tvc184

Insurrection!!

I was working an off duty job at a housing complex maybe 10 years ago. I was with a very young officer with probably one year of experience. The apartment complex had a curfew for all tenants and guests. Although we cannot legally enforce apartment rules, someone hanging out could possibly give rise to a reasonable suspicion that they were trespassing and not actually visiting someone. Legally that could give us the reason to lawfully detain them and start investigating. My young partner saw a group of maybe 4 teenagers or early 20s people earlier in the night about 1 AM hanging out in the complex and started yelling at them. Get out of here, blah blah blah. They mumbled some crap and slowly ambled away. Maybe a half an hour later, we saw them again. I pulled up near them, smiled and asked, do y’all really want me to get out of my truck (Ford Expedition patrol unit)? No sir, we’re leaving…. We never saw them again on any night and we worked out there every weekend for extra money. As soon as they walked away that night, my partner started pumping his fists and going “Yeah!”. He asked me, how did you do that? He yelled at them and told them to leave and they mouthed off and came back. I smiled and barely said anything and they were like, yes sir and thank you sir. I said it was command presence. They saw you ranting and raving and kind of laughed among themselves. They thought you were just trying to show bravado while being a young officer. They looked at me and thought, I think we had better leave right now. They looked at me and probably came to the rationalization that they didn’t want me out of the patrol unit. On the other hand, they were more than ready to challenge your authority because it looks like you won’t back up what you were saying. I’m not kidding about the way that young officer acted. He was like a kid in a candy store and excited. The officer asked how he could do that and I said it was easy, keep paying attention to the senior officers. Watch how they act around people as opposed to the young officers like him. A teaching moment…..

Do I suspect that the administration will now determine that the recordings are classified. McCarthy won’t be able to claim they were secured by his Vette….. Nahhhhh ….. won’t happen. 🤔

I don’t suggest this but the public that witnesses a theft can stop it. I have seen videos lately of store employees not stopping a thief because their company will fire them but the videos show citizens jumping in and doing it. That only is this legal in Texas, it will more than likely will increase the criminal penalty significantly. Texas has a specific law that says anyone can arrest for a theft that is reasonably believed. If the thief who the citizen was trying to stop slapped him across the cheek, it then becomes robbery with a maximum of 20 years in prison. Here is an example. If a guy picks up a $90 drill and walks out of the store, it is a class C misdemeanor or the equivalent of a traffic citation. It carries no jail time and a fine only of $500 or less. If a citizen stepped in to try to stop the thief and the thief caused any pain to the citizen like a slap, it is robbery. If the thief threatens the citizen who is trying to stop him, even if he does not hit the citizen, it is still robbery because of the threat. Under that exact same scenario and if the citizen happens to be 65 years or older, the C misdemeanor theft becomes Aggravated Robbery and carries up to a 99 year prison sentence. So a fine of a couple of hundred dollars could now be life in prison under Texas law.

Yep, it isn’t the law unless we are talking litigation. It is companies who would rather give up property than face a lawsuit for entering a criminal. Certainly a state legislature could pass a law that would ban such lawsuits. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that. It is not a lack of criminal law or catching the person or the DA prosecuting.

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Billie Jo Spears’ brother was a teacher at Nederland High School and a couple of times she put on show for us. [Hidden Content]

Oh…… Billie Jo Spears

In thought Tracy Byrd.

Ok. That I agree with. The only problem that I had with the bill was that it did not go for enough.

Sick bill or the act? The bill seems appropriate.

This case might get the sympathy vote from people who are tired of crime. Although they do not directly say it, almost anything is acceptable, regardless of the law, if the bad guy is put away either in prison or by death. To that I mean that many people will overlook what maybe a violation of the law as long as the person that they support wins. I have seen numerous comments of people that have no idea what the law says but are willing to send money for this guy‘s defense. There was a case in the news maybe 8 to 10 years ago. A guy had his home broken into maybe once or twice or something like that. Maybe it was just a neighbor’s home, I don’t really remember. He set up cameras in his home to catch who may be breaking into homes. Sure enough, a teenage boy and girl broke into, I think his basement. He waited for them to come inside and I think the boy came first. The homeowner shot him and I think the kid fell on the steps walking up to the house from the basement. This kid did not make any threats and was unarmed. Shooting him during a burglary might have been lawful at the moment. I think the homeowner’s cameras was running and he recorded himself taunting the the teenage felon and then shot him in the head and killed him. He waited for a few minutes to see if anyone else entered and the girl came inside through the window to see what was happening. Again the homeowner shot her and then started making fun of her and shot and killed her also. The point being that using deadly force to stop, a burglary, might have been lawful in his state. The problem is that once they were down, he finished them off as it was clear by his own recording that that is what he did. They were clearly no longer a threat. If I remember correctly, I think the guy was convicted of murder on both counts. I know people are making the issue in this situation that you can’t really tell by the camera. Let’s assume for the sake of argument, that there was a different camera with a completely different angle and it clearly showed that the robber had dropped the gun and was not moving. Under any rational thought, he was clearly no longer a threat. Assuming that was true, how many people would vote to let the guy go in what would be murder because the other guy was committing a felony? How many people think the guy that killed the two teenagers breaking into his home was justified, even though they were clearly no longer a threat? In other words, do you get to empty your magazine and kill them, even when the incident is over, because they were committing a felony?

