This made me really happy, as pleased as I can be when two 13-year-olds have such a terrible experience.  At least they're okay.  And they know their community cares for them and is behind them 100%.

This guy apparently has a drug problem, according to what he told the police.  He allegedly admitted to approaching a teen boy and girl with a knife he'd found, and forcing them into a secluded area where he tied them up and raped the girl before stealing their phones.

The neighborhood tracked him down via surveillance video and Facebook.  They waited for him at the bodega.  When he showed up, they grabbed him by the hair and got him into a headlock.  He took a little bit of an ass-beating.  All of that is fine with me.

I'm truly fine with the neighbors kicking his ass in this incident, for a few reasons.  1.  They had the right guy.  They had photographic evidence including a tattoo.  2.  They didn't stab him to death, like the person in Las Vegas.  They held him for the police.  They're not trained LEO with de-escalation skills and equipment to handle someone who's fighting.  The suspect isn't permanently injured.  They did what they had to do to restrain him.  He's not as badly injured as a lot of people who get arrested by the police for much lesser crimes.

What I'm  not good with is that they opened this report with the guy's nationality and immigration status.

I yearn to live in a world where justice is truly blind, where people are people, including the victims and perpetrators.  His nationality or immigration status are irrelevant, and fuck everybody who politicizes crime, especially rape.  No seriously fuck you.

What I can see from this video is a tent in a vacant lot, next to a smoke shop.   The surrounding walls are broken and covered with graffiti.  This isn't the best area of Las Vegas.

Apparently people came to the aid of a woman screaming.  They believed she was being sexually assaulted.  So they stabbed the man to death, then fled the area. 

Police are reviewing the cameras and looking for witnesses.  The YouTube comments are pretty much unilateral:  "Do not come forward.  The police will only arrest you for doing the right thing."

I'm a socially marginalized person because of my unpopular opinions.

Stabbing him to death was not the right thing to do.  Sorry, it wasn't.

I know that our criminal justice system sucks.  And it especially sucks for rape survivors.  Rape is all but legal in America.  It's really, really hard to get as rape conviction and make it stick.  And "justice" is so uneven in this country that it could either be probation only, nothing at all, or you could get 50 years.  Or you might not be able to even get him charged, even if there's videotaped.  Or you could get him convicted, and the judge decides to just toss it out anyway.  It's a total crap shoot.

The thing is I only want to live in a society of laws.  I don't want to devolve to living in Afghanistan.  I'm not a believer in the death penalty even with "due process."  There are no take-backs once you've killed somebody.  We must let cooler heads prevail.  I'm not in favor of throwing people into dungeons no matter how horrible they are.  We must retain our humanity even when other people allow theirs to fail.

The first time America elected a woman mayor in 1887, it was a prank!  HAHA!  GOTCHA!

From NPR:

"Kansas was years ahead of most of the country in granting women full suffrage. A prank by a few men backfired when Susanna Madora Salter was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas, in 1887."

Now apparently the womenfolk are making up for lost time in the "running amok while running the city" department.  We're proving we can be just as terrible at any job as any man.

The woman who brought this lawsuit against the mayor was surprised that she won.  I am too.  She also said she's afraid for her safety now.  I definitely would be too.   I used to live in New Orleans.  The first day I arrived, I was warned to stay far, far away from the police.

The above pictures seem pretty self-evident.  It looks like the mayor has her boyfriend on the payroll as a bodyguard.  The pictures were taken from the citizen's home balcony.  The mayor's attempt to define that as "stalking" are laughable. 

Mayor Cantrell makes the same exact argument made by the dingbats who fought with an old man who filmed them while they were parked in the wheelchair space, because they believe they can't be photographed in public without their consent.  And the school board president who was annoyed by the lady yelling at him while he jerked off at the splash pad.  All three of them feel entitled to not be photographed while violating the law in public however they want.

It's bad enough when I see these things being screamed by drunks on bodycams, along with "I know my rights!" (They don't.)  But people in civic leadership are supposed to be educated, have integrity, and set good examples. 

