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A deputy at the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office tells about planting evidence, lying in reports and testimony under Sheriff Ric Bradshaw http://dcpost.org/florida-law-officer-planting-evidence-lying-part-of-the-game-exclusive-interview/ quote:One of the biggest defenses in contraband cases are that law enforcement officers planted evidence and lie to make their arrests. These cries from defendants are largely ignored by all parties involved, including the juries because of psychology. When it is the word of a defendant against the law enforcement officer, people have been conditioned to rely on the word of authority as truth. The question is, should this be the case? NYPD got busted for something similar so this seems to be common among a lot of different departments. In addition to the injustice inherent in doing the deed, this behavior actually makes crime worse, regardless of what the manipulated statistics say. People in these communities know what the police do and they don't call the police when things happen because the police in this situation are just another gang. It creates resentment and hostility and even encourages violence against police. It is really disappointing to me because I like and respect police. I used to want to become one. I've been helped by police in the past but then again I am a white woman. Most police get in to the job because they want to be a hero. The phrase "a few bad apples" gets tossed around without the full quote. "A few bad apples spoil the bunch. " As in a few bad apples corrupt the entire culture of the department. This is most certainly a failure of the leadership. Quotas are not the way to ensure police are not sitting around wasting time. Quotas are a way to guarantee police cut corners and crime goes unpunished. Mandy Thompson fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Feb 21, 2015 |
# ? Feb 21, 2015 19:57 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 13:56 |
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i live in palm beach county and the cops have never bothered me
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:05 |
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poo poo, at least they actually brought them down when it happened here in the 90s.quote:Delta agents got a bogus search warrant for a Manatee County duplex and planted crack cocaine there. A woman visiting the home was arrested. As a result of her felony conviction, she lost custody of her child. Before her encounter with the Delta squad, she had no criminal record. Eventually, her conviction was overturned and her child was returned.
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:13 |
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Darkman Fanpage posted:i live in palm beach county and the cops have never bothered me White person spotted.
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:14 |
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This is another thing body cams would really help with.
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:30 |
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Duh
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:33 |
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quote:But I kept my mouth shut because, you know, you cross that line even a little and you don’t have the right to complain about those crossing it a bit more. Huh, literally everyone having at least a little something to hide is an interesting take on the blue line problem. You make sure that no-one can come forward without incredible risk to their own well-being.
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:36 |
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withak posted:White person spotted. I got pulled over when I was 15 and racing and drunk. The cop told me to go home. I had like 8 people in the car. Being white is great.
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:38 |
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And another time a deputy arrested a guy for possession after he said he found the baggie on the guy’s floor board. Then he, um, he didn’t charge the guy in exchange for oral sex from the guy’s wife. I thought that was, you know, really wrong. Taking things just too far. Way to far. But I kept my mouth shut because, you know, you cross that line even a little and you don’t have the right to complain about those crossing it a bit more. But a few, you know, there are a few bad apples in every bunch.
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 22:36 |
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I am so angry that I momentarily forgot about the existence of phones.
SpiderHyphenMan fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Feb 21, 2015 |
# ? Feb 21, 2015 22:48 |
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Remember when arbitrary detention or being stopped and asked for your
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:17 |
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Well, it's, uh, nice to have this in the open, I guess.
