Cops Behaving Badly!

Some really rich stories. First the light one:

A former Florida police officer wants the city to pay him the time it took him to get dressed for work.

…Weissberg claims that he was “required to work approximately 30 minutes off-the-clock” prior to his shift officially starting, the report said. The time amounted to about 5-10 hours overtime each week or more than $17,000, he claims. These tasks reportedly included maintaining his weapon and his police car.

Cry me a fucking river! It takes me two hours every day to go to and return from work if I catch the trains right. I don’t get paid for that. Back when I worked as a fisheries observer I had to pack for two weeks of work, and maintain gear that routinely got exposed to salt water. You don’t get paid for that crap, its part of the job, and you factor it into your pay.

During my brief stint as a commercial SCUBA diver, I was instructed by the other pros to set my hourly rate and minimum pay to compensate for the fact that I would have to pack, unpack, don, and maintain my SCUBA gear away from the client. I didn’t bill them for that time directly, I just made sure by the time I was home and my gear was stowed, I was happy with my pay.

In the end I didn’t like the hassle of the job, so I stopped soliciting clients and only got wet for friends and steady employers, who I know would appreciate the extra favors. I also chose to eat the time it took to deal with my gear because I would get it back in less stressful work.

If you don’t like being a cop, do something else.

Now more serious:

Police officers in a Central California town took part in a scheme in which cars belonging to poor Hispanic people were impounded, towed and later sold or given away for free to some officers when the car owners couldn’t pay the fees, authorities said Tuesday.

Four King City officers — including the recently retired police chief and the acting chief — have been arrested in the scheme, and two others were also arrested Tuesday on unrelated charges, Monterey County District Attorney Dean Flippo said.

Who do you call when the people stealing from you are the cops? Super classy!

BLNN Logo

Posted in Politics | 8 Comments

“Gun Death” Heartbreaking Wreck

Whipped Cream Difficulties

Posted in Gun Death? | Leave a comment

Play Me Out: #Selfie

Heard this while in Maine and laughed my ass off!

Posted in Music | 1 Comment

More Dragon Leatherworks on NCIS!

Awesome work Dennis! His gear again appears on NCIS! You can watch the show here!

Or simply go over to Walls of the City to see the screen grabs!

If you want some Dragon Leatherworks gear, go click that banner on the side bar to your right!

Posted in Guns, Movies, product review | 3 Comments

ATF: Like You and Me, only Better!

I’m sure all the FFLs who read this blog will be happy to hear that the agency in charge of auditing their inventory isn’t very good at keeping track of their own inventory:

ATF agents are losing track of their government-issued firearms at an alarming rate, according to a new report, with records showing multiple instances where officers forgot their guns after leaving them on top of cars, in bathrooms and in automobile glove compartments.

…Though most of the lost weapons were handguns, the newspaper reported that at least two were assault rifles. The report detailed two incidents where agents left their guns on the roof of a car. One Illinois agent placed his Smith & Wesson on top of his car while dropping off his children at a soccer game, and drove away. The gun was later found on an off-ramp.

Another North Dakota agent left his gun on his car roof and forgot about it, until his daughter drove the car to a friend’s house, according to the article. The gun was never found.

In yet another incident, two boys in Iowa reportedly found an ATF gun in a storm drain. Only then did the responsible agent tell investigators he had misplaced the gun.

So we have one agent losing his gun, and only mentioning AFTER the gun was found by some kids! Yeah “Lost and Stolen” is such a good law idea.

Also what’s with leaving your gun on the roof of a car? I’ve heard of this being done with various items, all the way up to an infant car seat, compleat with infant. But these are big items placed on the roof so other items could be loaded. What’s with pistols being put on the roof of a car for ANY reason? Don’t agents have holsters? Don’t they have immunity from local carry laws so they can leave the gun on their belt when not in use?

Even an M4 Carbine is light and handy so you don’t need to leave it on the damn roof.

Gotta love this little dagger twist!

According to the report, the ATF has a bigger problem with lost or stolen weapons than other federal law enforcement agencies. The newspaper previously reported on a questionable operation in Milwaukee during which an ATF machine gun was stolen from an agent’s truck in 2012. All these incidents are separate from the discontinued Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed hundreds of guns to be sold and carried into Mexico as part of an anti-trafficking sting.

Keep ringing that bell! Only there was never any endgame for Fast and Furious to arrest traffickers, it was just an international run-around Heller.

BLNN Logo

Posted in Guns, Politics, Safety | 3 Comments

“Gun Death” The War on Drugs

This is one of my more minor quibbles with the War on Drugs.

On an icy night last month, a man entered a grocery store here, walked past the displays of cake mix and paper towels, and went into the bathroom, where he injected himself with heroin.

