Archive for October, 2009
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
Just back – okay, a week ago – from Bouchercon and it was fabulous.
Bouchercon, the largest mystery/crime convention in the world, is always a great time. It’s a chance to catch up with old friends, some of whom I only get to see once a year. But also, there are always new people to meet.
This year was no exception. I renewed my friendship with Neil Smith and Sean Doolittle, with Craig and Judy Johnson, Alison Gaylin and Karn Olson, the Jordons, with William Kent Krueger, with Jared Case and Dan ‘Tim’ Wagoner, with Sergeant Michael Black and Lt. Dave Case and Investigator Jim O. Born, with Keiren Shea, John Purcell, Sandy Loper-Herzog (who’s day gig is dealing with juveniles in the kind of job I simply could never do…my hat’s off to her in a huge way). I’m sure I’m forgetting someone and they’ll beat my ass next year but when you get old, the memory is the first thing…okay, second thing…to go.
But this convention, more than any other I’d been to, was to make a decision; to hit the re-set button or not. I took a lot of time and listened to some very wise counsel. These people, who were all supportive and who wanted to see a broader horizon, all confirmed what my gut had been saying for a few months. I could not have slept as well as night without them so to all of them, thanks.
Okay, now the fun stuff. This weekend was also about security guards. I’m not sure why it happened that way, but sometimes the planets line up and there ain’t dick you can do about it.
Friday afternoon, Jim Born and I decided to make a run to the Indianapolis Speedway. Jim’s more into races than I am, but hey, American Institution and all that, right? So we head out and we are just about the biggest cop geeks on the planet. All the way there, it was sort of like the scene in Lethal Weapon with Gibson and Rene Russo (ooooo she’s so purty) compare scars.
Jim: I had a case once where….
Trey: Yeah? That’s nothing, I once had….
Jim: Minor league, pal. Listen to this….
Trey: Hah, my dead grandmother could’a done better, but I once had….
So we get to the track and there’s a giant sign that says “NO PUBLIC ADMITTANCE” or the like. So naturally Jim and I take a step past that sign to get a better picture. The security guard absolutely jumps, all frothy and frenzied, from his patrol vehicle (read: personal truck used on the job) and comes to us.
“We’re just wondering if we could get a good picture?”
“No.”
“Yeah, but – ”
“No.”
But we manage to convince him to take a picture of us. While we doing that, Jim leans over and says, “How come I hear the ‘Deliverance’ music?”
See, the guy only had one tooth.
He might have been a great guy, but he had a vibe, baby, and I wasn’t completely sure we weren’t going to disappear, get turned into Soylent Green (I know, mixing my movies up, what can I say) and get served as crackers at the convention dinner.
Ultimately, somehow – I’m sure due to our incredible wits and survival skills and physical prowess – we managed to survive. We got back to the hotel, Jim promised me copies of the pictures (which he still hasn’t provided) and we promptly drank.
Next day, I’m out doing some photography. I find a factory, the kind of fetching, grimy, dirt-covered, ‘built America’ kind of factory that I’d never seen where I grew up. I snapped some pix, lined up a few ‘arty’ shots, and then discovered what would make a beautiful commentary on the state of American manufacturing today. But the shot was fucked by a slow-moving train.
No problem, I’ll wait. I’ve got some time. So I waited and waited and at least a good thirty minutes later was still waiting. Long and slow, this train.
Now, while I’m waiting, I pace back and forth on the sidewalk.
And I talk to myself.
I told you, I had some decisions to make and in that time and place was the perfect opportunity to debate myself about what I was contemplating.
But the convention center right behind me was none too comfortable with a man talking to himself, pacing the same twenty feet, and carrying a camera.
A security guard comes out, stands defensively on the other side of the chain link fence, and says, “Wha’choo doing?”
I held up the camera, figuring that was answer enough.
“Wha’choo doing?”
“Taking pictures.”
He stared at me and my coat. I was wearing a winter coat that said ‘Sheriff’s Office.’ Not my duty coat, but a cool jacket the sheriff gave everyone a few years ago for Christmas. After a few truly uncomfortable seconds, he frowns.
“You da poh-poh?”
“Yeah.”
A few more REALLY uncomfortable seconds pass. Then he shrugs.
“A’ight. I don’t care.”
And leaves.
No funny upshot to that story. It was just odd.
I thought about going for the trifecta later with a security guard who was watching over the Catholic flock at some sort of one day Catholic fest in the same hotel. I thought it might be cool to get molested by one of God’s own security guards but ultimately I thought better of it.
It would have been bad indeed if I had had to call the Sheriff’s Office for bail money.
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Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
A few days ago, there was more videotape.
- one -
Of a cop. Out of control.
Again.