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# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:58 |
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I'm not entirely sure "posting completely anonymously" means what they think it means.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 00:06 |
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"Deputy Sheriff: These people aren’t innocent. If we are dealing with someone, there is a reason for it. We don’t really interact with members of the law abiding public." This is really telling as far as police attitudes go. Everyone they contact is scum, guilty and therefore sub-human. I've heard exactly these words from multiple LEOs on the other side of the country, it's a common attitude.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 08:37 |
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KiteAuraan posted:"Deputy Sheriff: These people aren’t innocent. If we are dealing with someone, there is a reason for it. We don’t really interact with members of the law abiding public." This is really telling as far as police attitudes go. Everyone they contact is scum, guilty and therefore sub-human. I've heard exactly these words from multiple LEOs on the other side of the country, it's a common attitude. The job I qualify most for seems to be a cop or sheriff or whatever. My neighbor thinks I should apply for all the "cop" jobs so I could make a difference or change the system. It has been 3 weeks and I'm still loving laughing.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 08:55 |
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katlington posted:And another time a deputy arrested a guy for possession after he said he found the baggie on the guy’s floor board. Then he, um, he didn’t charge the guy in exchange for oral sex from the guy’s wife. I thought that was, you know, really wrong. Taking things just too far. Way to far. But I kept my mouth shut because, you know, you cross that line even a little and you don’t have the right to complain about those crossing it a bit more. "Using a baggie to extort money or sexual favors is totally out of line, but arresting them because they're guilty of being black? That's A-Okay!" Seriously, American police are some of the worst examples of humanity in first-world society. I'm sad that the reporter didn't immediately say the full "One bad apple spoils the bunch". I mean, gee, if only they didn't have a system of planting evidence that was fully supported by the higher-ups that was used on a regular basis, maybe police wouldn't be able to use said system for personal gain.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 13:00 |
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KiteAuraan posted:"Deputy Sheriff: These people aren’t innocent. If we are dealing with someone, there is a reason for it. We don’t really interact with members of the law abiding public." This is really telling as far as police attitudes go. Everyone they contact is scum, guilty and therefore sub-human. I've heard exactly these words from multiple LEOs on the other side of the country, it's a common attitude. My wife and I have problems with a neighbor that's former LEO that decided he didn't like us living next door. The fact that we have him on camera committing vandalism and doing poo poo like throwing nails in our driveway means nothing because he worked under the current sheriff. In the past when we were naive we called the police to make reports, and the officer would shrug and say "well I didn't see it happen" and when video is shown it's "well it's not obvious it's him" and they don't take a report and then go across the street to catch up on old times with their old buddy. And I hear exactly that when I mention it to other LEO, "you must have done something." And that's what opened my eyes to law enforcement. Neither my wife or I trust police, talk to police, or call police when there's a problem.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 13:35 |
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Randalor posted:"Using a baggie to extort money or sexual favors is totally out of line, but arresting them because they're guilty of being black? That's A-Okay!" Seriously, American police are some of the worst examples of humanity in first-world society. I'm sad that the reporter didn't immediately say the full "One bad apple spoils the bunch". I mean, gee, if only they didn't have a system of planting evidence that was fully supported by the higher-ups that was used on a regular basis, maybe police wouldn't be able to use said system for personal gain.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 13:56 |
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GreyjoyBastard posted:I'm not entirely sure "posting completely anonymously" means what they think it means. I'm pretty sure I know which "totally anonymous forum" they're talking about (LEOAffairs.) I'd recommend anyone to give it a brief read, just pick a random agency, since the site itself is mostly geared towards agency-specific forums. The thing that surprised me most about cop discussion forums isn't open discussion of illegal and corrupt activity, which isn't commonly seen, but the intensely petty levels of middle school type catty drama and people bitching about their supervisors and coworkers. To the guy who mentioned body cams helping to rein this in, it will, but only with the appropriate use policies, which are set by the departments themselves. If officers have the authority to turn them on or off at will, they'll be less than useless, but thankfully in our state most of the agencies use an always-on policy. I'll also add that, for better or worse, juries don't really have the blind trust for officer testimony that they did in the past. It's less that cops are seen as liars (with the exception of college libertarian types, which is the only group of people I will strike from a jury pool literally 100% of the time) as they are seen as lazy and incompetent. The best way to attack officer testimony in court is by accusing them of doing in incomplete investigation and misremembering what happened because they didn't bother to record it properly. Most people in a jury pool haven't ever had an officer lie about something they know personally to be true in court, however, many of them have had experiences where they themselves have been victimized by crime in the past, where the cops failed to catch the perpetrator, and they still feel bitter and resentful about it and feel that the police didn't give a poo poo about their situation. I've seen this sentiment exploited very effectively even by otherwise incompetent defense attorneys.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 14:25 |
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Things like body cams will only work 100% if you have a national reorganization/standardization of police forces. You consolidate administration and jurisdictions to the county level and have Federally-established Information Systems for dealing with all the videos / reports.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:04 |
