tvc184

I also wonder about the calling EMS to treat people. I am not saying that no one needed it because I was not there however EMS is probably going to get there and pour water bottles over your face. I am not sure if that is the most cost effective means for the school district. I mean it’s in the cafeteria, go get a 25 cent bottle of water and poured over your own face instead of calling a $5000 ambulance?

I sometimes question the use of OC/pepper or method of using it in some situation. The stuff generally pretty effective however.

Which part?

So is he.

Bear in mind that I type all of that on an iPhone so hopefully they’re not too many unintelligible sentences and/or tpyos.

Is it just an accident or is it negligence or recklessness and a crime? Negligence and recklessness by definition are accidents. Is it illegal to do something while you were driving? You are correct that the law does not say you can’t change your radio station, you can’t take a sip of coffee, etc. The law does say that you will maintain control of your vehicle however. I remember a wreck from maybe 20 years ago where a guy was putting a cd into his car radio and drop it on the floor. He was just leaving work and was in no way intoxicated and probably wasn’t speeding but he reached to the passenger’s floor board to pick up the CD and cause an accident that killing someone. Reaching for something is not a crime, putting your head below the dashboard is not paying attention and causing an accident is. If our actions cause no injury or damage, there likely is no crime or a very reduced crime like a traffic citation. If our actions cause such damage, it may be a crime. So let’s play my favorite game, what if. What if you are walking down the road with a rifle that is loaded which is completely legal. The problem is that you don’t think it’s loaded and did not check. You start talking about the rifle to a friend. To demonstrate to your friend what a great rifle it is, your shoulder the weapon and pull the trigger while commenting how light in crisp the trigger is. Oops!!! You had loaded your gun a few days before and forgot about it. Fortunately the bullet went into the ground and no one was hit. But what if… your bullet went down the street and killed a child? It is the exact same scenario with no difference except in this case a child happened to be in your line of fire. Any consequences? It’s just an accident? Obviously you did not intend a gun to go off but it did by your direct and intentional actions. You did not accidentally pull the trigger. Obviously the last thing in the world you would want was a child to die because of your actions even if unintentional. The legal question then becomes, does your negligence or your recklessness in causing the accident rise to the level of a crime? Under the definitions by the state of Texas (and in all states with maybe slightly different wording) both criminal negligence and recklessness are accidents. In both cases you did not intend the results. I will put this in my opinion on what the law means. I teach this college course at the Police Academy and my umpteen years of police experience makes me think I’ve got a grasp on this. Criminal negligence is having your head up your butt when you should not have. You were in a position that you were legally bound to not do something stupid but you did so anyway. An example is you’re walking down the sidewalk texting and not paying attention and you step into a dip in the sidewalk and twist your ankle. Yes you were stupid and yes you should be paying attention but it does it rise to criminal negligence? It was a complete accident while you were not paying attention. Let’s go a step further and say that when you tripped, you bumped into someone else causing them slight pain. Pain is an injury by law so did you assault that person? After all you caused pain by not paying attention. Did stepping into a whole call such a gross deviation From expected care that you are responsible? I guess anyone could make that claim however with a jury feel that you not paying attention and twisting your own ankle, causing you to follow to someone else rise to a crime. I would say the answer is no however someone could obviously raise the question. could a prosecutor prove the gross deviation of twisting your own ankle was a crime beyond a reasonable doubt? I would say almost certainly the answer is no and there is your question, was it just an accident. Then let’s say you were driving a car going to speed limit at 50 miles an hour. The law says that you will pay attention while driving. Earlier in the day you had tossed a letter from your mailbox in the backseat and for some reason you were now curious to what it says. You look and reach in the backseat and try to find a letter and it takes you only about five seconds. At that speed you would have traveled about 400 feet. Considering the lag time by time you turned around and actually realize what was in front of you you would have gone about 600 feet or almost 200 yards in total. What was in front of you for that 200 yards? You completely gave up your responsibility to pay attention, even though it for just five seconds, you left a 3000 pound weapon going down the road for almost two city blocks without a clue of where you were steering. You would have just as well close your eyes for several seconds. What may have been in front of you for that distance? Unfortunately you swerved off the road and killed a mother and her child walking down the sidewalk. Just an accident? It was obviously an accident but do you have an obligation when getting behind the wheel of a vehicle to maintain control? Remember that it is “criminal” negligence and not merely negligence. From the earlier example, stepping in a hole is negligence but probably not criminal negligence. Every time we look away while walking and likely every time we do anything, there is a potential for something to happen but when he is it (by law) a gross deviation of the standard of care they should