I don’t disagree. I have seen enough occasions where the robber panicked and shot people or killed witnesses. If I am the victim of a robbery, I am worried about the weapon he is carrying, not the cash. An example is an executed prisoner from Port Arthur. He robbed a store, shot the clerk and if I remember correctly, left but then came back and shot the two witnesses in the head. So when you hear…. but he was going to leave….. [Hidden Content]

When people see the entire video, they typically seem kind of shocked. It is then that they understand what people are talking about. Like I have said (and most people), it doesn’t bother me that a robber was killed. If the shooter put 4 or more rounds into his back and he died from those wounds, oh well. No matter, it is still wrong to shoot a person after he is clearly out of the fight.

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Extra shots don’t really matter in my opinion if they are part of stopping a threat. If you give me three seconds from the holster at about 5 yards, I can probably get about 10 rounds on target. A person going back and watching a slow motion video in hindsight, could say, after the seventh shot the guy appeared to be going down. Maybe… but I can’t react that fast. But if the guy goes down after those 10 shots and is clearly no longer a threat, should I be able to pause about 3 seconds and then walk up and shoot the guy the head… you know, just to make sure? The law is that you can shoot to end the threat. That is why you will always hear the police say, I am not shooting to kill, I am shooting to end the threat. If a guy is coming at me with a knife and I shoot him a couple of times and he drops it and makes no effort to pick it up, should I lawfully be able to go ahead and just kill him because of what he did before? If the guy was a threat to me and I lawfully stop him with deadly force and EMS gets there in time, saves his life and he gets to go to trial later, great. If they don’t, the bad guy made his own bed. I saw some lawyers on YouTube mentioning the autopsy and discussing whether the robber was already dead. Do you want to see the full video?

By the letter of the law it appears that the shooter might have broken a couple of laws. On an emotional basis I think a majority of the public would think that there is no issue with the robber causing his own death therefore any actions by the shooter to be justified. I think that the grand jury, being made up from the public, might no bill this case for that reason in a form of jury nullification. Kind of like, technically he should not have fired that last shot but…… The “other side” wants to letter of the law upheld regardless. Well…. at least for this instance. When the shoe is on the other foot, they will likely want discretion. Imagine if a Black guy shot and killed a White guy in the same situation. I am sure that some of the same people who want the shooter in this current case to be indicted, would want the case dismissed if the rolls were reversed. In many respects it is much like the political discussions on this website. “I want THE LAW FOLLOWED!”…. unless. Such as, Trump had classified documents in his home that the FBI was aware of but he refused to turn them in under executive privilege but was negotiating for return anyway. The left including people in this forum, demanded that Trump be held accountable, probably even with jail time. When it turns out that the current Democratic president had the same kinds of files in three locations, some of which were likely not secured and the FBI did not know about it… nothing to see here, move along. I have said it many times in these discussions. When someone wants to make an example of a person from the other side, he better get ready because someone on his side will soon be found doing something worse. So in this case, should the grand jury go by the letter of the law of “immediately necessary” or should the grand jury go by the old Texas saying, some people need killin’? I believe that the people supporting this guy either have a misunderstanding of the law and think you can shoot to your heart’s content or they know that technically the guy violated the law but the robber caused his own death so, oh well. Then I think people on the other side demand absolutely the letter of the law be upheld, because…. a White guy killed a minority. I suspect that if you swap the circumstances, both opinions would change. I believe that it will be hard to get an indictment from a Texas grand jury, even in Harris County. A lot will likely depend on how the DA presents the case.

Your confusion is understandable. An insect flying at 35mph will cover the 50 yards in 2.90 seconds. An insect flying at 25mph would cover that distance in 4.01 seconds. Without anticipating a accurate speed test, it would be difficult for a person being surprised by a beetle to take note of the 1.11 second time difference. 🙃

And with the escalator always reminds me of this, government workers taking an escalator to work…. [Hidden Content]

Riding the Sears escalator was an adventure like a train ride.

So much Bill Cosby never being accused of anything…. 🙃

…. and there was still in my memory some chocolate candy that you could only buy at Sears. I think you had to buy it by the pound. It was blocks of chocolate and I swear I can still taste it.

In addition to Sears and the Toy land, the streets in Beaumont were completely lined down and across the streets with lights put up by the city. There were very few parking lots and we usually had to walk up and down the blocks. I don’t know if anyone even locked their vehicles. There were lots of faults back then but safety was not one of them.

Yeah, even for trivia, that is trivial.

I believe the bill was to rescind the previously passed $87 billion to hire new IRS agents. It is irrelevant however, since the Senate will not take up the issue. I believe it was Representative Jim Jordan, I saw a few days before the speaker was even elected, who said that the Republican led House was going to pass several single item bills. That means one issue and one bill. That also means not half a dozen riders like $1 million for a new art center in downtown NY. So when the 2020 for elections roll around and the independent and undecided voters ask, what did you do in the last two years, the Republicans can list several bills that were attempted to be passed into law but they were stopped by the Democrat controlled Senate. Such as: We passed a bill that would lower your taxes. We passed a bill that would defund the IRS hiring new agents. We passed a bill, requiring the closing the border. We passed a bill…… Because the noncommitted and center voters are the ones who are going to decide the elections.