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prussian advisor posted:I'll also add that, for better or worse, juries don't really have the blind trust for officer testimony that they did in the past. It's less that cops are seen as liars (with the exception of college libertarian types, which is the only group of people I will strike from a jury pool literally 100% of the time) as they are seen as lazy and incompetent. Has there ever been a defence attorney who uses the strategy of pointing out that there's always a reasonably doubt that his client accused of possession was framed by police, since there's so much testimony like this? I imagine that juries declining to convict on any drug charges because the police fake evidence so much is something that would at least take that tool away from police officers.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:06 |
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Chamale posted:Has there ever been a defence attorney who uses the strategy of pointing out that there's always a reasonably doubt that his client accused of possession was framed by police, since there's so much testimony like this? I imagine that juries declining to convict on any drug charges because the police fake evidence so much is something that would at least take that tool away from police officers. I'm sure it's been used successfully in the past, but every time I'm seen a defense attorney claim directly to the jury that the cops framed his client by planting drugs on him, it has crashed and burned. If the facts of the case are bad enough that that could be argued with any real chance of success, though, any halfway-competent prosecutor would've dropped the case a long time ago. You also can't argue the facts of other cases even in a general sense during a criminal trial, like it seems like you're suggesting. This is a good thing, since it would open the door to all sorts of unethical bullshit from defense attorneys and prosecutors both that don't belong in the criminal justice system. If the jury decides that all cops are liars entirely on their own, without prompting from the defense attorney, that's another matter entirely. Of course, police testimony and its credibility isn't really that critical to many significant criminal trials. It's usually only drug cases (and other similar vice crimes) where the sole interactions is between law enforcement and the defendant--the credibility of civilian witnesses of various types is usually far more important. At least, that's been my experience.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:22 |
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McDowell posted:Things like body cams will only work 100% if you have a national reorganization/standardization of police forces. You consolidate administration and jurisdictions to the county level and have Federally-established Information Systems for dealing with all the videos / reports. I don't know about other states, but I can tell you that Florida has a consolidated state police-like agency (the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, or FDLE) that is a weird mashup of FBI-style special agents and crime labs, the protective detail duties of the Secret Service, and a sort of standards & professionalism bureau that certifies agency conduct as a precondition to access to resources like various criminal databases. It's statewide agencies like these, which I understand to be pretty common throughout the US, that are going to probably be the vehicle to ensure that body cam use is consistent and sensible. There will never be a national reorganization of police forces in the foreseeable future.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 16:29 |
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What is your position Prussian Advisor?
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 18:50 |
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prussian advisor posted:I don't know about other states, but I can tell you that Florida has a consolidated state police-like agency (the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, or FDLE) that is a weird mashup of FBI-style special agents and crime labs, the protective detail duties of the Secret Service, and a sort of standards & professionalism bureau that certifies agency conduct as a precondition to access to resources like various criminal databases. It's statewide agencies like these, which I understand to be pretty common throughout the US, that are going to probably be the vehicle to ensure that body cam use is consistent and sensible. There will never be a national reorganization of police forces in the foreseeable future. Oh, you mean that thing that Rick Scott's trying to destroy and/or turn into his personal gestapo for use against political opponents.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 19:02 |
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Mandy Thompson posted:What is your position Prussian Advisor? On what exactly? On police criminal misconduct, obviously it is bad and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I and several of my colleagues have prosecuted LEOs and COs for crimes ranging from taking bribes, smuggling drugs into prisons, beating people in custody, all the way down to raping people. Results, as I'm sure you can imagine, are mixed, because most juror skepticism of cop credibility goes right out the window when you take them out of the witness stand and put them behind the defense table. Sometimes they go to prison, sometimes the judge gives them a light sentence, sometimes they walk. Doesn't mean we don't stop trying. On body cams, they're an unqualified good thing. They minimize police abuses when implemented properly, and can help shield good cops from bullshit complaints by both civilians and coworkers. A big issue going forward will be manpower, however--there just isn't enough hours in the day for a felony prosecutor or public defender to watch all the vide from every cam for every offense. There needs to be major funding increases for both sides for it to make a meaningful difference at the trial level. And Scott's attempts with FDLE are going to fall flat on their face, in my opinion. He is a weak governor in a notoriously weak gubernatorial office--the FL governor can't even grant executive clemency without the consent of the independently elected cabinet.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 20:42 |
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A further note about FDLE being political heavies...the Florida governor is deliberately prevented from having the ability to use the criminal justice system against opponents. The governor's control over FDLE is limited, and that agency's actual law enforcement resources are pretty stunted, the Highway Patrol effectively doesn't even have investigators, and Florida doesn't have a conventional state police. More to the point, even if the governor could pressure FDLE to arrest someone, it would be much harder to have them prosecuted. Florida'a State Attorneys (DA-like office that handles 1-6 counties apiece) are directly elected by their constituents and the governor has no authority over them whatsoever. The Statewide Prosecutor is appointed by the state AG, who is an independently elected cabinet official. Thats it for prosecuting authority in the entire state court system. Not saying Scott's fuckery isn't cause for concern, but anyone with an ounce of sense has been concerned about Scott long before this. I'm just saying it's guaranteed to fail.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 20:51 |
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I meant like, what is your job, are you a judge? a prosecutor?
