Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Saying goodbye...

...to an old friend and mentor in my police career today.

Willard "Mac" MacGregor died last week. He was 80 or so, and had been an active member of the Retiree group to which I belong and meet with weekly.

Mac (you never called him Willard) was hired back in the 50's, when the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office was responsible for policing most of Portland from the Willamette River eastwards, and the southwestern reaches along the river as well as the northwestern reaches along the Tualatin Ridge. It was a large territory to police, with a lot of people in it.

Mac had been a Motor officer, riding bikes back when they were a means of getting patrol done, and not just for traffic enforcement as they are now. On those rare days when I worked Day shift early on in my career, I remember Mac getting dressed near my locker, in his jhodpur-style uniform pants, and the custom-made boots which cost the County more money than the rest of the uniform kit combined. I saw the bike guys as kings then, because they had the patrol-car Deputies as back-up. They could arrest a crud, and never had to take them to jail and book them, one of us did that. They rode those fast Harley Police Solos, which could out run any patrol car up to 120 or so, and few of the cars would make 120.

Mac was a careful guy, and I never remember him ever dumping his bike as other motor officers did, some more than once. He was also a patient investigator, and that rubbed off on me. He could see right through the alibis of felons, and was eventually promoted to Detective, but he always preferred the "Road".

And, Mac could spin a good yarn. He remembered all the bad guys of yesteryear in our area, some of whose grandkids are now pursuing crime. He raised his own kids right, stayed with the same wife all the way through, too, something that few cops manage. I didn't.

We all died a little ourselves when he got Alzheimer's last year, but, it took him quickly as the disease goes. One day earlier this year, he didn't show up for our retiree coffee, and we all knew the end was near.

So, now I go put on my Road Deputy Funeral suit, which is dress slacks and shirt, tie and my Retired Deputy "raid" jacket, and old uniform ball cap, and I will go sit in church and listen to the service, and then go stand in the rain up at Willamette National Cemetery while he is lowered into the ground, and the airmen fire their final salute. That final USAF salute awaits me at that hallowed ground, and I feel closer to it all the time, as I see those I worked with shuck off their mortal coils.

It's going to be a long day.

The little Captains

...got the better of a squad of Federal rozzers, so it seems. With the entire squad forgetting their mission, their orders, and for most of them, their marriage vows (no, the "500-mile rule" is NOT written in the Procedure Manual), that outfit must either have very good fealty to their Special Agent in Charge, and followed him to the whore's market (yes, such places exist down there, they did in Panama when I was there in '94), or there were "arrangements" made in advance which were especially attractive.

I see two problems with this mass human failing:

• The Secret Service and military members could well have been "set up" by enemies of the Colombian government. The FARC (commie-leaning drug cartels) still is around, it just can't beat the Columbian military in a fair fight anymore.
• The Obama White House may use this incident to create their own "Palace Guard" of Federal agents who will have to swear political fealty to Obama, and then Obama will have 100% of the trappings of a dictator. If he gets this wet-dream wish of his, do YOU believe that he won't use it to damage/eliminate his opposition?

Stay tuned to this issue. Stay tuned to any on the right who see it for what it is, or could become. They are the smarties. The rest of them will just have a good snicker about the scandal.

A new keistering record

If you've ever worked Jail Intake Transport, as I did, during my career as a Deputy Sheriff, you are keenly aware that inmates wil try to smuggle contraband into jail. Money, cell phones, drugs and even tobacco are all common items that are "keistered", or hidden in the rectum (for you less-informed, that's up the butt).

I've heard of small handguns, such as the North American Arms mini-revolvers, being smuggled this way, but I've never heard of a full-size .38 revolver being keistered. Until now, that is.

I don't care how you might have been abused, either by force or by self, this had to hurt!

Download Man-hides-38-caliber-pistol-up-him-Rectum-in-jail 1-13-12

H/T to the Coyote Kid, fount of all patrol cop knowledge, way out in SD.

 

The FL "stand your ground" case

After hesitating some (and they should have hesitated more), all the anti-gunners have jumped on Race Pimp Sharpton's "Hoodie Hoopdie" and are in full cry.

Problem is, all the facts aren't in, so they are all jumping the gun, so to speak. Jumping the shark, too.

