Remember, everyone in America is innocent of all charges until proven guilty in a court of law, no matter how dead their eyes may appear in their mugshot.

As soon as I heard the story, my only question was why, what was the backstory behind the individuals.  Why him?  Why now?

Because if there's anything anyone doesn't understand about America's racial history, this classic case really explains it.  While it's not being applied in quite the same way here, this story shows the exact mechanism of a "sundown town."  They draw a line in the sand.  They tell people not to be here when the sun goes down.  And if you are, FAFO.

It's very important that we understand specifically how this trick works.  Because the same mechanism gets employed in a variety of circumstances, including against sex workers for a variety of reasons. I recently discussed this in my review of The Killing Season. 

Because those journalists, despite the otherwise good work they did, were quite easily convinced that it wasn't real even while it was being explained to them by women who have had this experience while also being Holtzclawed.  He didn't believe that, either.  They couldn't be convinced that the one police officer whose name got dropped by every sex worker in ABQ could possibly have been a bad actor, because he said no.

Spectrum News

"Earlier this week, now-former officer Samuel Davis, 26, was charged with assault and kidnapping stemming from the arrest of a persistent shoplifting suspect at a Northwoods Walgreens on July 4. He's accused of driving the man to a remote location in Kinloch, beating him with his baton, using pepper spray and breaking his jaw. 

Court documents state after the handcuffed victim was put in the back of Davis' patrol car, Hill, who was Davis' supervising officer, returned to the store and made an incriminating statement to a store employee regarding what would happen to the victim. 
Hill nor Davis never activated their body cameras, according to court documents. They also didn't inform dispatch that they had a suspect in custody or write a report about the incident.
"Police officers who commit violence undermine the trust of the community. My office is working to restore that trust by ensuring a fair, transparent investigation and prosecution in cases of police brutality. Officers in St. Louis County have a host of tools to rely on in addressing individuals who commit non-violent offenses, including referring individuals to our Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program or making a proper arrest when public safety demands it. There is no excuse for this criminal conduct, and my office will prosecute these officers to the fullest extent of the law," said St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell. 
Northwoods police chief Dennis Shireff told Spectrum News the victim was taken to Kinloch at the victim's request after the store decided it didn't want to prosecute him, and it had recovered the stolen merchandise.
Shireff said there were several other occasions where the man, who he said suffers from mental illness and was intoxicated at the time of the July 4 incident, would be taken to other locations, including a relative's home. 
Hill is being held on a $100,000 cash only bond."

When I worked as a paramedic we had a guy who we would get called to multiple times a day sometimes, us and the police both, often at Walgreens.  He would get so desperate for alcohol that he would open up some mouthwash, rubbing alcohol, or whatever he could get his hands on, and drink as much of it as possible before they could knock it out of his hands.  Believe it or not, we would often find him seizing in parking lots.

As much of a pain in my ass as that guy was, I would never in a million years want the cops to do that to him.  We had much worse, more abusive, more problematic people than the guy they're describing.  The situation they're charged with, if proven in a court of law, is unimaginable to me.

Remember when the Department of Justice found Ferguson, Missouri systemically racist?  Whatever came of that?

I love a happy ending.  And this police officer did a great job.

Someone called GW Bush International Airport wanting to report his mother missing from her international flight.  It seemed strange to this officer that he had waited several days to do so.

When a non-English-speaking trespasser was later discovered, luckily it was the same officer called to investigate.  She discovered it was the same woman that had been inquired about by her "son," and connected the dots.

I appreciate the great job by this officer.

One of the most "through the looking glass" parts of the Donald Trump presidency was the way suddenly the FBI was supposedly out to get Republicans.  LOL!  As if.

Over in the land of alternative facts, the FBI is a progressive thing that's out to get the struggling white Republican guy who can never seem to catch a break in this country.

In real life, the FBI was founded as J. Edgar Hoover's personal right-wing goon squad.  One of Hoover's hottest personal agendas was harassing any sexy black people that showed up on radar, like Martin Luther King or Angela Davis.  He lost his mind trying to go after both of them.  I think they built an FBI cafeteria on top of Leonard Peltier. 

I have always thought of the FBI to be on the trustworthiness scale of say, Wile E. Coyote.  And it sucks, because unfortunately they are the ones tasked with pursuing (a) the mafia and (b) child sex predators, both of which directly interest me personally.  And I have to say they do a not-bad job with the chomos, thanks in no small part to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  Kudos on that.

But in this story we see another example of the extreme toxicity of the GW Bush presidency, more of those radioactive chickens coming to roost.  From the same slippery slope of human rights and law enforcement that brought us Guantanamo Bay, they also stitched up these four guys, three of whom have now finally been released.  One of them is a paranoid schizophrenic.  America!  He's lucky it wasn't Texas or they'd have given him the death penalty.

Here, again, the state was a bad actor, making work for itself to make itself look good when a certain sort of cases were in fashion.  As if there wasn't a mega crap ton of real work to do in America all the time.  As if the woods weren't full of militia wingnuts.