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 23:32 |
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Mandy Thompson posted:I meant like, what is your job, are you a judge? a prosecutor? Prosecutor.
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# ? Feb 22, 2015 23:42 |
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Wow, though I'm not horribly surprised. Two things struck as me as kind of weird about the interview, though:quote:It is not something we advertise because we have some supervisors that are angels and don’t have what it takes to do the job. Besides, we don’t brag about what we do because you don’t want those rumors out there. ... so why the heck is he giving this interview? I guess he's had a change of heart, though the interviewer doesn't ask anything about his motivations (which would be really interesting to hear!). The lead-in to the interview is fairly misleading, in my opinion: quote:One of our editors stumbled across a web site where local law enforcement deputies are free to post, and do so with 100% anonymity. In this web site, they exchange tactical information, procedural tips and methods to use to gain compliance of subjects or to arrest them for being difficult. If you visit the link they give to the "Tricks of the trade" thread that prompted the interview, though, you find that site in question bills itself as "PBSOTalk.com -- Exposing the Culture of Corruption under Sheriff Ric Bradshaw - Anyone can post completely anonymously!" So it sounds to me less like a general forum for cops to exchange tactical information and procedural tips than a political activism forum.
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# ? Feb 23, 2015 00:04 |
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No story about Florida cops is complete without the hilarity of Miami Gardens' police force: quote:Earl Sampson has been stopped and questioned by Miami Gardens police 258 times in four years. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article1957716.html quote:Miami Gardens police records reveal broad policy of stopping and questioning citizens: 8,489 kids and 1,775 senior citizens caught up in city’s version of “stop and frisk.” http://fusion.net/story/5568/florida-citys-stop-frisk-nabs-thousands-of-kids-finds-5-year-olds-suspicious/
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# ? Feb 23, 2015 02:02 |
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That's what happens when you have quotas. It makes the statistics look nice in the short term but people just stop calling the police and you get more crimes overall and less cooperation.