I have gleaned one important trend from this case, since it's not dependent on understanding the entire chain of facts.

When your opponent's hoodie goes up, you pull your pistol.

This entire hoodie thing bears some looking into.

The hoodie, or hooded sweatshirt, is a piece of casual athletic attire. The hood is meant to ward off the chill of a cold breeze on your flushed head after exertion, since more body heat gets radiated by the head and neck than any other body part.

That's the science of the hoodie. Everything else is custom and emotion.

The hoodie was adopted years ago by the hip-hop generation as their symbol of rebellion from the preceding generations. From there, it was adopted by the gangsta-rap pukes as their symbol (when they weren't wearing formal pimp attire).

So, the idiot race pimp Sharpton does us all an unintentional favor, by highlighting the hoodie thing with his "million hoodie march".

Get this straight, people: the hoodie is meant to intimidate.

OK, if it is meant to intimidate, be properly intimidated.

What do you mean, 'Dog, "properly intimidated"?

What I mean, is that in every defensive shooting situation, or even in cases where you just pull your pistol and don't have to use it, there has to be a justifying factor. The hoodie is that factor. Your opponent wears a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up for only two possible reasons: he has just exerted himself and wants to keep from chilling down too fast, or he is trying to intimidate those around him. If he's been exerting himself, you'll likely see sweat, or heavy breathing, or some other sign that he has. If you don't see those signs, and especially if it's warm out, he's wearing the hood up to try to intimidate. Your state of mind now turns to stronger defenses, if you are thinking tactically.

Now, consider aggravating factors: your opponent, who has been walking away from you, turns towards you, advances on you AND pulls up his hood. Pilgrim, if you DON'T take that as immediate aggression on his part, you are about to be a victim yourself. No race involved. In my part of town, there are few blacks, but all the pukes of all races wear hoodies or hooded parkas in their gang colors.

So, thanks very much, Sharpton. You're not smart enough to avoid these pitfalls, so now you've brought the whole hoodie thing out into the open. If there ever WAS a "cool" factor in wearing hoodies, and I don't believe there ever was, it was a rebel factor, there isn't now. You, "Reverend" Sharpton, have just helped to remove the "cool" factor of that garment.

The hoodie is about intimidation, that is all. Take that to the bank AND the Grand Jury.

Besides, the hoodie makes your opponent more closely resemble that silhouette target you practice and qualify with at the range. Three shots, two to center of mass and one to the head.

Bang-bang, beak. practice it.

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IMMEDIATE UPDATE: After posting this blog, I note that Geraldo Rivera is thinking along the same lines.

The Fourth Amendment lives!

In a scant two weeks, statism has been dealt two sharp kicks to it's collective groin by the Fourth Amendment, which is apparently still alive, thanks to the SCOTUS and the US District Court in Eugene, OR.

The SCOTUS case, the Supremes ruled, unanimously, that the police may not attach a GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) tracker to a suspect's vehicle without first obtaining a warrant.

In the Eugene, OR case, the civil jury empaneled to hear the civil damages case of an arrested enviro-nut returned a verdict in favor of the enviro (but not much money damages, the lawyer got almost all of those), but more importantly, the jury found that the arresting officer had improperly seized the video camera of the protester, which the protester had used to record the initiation of the arrest sequence. The video probably didn't survive the concrete face-plant which ended the arrest sequence, but we don't get to see it, so we don't know.

There are two victories here for the Fourth Amendment, which says that no unreasonable search or seizure may be made, and that persons arrested may expect that warrants will be obtained before seizures of property.

This second case may be one of a less-then-brilliant cop underperforming the standards set by everyone, including his own Department. There IS an Oregon law on "intercepting communications", and it DOES say that both parties of a recorded conversation must agree to be recorded, but there are some exceptions. Being a cop is not, by itself, one of those exceptions.

The other thing the arresting officer could have done is make sure the prisoner's property was protected. The prisoner has a right to expect that. The video camera should have been carefully handled, and after the arrest, during the 5 hours the prisoner remained in jail prior to bailing out, it would have been easy for the officer to consult with a District Attorney, make a case to the DA that he needed a search warrant to examine the recordings of the camera for evidence of his arrest contained thereon (there should have been some such evidence), get the warrant and keep the camera when the suspect made bail, issuing a proper evidence receipt for it to the bailed-out suspect.