There won't be justice for anyone until there's justice for everyone.  And I can't imagine that there ever will be.  We'll never have nice things in this country.  Because this isn't a broken system.  The system is perfectly reflecting the desires and values of the people who built it.

I do a lot of criticizing the police.  So I also like to take the time to point out when they do a fantastic job, like Trooper Nielson of the Louisiana State Police.

He pulled the young man over for speeding, 73 in a 55.

The driver:

• Had no license at all
• No insurance
• It wasn't his car
• Had a roach in the ashtray

The trooper noticed that there were bullet holes in the driver's side of the vehicle.  So he investigated to make sure that this person had permission to be in the vehicle at all.  He still couldn't positively identify him, because he had no license or ID.

The driver also couldn't give his home address, or say exactly where he was going, an automatic red flag for the police.

Trooper Nielson investigated further, to make sure that this vehicle wasn't wanted in any local incidents.  He discovered that the vehicle's owner had been reported missing.  The driver claimed this person had given him permission to drive it.

Meanwhile some random person drives up and says that people in Monroe, another city, are looking for that car and its driver.  He hands Trooper Nielson a phone.  The local sheriffs arrive at some point to assist.

Trooper Nielson follows this investigation step-by-step, eventually popping the trunk to discover the body of Michael, the vehicle's owner.

The driver had been driving around with the dead body in the trunk, speeding, with no license, driver's side all shot up, and smoking weed.  That's more of a cry for help, I think.  He was only missing one of those sovereign citizen homemade license plates.

But that was great work by this police officer all the way throughout.  Terrible tragedy for the victim in this case.  And I can't imagine what the murderer was thinking, honest to God.  What a waste of life all the way around.

I'm glad that the work was done.  That justice was served for these victims.  And most of all, that people are now safe from these vicious predators.  This was really a lot of accomplishment in a short time, and it must be rewarding for their team and the community.

But I'm not able to sit through either press conference, because of the constant use of the phrase "true victims."

The crystal clear message is that other victims deserved whatever they got.

Over and over again, as Sheriff Niehaus repeats that phrase "true victims, these were true victims" because they were such innocent young girls, it underscores exactly why his colleagues put in such little effort to look for my friend Wendy Huggy when she was kidnapped in 1982:  she was a rotten little slut and it was her own fault.  Not a true victim, like an 11-year-old who gets abducted getting off the school bus.

Much less any adult sex worker or drug user.  Or a woman who chose to marry a man.

The police considered Wendy an adult because she was married and pregnant at 16.  She was married because her mother abandoned her at 15.  She was allowed to marry a 27-year-old man in Illinois without her mother present or any parent's signature.  That will never stop blowing my mind.  Then that made her a legal adult.  Which allowed the police to not even look for her.  So she wasn't what this guy would have called a "true victim."

I will admit that I am on one.

But the news has been proving my point, one incident after another.  There must be real changes to the way we deal with misuse of the 911 system.  Americans do not understand how things work.  And the system itself must be restructured as well.

In the above video we see someone attacking a federal Marshal.  He must then be transported by his coworkers, because AMR -- a private company that outsources ambulance services all across America -- doesn't have any crew to send.  The wait time is deemed too long by his coworkers.  So they throw him into a police car and take him to the hospital themselves.

Because he's a federal police officer, they are able to "make a federal case out of it" to the news, so to speak.  But this happens to regular people all the time, all across this country.  They get stabbed, have heart attacks, they die, because people are doing what Mitt Romney told them to do. 

People are calling 911 to use as a taxi service to the emergency room as primary care.  They do it all the time.  They're SWATting people who beat them at Fortnight.  They're Carlee Russell, or that little girl in Florida that I just wrote about.

But really, having AMR run our ambulance services instead of our counties is a problem in and of itself.  Because it puts a corporate middle-man between the people and our public servants, think about it.  As a paramedic I worked for "hospital corporations."  I never took sick time, because I accrued so little.  And I got sick enough to think I would die at least once.  It was easily the most toxic work environment I ever encountered, in every imaginable way.

I'm maintaining this true crime for survivors blog because I know that my perspective is valuable.  I have valuable insights.

It bothers me when I see an analysis, for example, comparing the cases of Jussie Smollett, Rudy Farias, and Carlee Russell.  One of these things is not like the others.  Rudy Farias doesn't belong.  It's simply a false narrative that I find infuriating, whether it's disingenuous or ill-informed.  If anything, they should have Rudy's mother's face in that lineup.

So I would like to take a moment and help people separate the wheat from the chaff when looking at the news about missing people.  This is how we can compare and contrast, do a little critical thinking about the information we're presented with.

WE SHOULD NOT BE TALKING ABOUT ALYSSA NAVARRO AT ALL

I'm not even going to link to any stories about Alyssa Navarro.  You know why?  Because I shouldn't know anything about her.