New Orleans is one of the few places I've lived where the police scare me more than Chicago.  And remember, they work for Mayor Cantrell, sometimes as her bodyguard.

I know almost nothing about Oakland.  I've only been there one time.  But I can tell you Sheng Thao is going down.  'Nuff said.  The FBI raiding your house while you're under an election recall is not a witch hunt.  Those two things are completely unrelated.  Because the several other places that they had warrants for are not on the ballot.  The FBI doesn't answer to your Democratic voter base. 

During the Trump administration a hilarious narrative emerged in which the FBI are out to get Republicans!  Yes,  J. Edgar Hoover's right-wing goon squad has shifted its focus now from keeping tabs on the leftists, from all the Wile E. Coyote-type shit they tried to do to MLK and Angela Davis, to now they're after Republicans.  SURE.  They dropped spying on everybody from Occupy! and now they did a 180-degree ideology flip.  Cool story, bro.

The FBI also doesn't run calls.  They respond to credible tips.  When they have enough to get a warrant, they follow up.  They don't raid the home of a major US city's mayor just for laughs.  It hasn't happened that many times in history.  Stick a fork in your own butt, ma'am.

If Dolton, Illinois was a bigger or more famous town, Tiffany Henyard would be a staple of late-night comedy shows.  That's all.   Tiffany can see the devil horns on everybody who doesn't trust her.

"How could you stoop to private eyes, girl?  That's how come you don't believe my lies, girl." -- Will I. Am

From WGN:

"Henyard, her political committee, her cancer charity, her boyfriend, two of her relatives, four trustees who are allies, her deputy police chief and even her defunct burger business are all named in the subpoenas. The documents demand Dolton and the township turn-over payroll, expense, employment, reimbursement, credit card, travel and dozens of other records to a grand jury hearing evidence on Monday.

“You all should be ashamed of yourselves because you all are Black. You all are Black! And you all sitting up here beating and attacking a Black woman that’s in power,” Henyard yelled at trustees during a February meeting. “You all should be ashamed of yourselves.” "

In other words, "Because you are black, you should not complain when an egomaniacal black woman robs you!  Only a white person would complain about that!"

"The FBI investigation is far from the only legal problem in Dolton. The attorney hired by Henyard to defend the village in multiple lawsuits ranging from police shootings to workers’ compensation claims has withdrawn after Henyard’s opponents refused to approve his bills.  Attorney Michael Del Galdo told trustees the village may have more than $20M in liability if it fails to defend itself in court.  ...

“This administration is shameful,” declared one resident during a public comment section of the meeting.  “We are all waiting for the fall of this administration,” shouted another."

I'm adding Eric Adams in here as a runner up.  He hasn't been charged with anything, and he won't go down after being raided by the FBI.  But he's also trash.

"Adams has repeatedly denied the claims of corruption. His team said they don't believe the mayor is suspected of any wrongdoing himself.

"It's gonna run its course...there have been unfounded allegations hurled at me," he said."

But even when Eric Adams is demonstrably dead wrong, he still says he's right.  And his people back him up.  So whatever. 

My point is that I'm lucky to live in a town where my mayor is pretty good.  Because the rest of them are apparently either insane or just horribly corrupt garbage.  And the lady mayors are on track to outdo famous scumbags like Frank Rizzo and Richard J Daley at this pace.

When I have a little more money to spend, I want to start sending donuts to the good boys.  Sharing is caring.

It's a little shocking when you hear that the entire police department of a town has closed for business.  The first thing to know is that other agencies have taken over policing the community, in this case the county and state police.  So it's not The Purge over there, like it was in Long Beach for two months after George Floyd was murdered.

According to the above report, Warm Springs' chief was fired and 11 officers suspended.  A former officer filed a wrongful termination lawsuit.  The next day after being served with his suit, the entire department was shut down.  YIKES!

I don't know anything about Warm Springs.  From Niche.com:

"Warm Springs is a town in Georgia with a population of 543."