The arresting officer did NOT follow that extremely standard procedure which is taught at the Oregon Police Academy, and his penalty for not following it is to lose his case.

The counterculture's vast unwashed street mobs will now fire up an extra spliff or two in celebration, or drain a short dog of Maddog, but they really ought not to celebrate so much. It is the Constitution of the producers which the SCOTUS and the Judge in Eugene have protected, and in the Eugene case, the Judge was simply pointing out some sloppy police work. If I'm a Sheriff or a Chief of Police, I don't lose any sleep over this, I simply call in my Training Division people and remind them to highlight the procedures on treating evidence properly when next they give my officers an update on court decisions, and I might blast a memo to everyone on that advice in meanwhile.

I'm going to celebrate myself, because the Statists have just been told, twice now, that they must encourage their police officers to actually USE the smarts they were supposedly hired with and for. I'm not cheering for the enviro-nuts. They didn't win a thing here, and they ought to remind themselves that while MY Constitution protects their right to assemble and call for the destruction of MY society, that when they actually take STEPS to destroy that society, they WILL be opposed, and that wrapping themselves in that Constitution at that point does not make them bulletproof.

Hydrate yourself well

...because your eyes are going to de-hydrate you some while you watch this Christmas Story.

BTW, the event he spoke of in the poem, taking up a young, suddenly-orphaned girl and taking her home, that has actually happened, and I was a part of it.

I don't remember the Winter day now, it's been 25 years and I shredded all those Patrol notebooks long ago, but I was on patrol on Dog Watch (6pm-4am), and there was a terrible car crash out in the East County. Initially, I wasn't assigned, but as I listened to the dispatch calls, two patrol units went Code Three, then a Sergeant, then two Fire/First Aid companies, then the dreaded call for the Medical Examiner (Coroner) came from the crash scene.

I went about my patrol duties in my own District, but noted some interesting radio by-play about the crash call, involving passing of numbers for calls to the District Attorney, the Juvenile Court, the Children's Services Division. Eventually, I finished my shift, having gotten no closer to the call than some highway-blocking duty, for just a few minutes until a Reserve unit could relieve me.

As I turned in my shift paperwork to the Dog Watch Sergeant, I asked him about Deputy Stellato, who had gotten the original call for the crash, but had not been seen on duty, or heard on the radio since.

"He's on Family Leave" was the Sergeant's curt reply. I got curious. "Did one of his kids get sick?" I asked. "No", said the Sergeant, "he just got a new Foster child." The grizzled old Road Sergeant didn't want to talk about it, but he looked up from his stack of paper long enough for me to see HIS eyes were wet, "The couple who just died in that wreck left a little girl at home, and Stellato volunteered to foster the little girl, and it's all been handled properly."

Well, this hardened 'Nam combat vet, 8-year Road Deputy got a sudden lump in his throat. I still can't think about that night without tearing up.

Andy Stellato died this year, some sort of nervous-system disease, ALS maybe, and I went to his funeral, of course (he was a Police Academy classmate of mine). The Pastor related this vignette of his life, and most of the Deputies who were with Andy that ugly night were there to wish him Godspeed.

May God speed you about your Life on Earth, and welcome you Home when you leave it, but fear not in the meanwhile, there are always some stout men and women wearing Deputy's Stars to handle the rough stuff for you.

H/T to the Patriot Padre, who's spent some time behind a badge himself, including pulling MY bacon out of the fire on a dark night in a rough barfight.

"Global Revolution" link, and Occupy Gresham AAR

Here's an "indy-media" link. Big on recording the chants, mostly cell-phone vids, probably the site is there more as a fear weapon for the Glow-bull Revo-lu-shun.

H/T to the Patriot Padre.

AAR:

Fired up the LBT (thought about firing up the M35A2, but it's not a stealth vehicle at all) and drove down to the Gresham Arts Plaza. 1400, the time for the start of the meeting, came and went, and there were maybe 5 or 6 people waiting for something to happen, which it wasn't, so I went over to the Jazzy Bagels, a local lunch counter with class, ate lunch and listened to a not-quite concert quality jazz pianist for a half-hour, then drove back to the Arts Plaza.