• Alyssa left a note that made it clear she was running away.  She and her mom were not getting along.
  
• She didn't tell any lies to the police or anyone else.
• While it is good to question whether she was being taken advantage of sexually by an adult, there is no indication of that.  She does seem to have run away on her own, as she said.
• Nobody harmed her and she doesn't need any help.
• This isn't everybody's business.

America has blurred the lines between crime and entertainment.  Gawking at human tragedy is now such a major pastime that there are no boundaries.  Because this special-needs girl disappeared some time ago, now everybody has the right to know everything about it.  Does she need any help?  No.  This case destroys any illusion that the attention paid to kidnapped women has anything to do with helping them.

WARNING:  This video is absolutely horrible to watch.

A woman is seen being dragged by the hair out of a hotel near Rochester, New York.  She's seen putting up the fight of her life against another, larger woman, to no avail.  The desk clerk does nothing but straighten up the items on his desk that have been dislodged, including the phone which he does not apparently use to dial 911.

Once the survivor is dragged past the first set of doors, the first kidnapper in the video is assisted by a man who enters from outside.  The couple then carry the still-struggling survivor outside of the hotel.

NOTE TO CARLEE RUSSELL:  The kidnappers appear oddly unconcerned with potentially leaving wrist marks.  I suspect they may have done more than take pictures of her.

A hotel guest looked out his window when he heard screaming.  He saw the woman being put into the back of a car as it sped away.  Luckily he called 911.

Spectrumlocalnews.com:

“So I just saw a girl being pulled out of the front door of the hotel,” Burkett said. “They dragged her, opened up the backseat and threw her into the car. She actually kicked the backseat open and managed to get halfway out of the car. I really thought she was going to get out of there. But I’m assuming they either grabbed her by the hair or some kind of clothing that she had on her and just held on to her and literally drove off with her halfway out the door.”

The woman was found in the vehicle nine hours later.  I cannot imagine what a terrible nine hours that must have been.  She said she had been with the pair for several months.

The two suspects have pled not guilty, because of course they're not guilty until convicted in a court of law, we all know that.

PROSTITUTION IS A VICTIMLESS CRIME, THEY SAY

My biggest take-away on all of this is that the hotel in question is almost guaranteed to be a hotbed of human trafficking activity, based on the utter nonchalance of the clerk.  He stood right there making sure all of his fucks were intact as that woman fought for her life and temporarily knocked a few of them out of place.

Meanwhile, here's Carlee Russell's mug shot.  Adorable.

Apparently there's a spot near the freeway in Florida, a little homeless camp that you can't see unless you walk through some bushes.

It's behind an area owned by DOT where people can pull over to change tires or whatever they need to do.  It's quite near a residential and shopping area.

The reporters were able to interview a number of men who live there, most of whom were wearing ankle bracelets.  They were all sex offenders.

They said more or less the same thing:  their parole officers had told them to stay back there in the woods, behind the DOT area.  It's probably either a state or county-owned, wooded area that isn't routinely patrolled by law enforcement, in terms of not having them constantly rousted, not having shopkeepers calling on them and so forth.  Because you can't see it unless you walk beyond some bushes that I would never pass through.  It's a more upscale area.  And they have to stay in a county that they can't really afford to live in, because they're on parole.

Of course everybody the reporter interviews, all of the DOT officials are shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover gambling in Casablanca!  But these men are all on ankle monitoring.  So their parole officers know exactly where all of them are, all together in this little camp behind the DOT area where they're all saying they were told to stay.  It's a more upscale area.  And they have to stay in a county that they can't really afford to live in, because they're on parole.

The issue is that it's not where any of them are stated to be staying on the sex-offender registry.  It's a good ways from their listed address.  And that exists for a very good reason:  so that these guys can't continue to violate everybody else.  Because they're known to have boundary issues.  It's a significant safety problem.

MY OPINION

On the one hand, putting them behind this DOT area is an obvious, all-around failure.  If your daughter is having car trouble, this is where she's going to pull over to wait for you to come help her.  This is not the right place to put the secret creeper village behind the bushes, for God's sake! How did Florida become the serial killer capital of America?

Also, these are still human beings.  And they are allowed to live somewhere.  How about a halfway house?  Like someplace indoors with an address, maybe?  Stop freaking out about drag queens reading books, who are usually not shown to be any problem at all -- how often do you see a drag queen in an ankle monitoring bracelet?  Let's prioritize and focus, Florida.

There's no excuse for not having these homeless sex offenders in some kind of actual halfway housing where they can be (a) monitored and (b) getting therapy for whatever makes them sex offenders in the first place.  Florida has money to spend on all kinds of foolishness, like over $1 million in swamp buggies to search for Brian Laundrie after letting him walk away.

People go to halfway houses for getting out of prison after they rob banks.  I feel like you can let bank robbers go straight back to living with their wives after prison, and put these jokers in the halfway houses.  Just focus and build more halfway houses.  The secret creeper villages are ridiculous.