Hours later, the man was found dead in the bathroom with a needle still in his arm, authorities said. They believe the man was one of more than 80 across the country who have died in recent weeks after injecting heroin laced with fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opiate.

As the number of people who use, and fatally overdose on, heroin has skyrocketed in recent years, authorities are seeing the return of an alarming development: heroin that, often unbeknownst to the user, is spiked with fentanyl.

Back when the prohibition of Alcohol was in the United States we had similar issues. People would drink toxic home brews, or drink dangerous compounds like Sterno, or simply profiteers selling toxic mixture as booze. These days commercial beer, wine, and spirits can be assumed as safe because they are made in the open and legally. The benefits of unsafe drinks are outweighed by the legal penalties.

Heroin is illegal, and buying, selling, and possessing it is a serious crime. Selling a dangerous mix of Horse isn’t much worse than selling good quality smack, so if the dangerous stuff is cheaper or easier to come by, there is nothing holding back dealers from selling bunk wares.

Of course bigger causes of death are the violent crime enforcing the lawless enterprise and destabilizing certain governments, and crime from junkies feeding a habit on a substance that is only expensive because it is illegal.

Still overdoses from bad stuff, and from getting product of unknown purity is no laughing matter.

If the “Gun Death” crowd gave a shit, they’d be up-in-arms against the War on Drugs. They don’t, so they’re coming for your guns!

H/T Whipped Cream Difficulties

Posted in Gun Death? | 2 Comments

“Gun Death” Faith

Man, I really don’t want to step on any toes of any true believers with this one:

A Kentucky preacher and reality TV star, whose sermons involved handling of deadly snakes, has died from a snake bite. He refused medical treatment, because he relied on God’s protection to save him from the venom.

I guess it wasn’t God’s Will….or something.

Not a “Gun Death”.

H/T Whipped Cream Difficulties

Posted in Gun Death? | 4 Comments

Over the River and Through the Woods

Actually several rivers and a few woods. To Grandmother’s house we go!

LaWeer’da and I are traveling north to see the grandparents for a few days. Blogging will be a bit light, but who knows. I plan to let those old folks OD on baby and I’ll be enjoying as much R&R as I can, which includes blogging.

Posted in Family and Friends | Leave a comment

Anti-Gun Wildly Unpopular

Even at CNN!

CNN has confirmed it is pulling the plug on Piers Morgan, as falling ratings finally took their toll on a transatlantic talk show experiment that failed to connect with American primetime audiences.

Three years after the former Daily Mirror editor – famed in London for bouncing back from a series of scandals – took over from US broadcasting veteran Larry King, Morgan was told by CNN president Jeff Zucker it “was time for the show to end”.

A spokeswoman for the US network said recent disclosures that British police had interviewed Morgan over phone-hacking allegations were not a factor in his dismissal.

“The decision had nothing to do with the hacking interview – not at all,” said CNN’s Allison Gollust, who said the date of the final episode of Piers Morgan Live had yet to be determined.

Morgan, who lost his job at the Daily Mirror after publishing fake pictures of alleged British troop misconduct in Iraq, had built a reputation for campaigns on gun control while at CNN but was blamed for a steady slide in the show’s ratings since Larry King’s retirement.

He’s going back to the UK with his tail between his legs!

In a statement to the Guardian through his spokesperson, Morgan said that he was asked to attend an interview in early November by officers from Operation Weeting when he was next in the UK.

I wonder if he will be served a subpena to give his statements on illegally hacking voice mail accounts when he hits the tarmac in Heathrow.

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Piers!

Posted in Freedom, Guns, Politics | 6 Comments

“Gun Death” Vodka Bottle

Where’s the “Common Sense Solution” Here?

The Ohio prostitute accused of stabbing to death a Brother Rice High School teacher over the price of illicit services once beat a woman with a gallon-sized glass vodka bottle over money, records show.

…Walker was charged at the time with misdemeanor domestic battery and bail violation charges that were later dropped. But they’re among a handful of Cook County arrests that trail the woman from the Rust Belt city of Akron and show that she’s no stranger to the Chicago area.

Walker is being held without bail at Cook County Jail, charged with the Jan. 18 stabbing death of Brother Rice teacher Alan Filan.

So we have prostituion, which is legal. Weapons in the multiple cases are fists (hard to ban those) a vodka bottle (legal), and a kitchen knife (ubiquitous).

Further we have a violent and anti-social person with a long arrest record not being convicted of any crimes until she actually killed somebody.

Seems to me the REAL common sense is teaching those who are the most danger (again I have large glass vodka bottles, knives, and fists, but I seem to manage to only use those things legally, as do most people) that we live in a civilized society, not pure anarchy.

When cops simply have a catch-and-release program until somebody is dead, that really looks a lot more like anarchy to me.

h/t Deb

Posted in Gun Death? | 4 Comments