By then, there's one guy standing in a quarter-circle of maybe a dozen folks, conducting what appeared to be a "Spoked Wheel" with 3/4 of the wheel AND it's Spokes missing. The gudwife and several of her AFP and TEA Party compadres were walking the park-block's perimeter, snapping photos of all present.

Overseeing all of that were maybe 18-20 cops, most local Gresham PD rozzers, but a few Deputies also, none in full riot gear, but with big "Party Cannisters" of pepper hanging off their belts, and all had Monadnock PR24 tonfas (wonder if they all re-certified with those PR24s...to my knowledge, the Sheriff hasn't held PR24 training in 13 years). Didn't see any four-foot whoop-ass sticks, though. No helmets, either. No formations, some walking the perimeter in pairs or fours, some just standing flatfooted.

All very low key, and there were NO signs, none of any sort. The park was prominently posted at every enetering sidewalk with the park rulz and the closing hours.

We can haz ORDER in our fair little citeh. Yeth.

Time for the Oregon Ducks to kick some USC Trojan butt and toss a giant monkey wrench into the BCS' gearbox. See 'ya!

The "NEW AND IMPROVED" Occupy Movement

You probably didn't hear about this, since it happened in the middle of the week and damn few MSM reporters have had the 'nads to even mention it. OK, another explanation is that they don't understand it, so they didn't write about it.

The change is all about the decision-making model the Movement uses, now as opposed to the one they were using just last week.

They are using the "Spokes Council" model now, as opposed to the totally participatory General Assembly model. I've written about the General Assembly model, here, and noted that it was cumbersome and VERY time-consuming. The Spokes Council model is just the opposite, it is fast, conclusive and uses little time.

Some history.

The Spokes Council model of decision making was used first in Spain, in 1936, by the Spanish Revolutionaries. Yep, THOSE Marxists. Actually, it had been refined since about 1888 in Germany, where two decades had passed since Karl Marx had written his seminal Das Kapital. Based on the works of Marx, Socialist Revolution was beginning to sweep the kingdoms of Europe in 1888. It didn't come to Spain until almost 50 years later, but it did come. It is just coming to the USA now, some 125 years later. The "Wobblies" tried to launch it 90 years ago, but failed due to internal communications difficulties, mostly.

In the past two weeks, first in NYC, then finally out here on the Left Coast, a traditional Socialist Revolution has come to the US of A.

When it first broke out, the OWS Movement favored marxism, but didn't follow many of it's examples. Real Marxists, for example, didn't tolerate the shiftlessness of vagrants or the whackiness of crazies. They were all business, all the time. The early OWS Movement tried to be all things to all people, but the real Marxists in the Movement knew that model would fail, and it did, as I predicted here.

I figured that the Movement would either go away (I figured WRONG there), or it would become a REAL militant group, with the classic cell structure, of which the Spokes Council leadership model is. I went "all in" on fall apart and go away. I'm not THAT visionary, am I?

The Spokes Council model works via something called "Affinity Groups", not the cell structure of the traditional Che Guevara-style revolution. Traditionally, Socialist revolutions were based on cells of threes (the Russians called that a "troika"). There was a master troika (the beginnings of the Politbureau?), then each master troika member ran up to three other troikas, and each of those sub-troika members ran three more, etc. If one member was compromised, no more than a third of the original group was lost, and could easily re-constitute and carry on. Think of the Affinity Groups as sub-cells. The Spokes Council is when all the "Spokes" are together to form the full wheel, which then fully functions to make decisions. However, each Affinity Group can operate independently, once given orders by the Spokes Council. This is the improvement over the General Assembly version of management, because nothing could be done until a 3-hour General Assembly had met and decided.

So, to use the new model, expect that the political problems will be assigned Affinity Groups. So, there will be a Bank Confrontation Affinity Group, a Police-action Affinity Group, a Recruiting Affinity Group, and so forth.

More history.

This leadership model still (somewhat) supports the "anonymous leadership" model the Occupy Movement holds so dear, because one the Affinity Groups are allowed to operate, it will ALL be anonymous. There won't be many TRUE Spokes Councils that the press gets invited to, or even most of the drones/proles get to sit in on, unlike the General Assemblies, which everyone was invited to/expected to attend.