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# ? Feb 23, 2015 07:07 |
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prussian advisor posted:I'm sure it's been used successfully in the past, but every time I'm seen a defense attorney claim directly to the jury that the cops framed his client by planting drugs on him, it has crashed and burned. If the facts of the case are bad enough that that could be argued with any real chance of success, though, any halfway-competent prosecutor would've dropped the case a long time ago. You also can't argue the facts of other cases even in a general sense during a criminal trial, like it seems like you're suggesting. This is a good thing, since it would open the door to all sorts of unethical bullshit from defense attorneys and prosecutors both that don't belong in the criminal justice system. If the jury decides that all cops are liars entirely on their own, without prompting from the defense attorney, that's another matter entirely. There's also a ton of mileage to be had by the state's reluctance to spend money on basic forensics for most cases. Where I practice, the state forensics lab ran out of money ages ago to do much of anything because every single marijuana bust with a competent lawyer required a certificate of analysis on the marijuana. It really is hilarious; the state burns through its standard annual forensics budget in a matter of months every year confirming that weed is weed. So when it comes time to do things in cases the public might actually care about (ie to actually pull fingerprints on a gun with bodies on it), there's no money for it and you can leverage pleas and reductions just by exploiting the self-inflicted budget crisis. I'm fairly certain operating orders came down through unofficial channels for street level cops to get ballistics tests on handguns before the opportunity arises to do any meaningful forensics. The funny part is that the actual operability of the weapon (the only thing they actually can afford to test) is irrelevant in 99% of cases. But the test destroys and contaminates any potential DNA or fingerprint evidence. So you can have a ball throwing jury requests at the prosecution with the threat that you'll call their own forensics people and make them concede that the procedures followed in the case were sloppy, slipshod, and actively destructive to potentially defense-friendly forensic evidence. They will generally cave rather than allow their own budget priorities come to light. And these are cases which actually implicate the public safety, often involving guys with robbery and burglary rap sheets found in proximity to stolen handguns. quote:A big issue going forward will be manpower, however--there just isn't enough hours in the day for a felony prosecutor or public defender to watch all the vide from every cam for every offense. There needs to be major funding increases for both sides for it to make a meaningful difference at the trial level. Broadly speaking, though, if you stripped all the truly bullshit prosecutions out of the mix for crimes of no particular importance, I think you'd find that suddenly everyone would have a great deal more time and money to fully investigate things worthy of investigation. When your state budget priorities are driven at the local level by an endless stream of forensics test to verify that weed is weed so that you can hammer teenage boys for being teenage boys, complaining that the budget isn't there to do things of genuine importance rings pretty hollow.
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# ? Feb 23, 2015 17:14 |
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Noted without comment:quote:Arrests plummet 66% with NYPD in virtual work stoppage quote:New York City sets record with no murders in 10 days in a row
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# ? Feb 23, 2015 18:54 |
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Don't be a pregnant woman in Florida. Luckily for the victim, his shotgun only tried to kill him 3 times. It was his old west handling of a pistol that killed that dastardly pregnant woman. The victim is really upset and shaken by the event, but luckily, he wasn't really hurt. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/20/this-florida-man-got-a-free-pass-for-shooting-a-pregnant-woman-to-death.html
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# ? Feb 23, 2015 19:04 |
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Pohl posted:Don't be a pregnant woman in Florida. Crazy Gun Man Before He Shoots Pregnant Woman: “Left My Gun Alone Today. It Didn’t Kill Anyone,” and the additional caption, “Yep, proving once again that the lethality of an object is entirely dependent on the intent of the operator.” Crazy Gun Man After He Shoots Pregnant Woman: “I haven’t slept in three days trying to figure out how the hell [the gun] went off. I don’t know. I mean them drat guns. The shotgun goes off when it wants to. I almost blew my drat head off twice.” so i guess it's not homicide if you operate a weapon at a person with a zen mind you and i, we both embrace emptiness boner confessor fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Feb 23, 2015 |
# ? Feb 23, 2015 19:08 |
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Popular Thug Drink posted:Crazy Gun Man Before He Shoots Pregnant Woman: “Left My Gun Alone Today. It Didn’t Kill Anyone,” and the additional caption, “Yep, proving once again that the lethality of an object is entirely dependent on the intent of the operator.” Unfortunately, the fetus died before it could testify in court; no witness, no case!
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# ? Feb 23, 2015 20:13 |
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That's right, there are now a few bad apples in every barrel. No sense even looking for an untainted barrel! Now suck my dick.
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# ? Feb 23, 2015 20:25 |
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SedanChair posted:That's right, there are now a few bad apples in every barrel. No sense even looking for an untainted barrel! Now suck my dick. This is one of the best things I've read in a long time. The author talks about how police brutality is a lovely little problem no one wants to deal with. You've probably read it, but it is a great drat read. It is about the homeless situation in Utah. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-solution-to-homelessness-utah
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# ? Feb 23, 2015 20:34 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 13:56 |
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Helsing posted:Noted without comment: Murders and crime have dropped off by huge amounts due to all the snow in the NE explains the latter.
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# ? Feb 23, 2015 20:38 |