Hold.  543 people, A+ crime rating, and they need a dozen police officers?  For what?  Right off the rip, I see a problem.  I suspect that the county and state police will be able to hold down the fort until they hire another one or two police to manage the situation very well.  That's a town full of renters, not homeowners.  They can't afford that bloated budget.

I worked as a paramedic in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which has a population of 208,873 and 13 paramedic units, for comparison.  Granted that's nowhere near enough.  But still.

I'm about to write about the plague that is America's mayors.  The lady mayors are currently putting the man mayors to shame, making up for lost time I guess.  But Warm Springs is basically looking like a crooked little fiefdom that FAFO'd by firing the wrong guy.   They immediately shriveled into dust as soon as they got Sean Thompson's lawsuit, like a vampire that got hit with sunlight.

"I had a personal issue with one of the command staff.  I voiced my concerns.  I feel like I was totally ignored and wrongfully terminated," Thompson said.

This sounds to me like something that happens only every single day, to police officers, firefighters, and paramedics all over America who don't go along and get along.  I believe a similar thing recently happened to a California firefighter who allegedly got attacked by a coworker. 

Time will tell the story of Warm Springs.  Something about having to disband the entire department as soon as you get served with a lawsuit, though...

This video gave me goosebumps.  God bless the lady who called in.  And I wanted to hug the cop who was viscerally angered, who took his oath seriously, who stepped up and took action for a vulnerable person.  I award him a donut <3

This video shows an elderly woman at a convenience store, pumping hundred-dollar bills into a Bitcoin machine.  Someone has her on FaceTime, walking her step-by-step through the process.  The woman appears to be in his total control.  A concerned bystander, who self-identifies as a survivor of identity theft, calls the police.  She's watched the woman insert thousands of dollars.  And she's still going at it.

When the officer arrives, the elderly woman doesn't want to give him the phone.  "I'm in danger," she protests.  "You're not in danger," he assures her.  If the guy on the other end of that call wasn't in India, he would be in danger.  This cop would break his face.

The scammer claims to be customer service with the bank, and orders the cop to give the phone back to "the customer."  The cop directs him to call his dispatch office if he's with the bank.  He won't be giving the phone back to the customer.  The scammer shouts for the woman to click "send.  "CLICK SEND!!"  OMG he's wasted hours and now he'll get nothing at all.  So sad for him.  The cop instructs the lady:  Don't click anything.

God bless this cop for actually giving a shit.  Every once in a while I see somebody taking their oath seriously.  It makes a huge difference for me.

This is the second video in a row that is a balm for the weariest part of my soul.  I just reported on a case from Champaign, Illinois where a cop promptly arrested the school board president for jerking off at the splash pad.  I grew up in an era where that would have been a problem for whoever invaded his privacy, so rudely yelling, "I know who you are!" before he was able to finish.

Today's video is the rare bodycam where the arrestee doesn't scream, "I need your badge number!" over and over.  So I don't have identifying information other than the Axon ID visible in the video.  I can't send thank-you notes to the offficers.  But I would love to.

My friend Wendy Huggy was kidnapped in Clearwater, Florida in 1982.  At the time she was 16, pregnant, and on the run from her abusive "husband" in Chicago, Eddie Freeman.  Wendy married him at 15 because her mother abandoned her, and she had nowhere to live.  So when Wendy was kidnapped, the police officially considered her a married woman, and thus an adult.  Therefore when she disappeared at 16 she was seen as someone who simply wandered off on her own.  They didn't look for her at all, and closed her case after two weeks, even though it was very obvious that she had nowhere to go and no means of support.

So the above video makes me glad in ways I can't really describe.  Because it shows me that a new day has arrived.  The intoxicated young woman didn't have to disappear and get blown off for a few decades for anyone to give a shit about her.  Clearwater PD proactively engaged to safeguard her life when she wasn't able to recognize the danger she was in or protect herself -- just as Wendy couldn't.  Their one overburdened cold-case person, Detective Celeste at the moment, won't have to add her to the list.  Because these three officers saw this bullshit and intervened.

