no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics

Get Out of Jail Free

September 25th, 2007

What do you think would happen if you stole marijuana from a police car, then “overdosed” on it, and called 9-1-1 to report your “emergency”?

What if you were a cop? [Stale Link because the Detroit Free Press doesn’t know how to manage digital content – dz]

Dearborn police allowed Sanchez to resign from his job on May 23, 2006, even though investigators said he admitted to taking the marijuana from his police car and using it to make the brownies. Dearborn police reports the Free Press obtained said Sanchez told investigators he planned to use the marijuana to train his police dog.

Last night, Sanchez was on one of the local news programs crying like a little bitch, e.g., “I loved my job, you don’t know what it meant to me to be a police officer, you don’t know how this or that, etc.”

The only line from that taped interview that I find cited in the Free Press article is “The incident doesn’t represent me, it doesn’t represent my family, it doesn’t represent what I stood for as a police officer.” Well, you get the gist, I hope. He was acting as though his actions don’t deserve the scrutiny, or the punishment, or the humiliation to which he’s been subject. And I don’t imagine he’s thrilled that Dearborn is actually going to press charges, although he’ll likely skate on those, too.

As I said when this first appeared in the news, I’m all in favor of his right to eat brownies, or smoke pot, or whatever. But Sanchez made his own bed, and now he doesn’t want to sleep there. He wants a free pass.

I wonder: in his tenure as a K9 handler and narcotics officer, how many free passes did Sanchez give to people on the receiving end of his handcuffs?

Racial Profiling for Thee, Not for Me

September 14th, 2007

This was almost included in the Questions earlier, but I feel deserves a stand-alone entry.

Keeping in mind that the state is nearly bankrupt, the following is analogous to buying another pack of cigarettes with the last welfare check:

Although profiling is a useful pseudo-science in law-enforcement and apprehension, most people dislike “racial profiling” in most other circumstances (e.g., driving while black). Of course the proper scope of profiling is limited to describing the likely tendencies, habits, and character traits of an unknown subject with regards to a known crime, or series of crimes.

Profiling is used properly to discover criminals when a crime is known to have been committed, not crimes. There is a subtle, but necessary distinction. Otherwise, we’d have to detain every single, white male in his thirties, these being statistically most likely to be serial killers.

So what about a State law that would deny revenue-sharing dollars to communities who have laws against racial profiling on their books? Would it make a difference if we’re talking about Guatemálans and Mexicans instead of Blacks?

Aside from the aforementioned “low-hanging fruit” problem, there is clearly insufficient cause to assume that everyone who “looks like a Mexican,” (whatever that means) actually is a Mexican (and not instead a Filipino or a Portuguese, a naturalized citizen, or a born-and-bred citizen of Mexican ancestry), let alone to assume that said person who “looks like a Mexican” is also violating an immigration law. It is facially absurd, and ultimately boils down to payment for profiling, by the State, to a municipality. Or if you’d rather, from those municipalities who abhor the idea of profiling, to those municipalities who embrace it.

How charming. But, what did you expect?

Questions

September 14th, 2007

From Michigan: Why would a State government “shut-down” concurrently require Detroit’s casino resort to close? The state of Michigan has been notably lax in enforcing its agreements with the tribal casinos, I’m sure we can do without whatever regulators are generally present in Motown, too.

From the Democratic People’s Republic of California: Age profiling? If not, I can’t see how a law banning minors from talking on cell-phones while driving can possibly have any teeth. Also, this sort of law, like seatbelt laws, is the proverbial “low-hanging fruit.” Every police resource wasted allocated to its enforcement makes everyone else a little bit less safe.

no third solution

Blogging about liberty, anarchy, economics and politics