Sunday, July 19, 2009

Vice city

A bit of a fight has broken out over plans to tax illegal gambling in Baltimore
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7 comments:

ppatin said...

I just saw this juicy tidbit about the cop-shooter on WJZ:

"Another witness took a home video, and various observers say that after the suspect was shot, he was beaten by other officers at the scene.

"They stomped hard with steel-toed boots, just stomping like they wanted him to stop breathing on the ground," witness Kisha Blaze described the scene.

Commissioner Bealefeld says he has no information on the beating but makes no apologies for the outcome of the incident.

"If our men weren't there to stop this maniac, who knows what he would have done to innocent people on the street," Bealefeld."

I'm glad to see that people who shoot police officers still get beaten in this town. It's unfortunate that he survived at all, but it's also nice to know that there are real consequences for shooting a cop.

Mon Jul 20, 01:23:00 PM EDT
buzoncrime said...

Oh, well, I guess Investigative Voice will have more stories to write, and the city will have more settlement checks to write. And it was legally wrong, but was it morally right? for him to shoot or the cops to stomp/

(I guess I better not give up my day job).

He or someone related to him or one of the actual witnesses will have to come forward to make a complaint. I'm sure the officers will have written reports that he was resisting their efforts to search and cuff him. Once he's cuffed, any use force can ony be for restraining.

And though excessive force on suspects cannot be condoned, we can understand. But you know, once you take those steps to take on the boys in blue, it's sorta like crossing a stream: you usually can't do it without gettting your feet wet.
Um, how does Kisha know they had steel toed boots? And I'm sure they wouldn't have minded if he stopped breathing, but he had world class medical care to keep that from happening right there right away. (And all of us are paying for it!)

Mon Jul 20, 04:30:00 PM EDT
Cham said...

Can the state legally tax illegal gambling?

I have no idea. Remember Al Capone? He got a long prison sentence for not reporting his illegally-got income to the federal IRS yet some Tennessee court struck down the state's intention to tax profits on the sale of crack and powdered coke.

Every corner bar around here has slot machines so they might be illegal but it doesn't seem that way. The state should make slot machines legal and then tax the beejesus out of them like they do everything else. Won't hurt my feelings and it will keep the state's grubby paws out of my pocket.

Tue Jul 21, 07:05:00 AM EDT
ppatin said...

If criminals are no longer afraid of the consequences of shooting at police officers then our country will slowly begin degenerating into another Mexico. Technically it wasn't right for them to beat the shooter, but in the grand scheme of things that beatdown helped maintain some semblance of order in our society.

Tue Jul 21, 07:34:00 AM EDT
Unknown said...

PP, your Mexican analogy is righter than you think. In Mexico, the cops ARE the criminals. Beat-downs ("tune-ups") of perps is just one facet of the Sicario world, as Charles Bowden's long interview with one in a recent Harper's Magazine will attest. You may cheer this, but I don't think you do.

Tue Jul 21, 01:25:00 PM EDT
ppatin said...

edward:

The consequences for trying to pop a cop in Baltimore used to be MUCH worse. If David Simon is to be believed then back in the day shooting a cop used to guarantee that you'd be killed while "resisting arrest" unless you turn yourself in, in which case you'd probably only be beaten. Despite all of that I'd say we were much better off in terms of law & order 40 or 50 years ago than we are today. Of course, if we had a judicial system that delivered meaningful punishments to cop killers then street justice wouldn't be necessary in the first place.

Tue Jul 21, 01:55:00 PM EDT
anonymous said...

Hey ppatin:

If there was street justice in Baltimore the following BSP criminals Roderick Mitter, Tracy Mckissick, Thomas Sanders, and a few others would be dead. And Brian Shaffer, Steven Hatley, Jemini Jones, William Welch, Rohan Mays, and Troy Gee would have been castrated.

SO YOU BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR CAUSE YOU JUST MY GET IT.

Wed Jul 22, 01:01:00 AM EDT

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