And the woman in this video doesn't expect that.  She's drunk and confused.  She's afraid she'll be arrested.  Why does she think that?

Because she's in an abusive relationship.  Remember that video of Brian Laundrie and Gabby Petito being stopped and released by the cops right before he killed her?  The striking emotional disparity of their argument, where she couldn't catch her breath and he was perfectly calm?  That's the same problem we're seeing here.  That's a cat toying with a mouse.  The cop who's questioning the male half seems to get that.  The Utah cops called Gabby the aggressor.

The boyfriend is obviously lying.  He starts out with, "We're having a wonderful night," sarcastically.  But obviously she's enjoying it much less than him; she just attempted to flee the vehicle that he's in control of.  And they're going in the opposite direction of her place.  So he's just driving her in circles "because he wants to talk to her."   Yet he complains about how badly it's going, in a perfectly calm demeanor.  It's clearly not a problem for him.  She's in complete distress.

This cop redirects the boyfriend from his line of bullshit about why he knows what's best for her, back to the matter at hand, the apparent false imprisonment in the vehicle.  If Officers Dude and Bro in Utah had handled their stop this way maybe Gabby Petito would be alive right now.

Back in the car, the young lady continues to blame herself.  "I'm the one who started it.  I got mad at him."  This is all eerily similar to the Laundrie/Petito stop, except in this case the police aren't siding with the perfectly calm male half. 

To be clear, if it were the other way around, and the male were freaking out and the woman perfectly calm, I'd take the same stance.  The abuser is calm and the person who needs assistance can't cope.   It's gaslighting, so it's being presented as a level playing field, an equal argument.

She still wants to leave with him after the police explain she's not in trouble at all.  She doesn't seem to understand that he's going to be arrested.   Ask yourself, why does she feel guilty?  Why does she imagine she should be arrested, other than the way that conversation was going while he drove her in circles?  She doesn't know the route to her house, doesn't realize that was what was happening -- unlike the police.

The police saw the vehicle slow down almost to a stop, her try to exit in front of them, then him speed up so she couldn't.  They had a problem with that.

The drinking age in Florida is 21.  So because she was given alcohol at the age of 18 at his apartment, he's going to be arrested probably just for that.  It's not clear to me that he would've been charged with that in other circumstances.  But the police are not cool with her being in this situation right now.  And she doesn't get it.  But they obviously do.

These people have only been dating for six weeks.  He's trying to wrap some web of ownership around her that I hope never comes to exist in real life.  I'm personally grateful to these officers for intervening.  I only hope it's a wake-up call for this young lady and she gets into therapy.

Fred Koss is a man who truly and deeply believes his own bullshit.  I hope they checked his wife's immigration status from Stepford, too.

Fred's narrative is classic.  And it's so refreshing to see it fail 100% this time.  Officer Beckett pounced on this from a dizzying height and sealed the deal.  This was such an enormously satisfying arrest that I transcribed it with notes below.  Beckett made me so happy as a survivor with the way he handled this, I'm sending him some donuts IRL. 

Also Fred is the actual poster child of rape culture.  He's shocked that he didn't get away with it.  The wrist slap that he got won't convince him that he did anything wrong.  And, like the two ding-dongs parked in the wheelchair spot while they have warrants who flip out when videotaped, Fred mistakenly believes he has a right to privacy while breaking the law in public.

The facts, from WCIA:
"CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) — The president of the Unity School Board in Tolono has been charged with a public indecency misdemeanor after he was arrested on Tuesday.

Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Reitz said that 70-year-old Frederick Koss of Pesotum was in his car at Hessel Park when a trained sexual assault nurse allegedly saw him touching himself while looking at the splash pad. She got out of her car, approached him in his car to confront him and took photos of him. She also recorded his license plate and contacted police."

