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?

A Houston high-school teacher and her son have been charged with sex trafficking homeless students.  Kedria Grigsby is facing six felony charges of trafficking children and compelling prostitution of a minor along with her son.

From KHOU11:

"KLEIN, Texas — A Klein Independent School District cosmetology teacher who's accused of sex trafficking and compelling prostitution was in court Monday.

Kedria Grigsby, 42, and her son Roger Magee, 21, are accused of recruiting and trafficking at least three underage victims.

On Monday, the judge lowered her bond to $75,000 on each of six counts -- three counts of trafficking a child and three counts of compelling prostitution of a minor -- for a total of $450,000.

According to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, the victims were 15, 16 and 17-year-old students and had been reported as runaways. Investigators said Grigsby recruited troubled juveniles from local high schools by offering them a place to stay at a motel.

"The investigating officer evidently determined there's at least one occasion where Ms. Grigsby had paid for a motel room that was used in the prostitution enterprise," the judge said in an earlier hearing.

According to prosecutors, investigators were looking for evidence in a motel room that was allegedly paid for by Grigsby when one of the alleged victims walked in and then ran out and got into a silver car believed to be driven by Grigsby. They said there was at least one other victim inside the vehicle.

Prosecutors said Grigsby and her son, who was arrested in 2022, used Zelle to transfer money and investigators found text messages between the two talking about payments and prostitution fees, as well as messages sent between her son and the victims.

Prosecutors said they anticipate more victims to come forward and more charges to be filed."

Nice.  They revoked her cosmetology license, too. 

Prison transport Holtzclaw admitted to raping three prisoners, but investigators are aware of a dozen more.  He had a little system for getting them alone. 

First of all there's no reason to have male drivers transporting female prisoners, especially long distance.  There are too many examples of that going wrong even on short drives.

Private prisoner transports should have GPS and camera systems exactly like the police.  This is just another extension of the prison-industrial complex, end-stage capitalism offering so many different ways for predators to be predatory.  

I will never forget when my mom came home from work and explained "mandatory reporting" to me.  It was a new thing they did a workshop on at her job.  She worked at a hospital.  So it was a new requirement for all personnel.  From now on, it was very important that if anybody knew, or had any reason to suspect abuse, they had to report it to the police right away or they would lose their ability to work at any hospital ever again.

It sounded really serious, my mom's role as protector of children.  She seemed really proud of herself.  Of course when she realized I had been molested by our babysitter, she handled it by screaming, "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about!" and I stopped crying. 

In my experience as a paramedic, it's kind of still the same a lot of the time, especially at nursing homes.  If you actually do say something every time you see something, you're just a huge pain in everybody's ass.  There aren't social workers for all of these people.  They're lying in their own shit because nobody cares about them.

But this was an infant, 13 months old.  And these people had the audacity to drop her off with a broken leg, bruises on her face and vagina, obviously raped and beaten.  Just drop her off like nobody will notice anything's wrong, status quo.  I have to wonder how drunk the mother is.  Fentanyl?

Tyler Humphreys was only 21 years old, working as a school resource officer for only a few months, when they arrested him and charged him with  sex crimes against children.

Before his employment as a police officer, Humphreys is alleged to have done a variety of inappropriate things with other kids including having a young boy to perform sex acts on him over four years (presumably when Humphreys was also younger). 

He's charged with giving a 15-year-old girl alcohol and raping her while unconscious.  He's alleged to have drugged another girl and raped her as well.  It's not entirely clear from this reporting, but there are presumably three child victims being charged here and one 19-year-old.