Yep, boys and girls, we've seen this before (or, more accurately, your blogger has). Try the Anti-Nuke Movement on for size: 1970-80s. Or the Global Justice movement, 1990s-2000s (think anti-WTO riots). Think Earth First! (which was so good at it, the FeeBees never busted more than one Affinity Group at a time). 

This is the real deal. Welcome to the world of Socialist Revolution, a world I was trained to operate in militarily back in 1967. First questions to ask ourselves:

• Will it be an armed revolution? We have no way of knowing now just how it will evolve, but just in case you don't follow this closely, remember the pre-Spokes Council OWS chanting "non-violent protest" at the cops all the time? Have you heard that chant at movement/police confrontations in the past week? No you haven't.
• Did the Obama War Room bring this about? Well, put it this way, there are some serious socialist academic minds behind this change, and Obama has a few, Ayers, Jarrett and Jones come to mind, but my first hunch is no, he didn't order this up. I think that way because the man himself, aside of who he surrounds himself with, is an empty suit. He may be a Manchurian Candidate, but he's not the Manchurian Candidate's handler.
• Is this something that we need to fire the trip-flares for? No, not right now. No Socialist revolution in the history books ever sprang fully-operational from it's opening day, and this one won't, either. It WILL have to gather some steam, flesh out the empty places in the Spokes, and put more Councils in place. This is a Movement for the long haul, just as Marx himself envisioned.

Self-training: Search on Spokes Council Leadership Model. Tear into the list, and note that the freshest references are right out of  the Occupy Wall Street - original group.

Welcome to Cold War II, kiddies. This time, the Marxists are after our Constitution, but not just academically any more, they're in our streets. In two hours, the first public recruiting meeting of Occupy Gresham (Oregon) opens, not three miles from here. Their Spokes Council has already targeted Black Friday shopping in downtown-Old Town Gresham. I've charged up my cameras, and will launch on a recce mission in a while. I hope I remember all my Field Work surveillance lessons and practice from the Advanced Police Academy, lo those 25 years ago...

Sitzkrieg over, Flea Party feels the batons now...(concluded today 11-14-11)

...in progress, Portland Police Bureau has cleared the Courthouse Square parks, and in good formation, is pushing the Flea Baggers back out of the area. Not many arrests, lots of black-shirt filk in evidence, Black Cross medics with them. Had a front-row TV seat on what happens when a bicyclist tried to use his bike as a shield against the four-foot black batons. Ummmm, that bike won't be ridden very far without new wheels...and it's owner is in the pokey now, anyway.

After the dawn hedging speech of the Mayor, I was doubtful that the City had the will to move, so I suspect that they responded to an attack by the rabble on police formations. I suspected all along that once the police committed to the fray, they would keep on committing, and that looks to be the case. The only thing I DON'T see are the crews gutting out the camps, pulling down the tarps and taking up the duckboards, etc. That MUST be done or the flea baggers will just move back in.

Question now, can the Police hold the ground they've gained back for the Citeh?

Stay tuned.

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Continuing: Jeebus, now there are nuze choppers in MY vicinity, 15 miles east of the action downtown. Hope there isn't any Flea Party activity around HERE, I might have to go to Condition One-A.

No biggie with the choppers, they were in the pattern to land and refuel at KTTD.

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Continuing: The three courthouse squares are cleared and fenced off, and the flea baggers have boxed themselves into a concrete canyon between the County Courthouse and the Portland (City) Building, SW 4th @ SW Main, if you're plotting out the action. Out-of-town reinforcements for the police have been arriving, bearing some interesting weapons. One resembles a 40mm grenade launcher, but with a high-pressure gas bottle strapped to it, and a high-pressure hose from the bottle to the action. Never saw one of those before. Also saw what appeared to be a 25mm, rotary magazine grenade launcher. Hadn't heard the po-po had those yet...