According to The Edgar County Watchdog, Koss resigned from the school board, pled guilty to public indecency and lewd exposure, a Class A misdemeanor, and got $1,440 in fines and a year of probation.

TRANSCRIPT OF ARREST

Officer Beckett:         I’m Officer Beckett.  I work for the City of Champaign Police Department. 
Fred:   Hi.
Officer Beckett:         I know you have a concealed carry permit.  You don’t have any guns on you right now, do you?
Fred:   No.
Officer Beckett:         Okay.  I’m gonna be 100% honest with you, so I’ll ask you to be 100% honest with me, okay?  I’ve got something to ask you.  I already know the answer, okay?  You are not free to leave. So I’m gonna read you your rights, okay right now?  [Reads Miranda.]  So you were at Hessel Park in Champaign within the last couple of hours, correct?
Fred:   Yeah.

[Okay.  I'm going to break in just to point out the stellar job that Beckett did here.

• All of this happened within a couple of hours of the 911 call about someone wanking at the splash pad, and he's taking this over from another officer from a different jurisdiction.
  
• The 911 dispatcher called Beckett.  Beckett had to leave wherever he was and go to the splash pad.  He then talked to the complainant, the lady who screamed, "I know you, I know who you are!" at Fred, causing him to flee.  Reviewed the lady's cell phone video. 
  
• Beckett then had to look up Fred's plate, find out who he was.  Found out he has a concealed carry license.  Ran him for warrants.  Got his address. 
  
• Called somebody from the splash pad to get and review the video.  All of that takes time.
  
• Sent somebody over to his house to detain him while he investigated.  Within an hour and a half Fred's in his car?  Beckett wasn't fucking around.  He contacted 20 people and did all the things, and got Fred to admit everything by being very empathetic and low-key.
  
• Meanwhile, in that very small-town environment, he didn't tip off the personal friend of Fred's what it was about when he was sent over to detain him ;) ]
  

Officer Beckett:         Can you explain to me what you were doing there?  And keep in mind I have photos and videos.
Fred:   Well, I stopped there.  I used my cell phone looking for messages.  I opened up my pants.  I readjusted myself and so forth because I was hot and sweaty.
Officer Beckett:         Mm-hm.
Fred:   Uh, I sat there for a little bit.  A car pulled in beside me.  And I was finishing that up.  Somebody pulled in next to me.  The next thing I knew, some lady came around yelling and screaming.  “I know you!  I know who you are!”  Something like that, and taking pictures, and all that kind of stuff.
Officer Beckett:         Remember I asked you to be 100% honest with me, and I told you I have pictures and video?
Fred:   Yeah.
Officer Beckett:         Why were you masturbating in your vehicle?
Fred:   What’s, what’s wrong with that?
Officer Beckett:         Well, No. 1, you’re in a public place.  No. 2, the only thing in front of your car was a bunch of children on a splash pad.  So you were masturbating?
Fred:   I suppose you could call it that. 
Officer Beckett:         I could call it that?  Or you were?
Fred:   I don’t know what you’d call [inaudible]
Officer Beckett:         Why would you have your – adjusting yourself.
Fred:   Every guy does that from time to time.
Officer Beckett:         Why would you adjust yourself at the splash pad?
Fred:   Well, that’s just normal for me.
Officer Beckett:         Well, sir, you were in a public place.  Put your hands behind your back.  You’re under arrest for indecent exposure.  It is a misdemeanor.
Fred:   You’ve got to be kidding me.
Officer Beckett:         I’m not kidding you.  It is a misdemeanor.
[Other stuff]
Fred:   God dammit.  Good gosh. 
[It is, after all, the Midwest.  You can jerk one at the splash pad, sure.  But you wouldn't blaspheme twice in a row.]
[Other stuff]]
Officer Beckett:         So, man to man, you understand why you’re here, right?
Fred:   Well –
Officer Beckett:         You understand why that’s inappropriate at a, at a park?
Fred:   Yeah, I picked the wrong spot to stop.  I realize that.
Officer Beckett:         Okay.
Fred:   And I was not looking at any kid.
Officer Beckett:         Okay.  You gotta understand.  That’s what’s directly in front of you at that splash pad there.  It’s full of kids.  And when people see what’s going on there, that is the first thing is gonna come to anybody’s mind. 
Fred:   Is it right for somebody to be looking in my window?
Officer Beckett:         When you’re in public view, you’re open to recording, on sight, anything light that.  If you’re in public, you can be recorded, filmed, photographed all day long.  Just like you are when you go to stores, when you’re on buses, when you’re anywhere anymore.  People walk up to us all the time and record.  And they can, because we’re in public.  And if your vehicle, there’s a thing called “the plain-view exception.”  It even works for law enforcement.  A car’s parked in public.  I can stand there and look in the windows all day long, as long as I don’t enter that vehicle.
Fred:   Okay.  I didn’t know.
Officer Beckett:         Yeah.  And you gotta understand, this has happened at that park quite a few times in the past.
Fred:   Not me.
Officer Beckett:         I didn’t say that.  But it has happened in the past there several times.  Why would you stop there to masturbate?
Fred:   I stopped there to use my phone.  And then I opened my pants because my shorts were pulled up tight.  I pulled them down.  I had video on my phone.  I looked at the video.  It made me feel like I wanted to try to get erect, which I basically don’t.  [Remember above when he said he was checking messages?]  So and then about that time’s when this – I don't know.  I know it was a woman’s voice started yelling and screaming, “I know you!  I know you!”
Officer Beckett:         Okay.  [To other personnel] Thanks for coming out.  It was hot. [To Fred]  So I’m gonna go in with you.  We put those on in front of you because it was hot and sweaty.  He should have family coming to bond him out.