be taken? So what is recklessness by definition as opposed to criminal negligence? I call criminal negligence a head of your butt accident. Recklessness is an intentional accident. So how is an accident intentional? The answer is that the result is not intentional but your actions were. The definitions in the book appear to be practically identical except that recklessness says you are “aware” of a risk and criminal negative says you ”ought to be aware” of a risk. Back to the scenario of firing the rifle. was pulling the trigger intentional? Yes. What is the result intentional? No. Therein lies your intentional accident. Criminal negligence might be, you had the same rifle carried in a sling over your shoulder and accidentally left a safety off. You reached for your billfold and you bumped the trigger causing the shot. The bullet comes down and kills the same child. In both in my opinion there was a gross deviation in care. The difference is one was an accidental firing of the gun but with gross deviation of not knowing the gun was loaded and not having the safety on and one was an intentional act of pulling the trigger while not checking to see if they’re far almost loaded. Whew!!! That is great in discussion but who gets to decide that? In this case the law says a jury. Did the girls actions rise to the level of criminal negligence or recklessness? Without knowing the facts of the case other than she was driving in a car is dead, I don’t know anything. I kind of thought they might get her for Criminal Negligent Homicide which is one step lower than manslaughter. The difference is one is a head up your butt accident the other is an intentional accident. With nothing to do with this case and just as an example, driving intoxicated is reckless. You intentionally got behind the wheel after drinking or doing drugs. driving down the road while texting is reckless in my opinion. You did not accidentally text. In both cases there is a specific law that you broke in driving while intoxicated or driving while texting. I suspect that what we do not know is that she probably made a statement to the police officers at the scene that very well might have been on camera, about what happened. I have seen the Facebook posts and comments that she was putting on make up. I do not know if that is true and maybe it’s just speculation but where I may that have come from? Did the police pull her aside after the accident and ask what happened and she said, I’m so sorry, I was putting on my make-up and did not see him? Let’s assume that is what happened. A jury is then asked for the evidence presented from the witness stand (which might have been video or merely testimony of a police officer saying that she made the statement), did that intentional action by her rise to the level of being reckless while driving down the road? If the answer is yes then she caused death by recklessness and by definition that is Manslaughter in Texas. Could the same jury have ruled that it was not reckless but it was criminally negligent? Yes they could have. It goes by the definitions given to them by the judge as quoted by the Texas Penal Code, what the evidence was shown to them from the witness stand and after they spoke with each other, what their decision was as to her responsibility. Whatever they heard on the witness stand, they think she acted recklessly. Then after the conviction, the question goes to punishment. Texas law allows in the situation a minimum of two years in prison and a maximum of 20 years in prison. The jury could have given her anything in that range. They could have sent her to two years in prison and she could have gotten out in a few months on parole. They also had the option of giving her a sentence in that range but probating it. As the question was, was this an accident or a crime? The answer is both. Probably because of the statement by the victim’s mother and probably because it was truly an accident, the jury decided to give her prison time which is required by law but to probate it. As to the issue that I see on Facebook, that she got off scott free…. Probation is hardly scott free. I think the probation fees are about $400 a month so she will spend between $20,000 - $25,000 in probation fees. If she falls behind on payments, she can be sent to prison. Then probation sets a list of requirements and I have seen as many as about 20. There is a list of standard requirements that I have seen and the judges can check any or all and can have anything additional. I have seen the standard rules such as you cannot be out after midnight unless you were at work. You cannot drink in public, period. So we have such a person goes to a bar and has what is one single legal beer, it can result in prison time. Other requirements may be that you have to maintain a job, you have to take a random drug test at the discretion of your probation officer, you have to meet with your probation officer when requested, you have to submit to a search by the probation officer at their discretion, you have to attend mandatory classes such as alcohol awareness, anger management, AIDS awareness, etc., and sometimes even if those are not related to the particular crime a person is convicted of. A violation of any of those during that time frame may result in prison time. Basically for the next five years she will have a burden hanging over her head. From my experience they usually get a couple of minor infractions with a warning. If she is caught drinking but not intoxicated then they might write her up. If the police stop her out at night but she’s not drinking, that will be in an infraction. Typically after between five and 10 such infractions, the person will go in front of the judge and have probation revoked and off to prison the person will go. Committing any such future crime will automatically revoke probation. Probation is no easy task and for five years she will have that hanging over her head. If she is a party animal like many people claim on Facebook, she will end up in prison.