****************************

11-14-11

It all wrapped up just after dark. The protesters all moved 4 blocks north and "occupied" Pioneer Courthouse Square, called "Portland's Living Room", but they didn't stay all night, just held one of their gabby "general ASSemblies" and then dispersed. As of the early morning nuze, they are still trying to decide where to camp next, but since they lost most of their gear to front-loaders and dump trucks when the City moved in to clean up the parks, they have to start over from scratch.

And the anarchists struck last night also. They broke out all the streetside windows of a bank over in the Lloyd Center area, then sent an email claiming that they did it in "solidarity" with the Flea Party.

Can we say "losers", people? I knew you could.

Here's my take on it. The cretins who dreamed up this excuse for a political protest and then immediately let it get co-opted by every dirtbag underclass are misguided folks, but put them together with the criminal class, which happened here, the street-crazies, which happened here, and the anarchists, which happened here, and they aren't just amusing cretins anymore, they are a danger to the very roots of our society, law and order. You will notice that this crap wasn't tried much in more conservative cities, such as Gresham, OR, where I live.

Here's my prediction: the liberal cities that the Flea Party befouled will now become slightly less liberal, because of the Flea Party and their confused message, their foul behavior, and their just plain STINK. Voters in the next Mayor's races in those cities, Portland among them, will now have a clear choice: continue tolerance for the filth and slime and crime, or elect new people, new Mayors and new Councillors who will vow to not let it happen again.

Now, some years back, when these cities were young, and could little afford law enforcement, Militias would have rescued the cities from this horde of animals. A few would have died, many would have had the daylights beaten out of them, but they wouldn't have been back! Now that we're a "mature" nation, we don't have Militias any more, and more's the pity.

Flea Party Nuz: Sitzkrieg in Portland

So, the midnight deadline for the Flea Party to evacuate their campgrounds in Portland came and went. The police showed up and stood around in formation, very occasionally moving their formations, but never using them to sweep any areas. They've not arrested but a few Protesters, those who came out to challenge the formations and actually made body contact.

The protesters, meanwhile, were reinforced with about 300 new bodies who did not bring camping gear, but have formed formations of their own, moving from street intersection to street intersection and blocking the streets. Possibly this is the Black Bloc (anarchists), but possibly not, since anarchists are not known for patience in their maneuvers. The protesters have THEIR cavalry, a squad of maybe 50 bicyclists who move around in a bloc, apparently to try to draw the police's attention, but not getting much of it.

Then, about 5:45am or so, the police bullhorned the crowds and asked them to move back into the parks and off the streets! This was unmistakeably an official order, and it unmistakeably screwed the Distric Attorney's chance of ever getting any convictions of occupiers. What a stupid move!

The protesters tweeted that they had won, but they didn't take that bait to go back to the parks.

From where I sit, in front of the TeeVee, it looks as though the police were befuddled by the coordinated tactics of the Flea Party, and never got their determination on to actually break up the protester's formations. The reason for that could be that the police want to keep the action local in the Courthouse Squares, and don't want to have the crowd rampaging about downtown, trashing stores and offices.

Sitzkrieg. Phony War. Just like France in 1940.

The cops need to realize that they are not going to wait out these protesters. With their excellent comms via tweets, they have C-cubed, command, control and communications. They also have intelligence on the formations of the po-po.

The two forces are equal in size and leadership for the moment. The protesters haven't been stymied by the police, and the police haven't accomplished any of their objectives. So, considering costs, the police have just ended the first shift since midnight. A cop earns about $30/hour here, Sergeants and brasshats more. All but maybe 30 of those estimated 150 cops are on overtime at $45/hour and up. Do the math. The cost of this useless shift of police is probably over $50K. Now the police either have to keep these troopers on, or bring in a new shift, and so forth. Now that the City set the deadline for ending the Flea Party encampments and protests, there has to be a continuing large police presence or the protesters have won.

Can the Portland Police keep this up? I doubt it. Can the protesters keep THEIR tactics up? Probably. So what's the game-changer going to be?

It could be weather, it could be food. It definitely WON'T be the Flea Party just going home, because the cops broke the first rule of riot-clearing: appear in force, appear in the right places, then take decisive action. Their force may be too small, the situation is so fluid that the rabble has control of the places, and NO decisive action has been taken.

That's a damn poor way to start your enforcement action, Chief Reese, and the press hints that you want to be Mayor?