part:

A second lab report shows Frederick’s Bersa Firestorm .380 pistol is the gun that fired the fatal bullet, as well as a second bullet found by police. There is no indication in the court file where police found the second bullet. The state crime lab also did some testing on a .223 Remington cartridge found in Frederick’s home. However, the lab did not do DNA testing on the cartridge nor is there any indication what kind of weapon fired the round, according to the paperwork. Police search warrants do not show officers located any weapon in Frederick’s home capable of firing a .223 round.

Chesapeake police spokeswoman Christina Golden confirmed some officers are issued Bushmaster M4 Patrol Rifles, which shoot .223-caliber ammunition.

So why, if Frederick owned a pistol that uses .380 ACP ammunition, would a .223 cartridge be laying around his home?  M4 rifles can accept either Remington .223 or 5.56x45mm NATO cartridges.

It seems every new report on this case unearths more questions the police refuse to answer. Meanwhile, Ryan Frederick faces a long stint in jail while his case inches closer to trial, and the drug raids in Chesapeake continue.

139. A high school principal who wrote a letter in support of Derrick Foster, who is charged with shooting two Columbus, Ohio, police officers (see # 134) has apologized publicly: “In no way do I support, in no way do I condone, the alleged actions of my friend.”

140. Denver city attorneys argue that a police officer who beat and stomped on a 16-year-old boy, leaving him with broken ribs and internal injuries, acted in self-defense and used “reasonable force.” Because, you know, having a beer while underage is totally grounds for getting pounded until a kidney bursts.  The cop has been suspended without pay pending felony assault charges.

141. Police in Detroit hit an art gallery, don’t find any drugs, weapons or fugitives, decide to ticket the gallery for holding a dance without a permit.  Gallery director Aaron Timlin: “We’re going to dance without a permit.  If we get a ticket, we’ll fight the ticket and change the law. People should be able to dance where they want.”

142. California seizin’: voters approved Proposition 99, which protects owner-occupied homes from eminent domain seizures (at least in some cases), but leave other types of property such as apartment buildings vulnerable to land grabs by local authorities for private redevelopment.  A competing measure that would have placed much broader restrictions on property seizures by the government was defeated, probably because it would have also done away with rent controls.

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced a military-style checkpoint yesterday to stop cars this weekend in a Northeast Washington neighborhood inundated by gun violence, saying it will help keep criminals out of the area.

Starting on Saturday, officers will check drivers’ identification and ask whether they have a “legitimate purpose” to be in the Trinidad area, such as going to a doctor or church or visiting friends or relatives. If not, the drivers will be turned away. . . .

Any driver objecting to being denied access to the neighborhood faces arrest.  And drivers are the only people being scrutinized; pedestrians will not be stopped.  Do they not have bus service in D. C.?  Or murderers who can walk or ride a bicycle?

The irony of the nation’s capital, supposedly the nexus of freedom, democracy and justice, modeling its crime prevention tactics after the Stasi is painful, but also completely lost on its municipal leaders.  As the city’s interim attorney general said, he’s “not worried about the constitutionality of it.”  Remember, it’s just a piece of paper.  In the meantime, let’s see yours, comrade.

A Chesapeake grand jury indicted the 28-year-old Portlock man Tuesday on charges of capital murder, use of a firearm during the commission of murder and manufacturing marijuana. Frederick is accused of “willfully, deliberately and premeditatedly” killing Detective Jarrod Shivers the night of Jan. 17 while Shivers and more than a dozen other officers executed a drug search warrant.

Keep in mind, prosecutors hadn’t sought a capital murder charge against Frederick; the grand jury upgraded it from first-degree murder.  The more serious charge means the state can seek the death penalty against Frederick.

So many things have gone wrong with this case from the outset:

• The warrant was served on a tip that Frederick was running a massive pot-growing operation in his garage, but all the police found was a small amount of marijuana and no plants.  However, Frederick, an avid amateur gardener, did have some young Japanese maples growing under lights, which do bear some resemblance to marijuana plants.
• Frederick’s home had been broken into just a few days before the police raid.
• Oh, and the informant whose tip led to the warrant?  He committed the burglary on Frederick’s home.  He also had credit card fraud charges pending against him, which were dropped just days before the raid.

So based on information from a guy who broke into Frederick’s house and was facing jail time, the police busted in on the home of a man with no criminal record and had just dealt with a burglary, and the end result is a dead cop and another man facing lethal injection.

Radley Balko summarizes more absurdities from the DA’s office:

Special Prosecutor Paul Ebert pushed the unlikely theory yesterday that Frederick looked out his window, saw several police officers about to break into his home, heard them announce themselves as police, decided to shoot and kill just one of them, then surrendered. This is a guy who friends, former employers, neighbors and family describe as harmless and unconfrontational to the point of being meek. The idea that he’d knowingly kill a cop over a few joints is absurd.

Frederick had a job he enjoyed, a record of steady employment and strong recommendations from supervisors, and he’d just gotten engaged. Again, hardly the profile of a cop killer with a death wish.

The felony marijuana charge is even less comprehensible, apparently hinging on the fact that the police found equipment which can be used for indoor marijuana growing operations.  Just as a wire coat hanger can be used to break into a car, I suppose.  Does that make us all guilty of conspiracy to commit auto theft?

The police performed little due diligence on their tip about Frederick: no controlled buys to determine if he was dealing, no observation of unusual traffic or activity in front of his house.  Their background check revealed only traffic tickets.  Yet this was enough for them to break down his door at night.

It’s clear from all the charges they’ve thrown against him that the Chesapeake prosecutors are seeking a plea deal with Frederick.  That’s the saddest part of this very sad case.  Based on what we know so far, Ryan Frederick doesn’t deserve death for his actions, or even life in prison.  He doesn’t deserve to be in jail at all. The police performed one of their most dangerous actions, a no-knock raid, based on very little evidence, and one of their officers was killed when the homeowner, quite understandably, chose to defend himself.

The only possible bright side to this injustice is that the public in Chesapeake is not siding blindly with the cops.  They are asking questions and wondering why the authorities won’t answer them.  One can only hope this same skepticism will extend to the jury that will hear Frederick’s case.

The next night, seven people are murdered in “a spasm of violence” in the eastern part of the District, bringing the total number of murders in D. C. for 2008 to 72.

No, these events probably aren’t related.  But see how much the cops care for their citizens’ safety?  Assistant Police Chief Diane Groomes:

“We do not want to kick off the summer like this. We need to get the guns out of people’s hands.“

And the qat, too!  Just think of the carnage that might have erupted had they left those wild-eyed qat chewers loose on the streets.