….. and the 50 year old CEO of the company who put out the first vaccine asks the federal government to seal the documentation for 55 years.

I think so far in federal court Brandon has lost the OSHA mandate, the contract workers mandate and the healthcare workers mandate.

A federal judge in Georgia halted the Biden mandate for vaccines for federal contract workers. [Hidden Content]

You should see the Facebook comments defending the guy.

The Lumberton Police Department stopped this guy for a license plate that only said private citizen. He refused to roll down his window and then told the police that he would kill them if they broke the window…. So they immediately broke the window and the chase started. [Hidden Content]

It makes you wonder what kind of laws the state and city have where a mayor can tell residents of a city that they must inject something into their body. The United States Supreme Court has said that a state or city enact such a legislation. Does NYC law give the mayor the autonomy to create his own laws?

I think she said in a long winded way, the American ambassador of China does not get free tickets to the Olympics.

But in this case, they did (apparently) follow the law. Part of “the law” is court rulings. The United States Constitution in Article III says that if there is a constitutional question, the Supreme Court of the United States is the final answer. The SC has yet to throw out those seizure laws.

I brought that up in another forum when they announced against parents. Apparently the school saw the drawings and perceive the threat but did not search his backpack which they are allowed to do. The school district had the authority to take action, did not and pointed to the parents. People in glass houses…..

I actually wrote a long winded response to that and deleted it. That is what qualified immunity is all about and causing the current uproar over it. If a police officer follows state and federal law and follows state and federal court rulings and follows his own department’s policy, do you want to hold him responsible? What is a Court going to say, we find you guilty for following the rules that we made? Sue the city for making a stupid rule, sue the federal or state governments for their unconstitutional laws, try to get a different court ruling or whatever. Why hold the officer at the end of the line responsible for following all of the rules given to him by those entities?

How did you come to that conclusion? I think most seizures should be illegal unless based on very good evidence. If you read my comments above I said I don’t know if they had a valid reason to seize the money. I also said that if they can’t prove it, needs to be returned and be done with it and not held indefinitely. But I can tell a BS story when I hear it…… The guy’s story was BS.

I am not disagreeing with your anger at the government. Innocent until proven guilty does not mean property cannot be seized and that doesn’t mean you cannot be arrested. Heck, you can be indicted by grand jury and be stuck in jail on $1 million bond for murder and you were still not guilty. This guy was not arrested and his money was not forfeited. Similar to a search of a person or a vehicle without a warrant (warrants are not typically needed to search people or vehicles with probable cause), it is a kind of now or never situation. Let’s say the police thought that he was using the money for something illegal but they let him drive away with the money and they will look into it further. They get a warrant and look at his cell phone information and find out that it was going to be used a drug deal. So now they call him and say hey, we just found out that money is likely to be use for drugs so please bring it back to us. RIGHT!!! It is the same as making a traffic stop on a vehicle and the police have probable cause that there are drugs in the car. What are the police going to do, tell the driver that they will be back in two hours with a warrant and please wait for us. When the police come up on something that may be stolen, may be a crime, may be evidence, may be contraband, have probable cause to arrest or search… there usually is no time for an investigation and later warrants. The police need to either do it immediately or in most cases, simply forget about it because they’re about to let all of the evidence go.

For a traffic charge. What does that have to do with them not arresting him? 1. Cop sees what he believes is a violation of the law. 2. Cop stops the person/driver and speaks with him. 3. During the conversation the driver has the right not to answer questions but voluntarily tells the cop that he is carrying almost $90,000. 4. The guy gives us a story as to why he is carrying that large sum of money. 5. The original cop’s supervisor shows up and for reasons unknown to us, decides that the money was either illegally gained or was about to be used for a crime. 6. After the seizure of the money, the driver is allowed to go about his way. 7. The state asked the federal government to file a seizure under their law, thinking that the money was to be used in a crime for reasons unknown to us. 8. The federal government had to return the money because they could not prove that the money was going to be used illegally.

They did not arrest him.

I don’t think I said it had to make sense to them. I said they can seize evidence or a property with reasonable suspicion. That is, what would a reasonable person believe knowing what the officer knows at that time? But to use your word, if it does not make sense, does that make it a reasonable belief? If you left Beaumont and went west on IH10 heading toward Houston and the police stopped you and asked where you were going and you told them you were heading toward New York, does that make sense? Would it make a reasonable person and believe something is not right here? Like I said, I don’t know what happened and can only tell you what the law is. Did they have a good reason to seize the money? I don’t have a clue and that slanted article sure doesn’t talk about it.

Reasonable suspicion is required for a seizure. Since I don’t know what that suspicion was, I can only tell you what the law is. I understand that that is a political website and they are putting out what they want you to know. Maybe it is 100% true, but… it is a one-sided story. I think he was doing something illegal but I also believe it takes evidence to continue. Without reading the entire case and hopefully with at least audio recording, who really knows? He might have changed his story two or three times, he might’ve been unbelievably nervous, they might’ve found evidence on him they didn’t match what he was telling them, etc. Just mere suspicion from the article, I think his excuse for carrying the money was nonsense.

That is merely terminology. They did not adopt the money, they adopted the civil case from the state police.

If the government can prove that money came from a crime, I have no problem with them keeping it. The law should say that there has to be evidence other than just it is a large sum of money. There should also be a time frame placed on it. I think the guy’s story is full of crap however if they can’t prove it, the government must move on and return it. It’s like you might be committing a crime but they can’t prove it so they can’t hold you in jail until they can figure out something to charge you with. And just on a personal belief, I think he was on his way to buy drugs, illegal guns or something else.

if I understand this correctly, a woman reported that she was robbed at gunpoint. The suspects took her pickup and HPD jumped them a short time later. The pursuit ended in an apartment complex and officers began chasing five suspects on foot. Part or possibly all of them might have been armed. Other units assisted in the potential shoot out but one of the responding units ran over and killed a pedestrian. [Hidden Content]