Side note:  Athens, Georgia seems to be in Florida somehow.  At least in terms of how crazy the people are, it's the sort of goofiness I'd expect from Florida.

I always think it's funny when someone thinks they have rights that don't exist, while crapping on rights that absolutely do exist.

For example this young lady who believes she can tell people not to videotape her in public, while her boyfriend takes up a wheelchair parking space.

This is just another example of (a) everybody having a phone and videotaping everything, and (b) Americans constantly reacting like toddlers and that becoming a police matter.

The little brat who parked in the wheelchair spot in the first place of course didn't take well to being redirected about it.  He just does whatever he wants as a lifestyle option.  He dared the old man to call the cops on him -- a total boss move since he has open warrants.  LOL!

As a disabled person, these young people are infuriating.  She's the person who takes the wheelchair toilet every time, especially when she needs to leave it a mess.   

These two have no understanding that they don't belong parked in the wheelchair space at all. 

So because he wasn't mature enough to simply shut up and walk away from the old man, or listen to his wife when she told him to do so, he got arrested for (a) his warrants (b) giving a false name, and (c) the assault charge for slapping the old man's phone out of his hand.

A young girl was at a bus stop alone on a busy street in Aurora, Colorado.  She was allegedly approached by a man she didn't know, Shukurani Mulenda.  He is said to have grabbed her by the arm and forced her into an apartment, where she was sexually assaulted.

Police say Mulenda lives there with his parents, who were home at the time, but asleep. 

The girl was able to get away and find help.  She led the police to the apartment. 

The police officer gave her a few tips: 

Don't talk to strangers.  If they talk to you, move away.  I don't let my kids go out alone.

Mulenda is a Registered Sex Offender, go figure.

So they reported the two main problems in this incident back-to-back.  At age 11, unfortunately she's not old enough to be out in the world on her own.  Because it's a world full of Registered Sex Offenders. 

These are two people, both in need of parental oversight, and not getting it. And they come together for disastrous results.

I'm reminded of Junko Furuta, who was tortured to death by some rotten little savage while his mother listened to her scream for weeks.  How did Mulenda's parents sleep through a young girl being allegedly abducted and raped in their apartment?  How big is the place?  Were they high on Fentanyl?