- two –
This time, it was a school resource officer at a special needs school in Dolton, Illinois. What we see, and admittedly it isn’t the entire tape, is a kid walking down the hallway. The officer says something to him, the kid’s body language makes it appear as though the kid gives the officer a ‘whatever.’ The cop then puts his coffee down, sets his feet, and throws his entire body into the kid, slamming him first into the lockers, then into the floor. At which point, the officer falls on top of the kid.
- three -
I’m not going to post the video not because I don’t think you should all see it. You should, everyone should. But because it is so depressingly familiar. I have seen this exact video too many times before.
- four -
The kid, a 15-year old with behavioral problems and brain damage from a car accident when he was a kid, ended up with a broken nose.
- five -
He’d begun attending the school in May. The incident happened in May. “Well, hey, young sir, welcome to our school. How ‘bout a broken nose to go with those snazzy new sneakers you’ve got?”
- six -
The cop, Christopher Lloyd, says the kid refused to tuck his shirt in. The cop’s father later said the kid took a swipe at the cop and broke his glasses. The officer was, in fact, treated and released for a scratched eye.
- seven -
But that’s not my problem. Here’s my problem (my first of several, actually):
- eight –
Coffee.
Go watch the tape.
- nine –
The cop SET HIS COFFEE DOWN!
- ten –
There is no emergency when an officer has time to set his coffee down. Emergencies, actual, honest-to-cosmos emergencies, don’t leave anyone – cops included – with time to set down their fucking coffee.
- eleven -
After the incident was brought to the attention of the Dolton Police Department, Officer Lloyd was suspended with pay. Okay, I’m good with that. Do an investigation, figure out exactly what happened, mete out punishment from there.
- twelve -
But Lloyd came in and resigned before the investigation was finished. Okay, his job, he can quit if he wants.
- thirteen -
This, then, moves me to my next problem:
Rape.
- fourteen -
Christopher Lloyd, late of the Dolton Police Department, was arrested in August (three months after beating a kid) for raping a woman. Allegedly, he held a pillow over her face while sexually assaulting her. And this is after threatening her previously with a knife.
- fifteen –
Hhmmmm…issues?
He’s being held on $110,000 bond and could go down for 20 years if they convict him of the rape.
- sixteen -
Which brings me to my next problem:
Murder.
And I don’t use that term lightly.
- seventeen -
February 17, 2008, Christopher Lloyd – according to a lawsuit filed by his ex-wife – gunned down her new husband outside their house in front of their children. Lloyd shot the man twenty-four times.
Twenty-four times.
Chicago Police charged him with bupkis because Lloyd said it was self-defense.
- eighteen –
Twenty-four times is not self-defense. No way in hell is it anything other than murder. One shot, two shots, maybe three…maybe even five…is self-defense. Twenty-four shots is reloading and shooting again. That is not self-defense.
Now, at the time, he was working as a Robbins city police officer. They suspended him – ya’ think? – but while the investigation was going on, in January, 2009, he got hired on at Dolton.
- nineteen –
What the fuck were they thinking?
Did they bother to do any sort of background check? Did they just miss that he was under investigation for gunning a man down with twenty-four shots?
A spokesperson for Chicago PD has said that the details of the investigation into that shooting “could not immediately be found….” Hehehehe…read that this way: “We are scrambling to figure out how to cover our asses because we’ve figured out that this man is, at best, a rogue cop and, at worst, a psychopath. We are endeavoring to ascertain exactly how any investigator with half an ounce of brain could look at twenty four shots and call it self defense. In other words, we are looking for a scapegoat to offer the Media Gods who demand a Sacrificial Lamb.”
- twenty -
I looked and looked for details of that shooting in the local media and couldn’t find anything so we’ll go with the details on their face. And yeah, I’m aware details could change things, but I refuse to believe there are any details that could make me say, “Hell, yeah, shoot that fucker 24 times and I’ll buy self-defense.”
- twenty-one -
How could a cop like this get through the system and get a job?
In my opinion, though it happens rarely, it happens too often. Of all the officers I know across the country, and it’s probably hundreds, I know of only one who’s a problem. He is a part time officer, but he has eight misdemeanor convictions in his past, from DUI to discharge of a firearm in public, illegal consumption and contributing to the deliquency of a minor. Yes, they were more than a decade ago, but those convictions, behind a shiny badge, look skunky. And they will look a helluva lot skunkier if he ends up hurting or killing someone or getting drunk and doing something stupid, won’t they?
- twenty-two -
The point of all this is, as I’ve said so often, is that cops are human and make mistakes. And there will always be bad cops, just as there will always be bad humans. But first and foremost, other officers have to call a bad cop a bad cop, and agencies have got to go the extra mile to make sure their candidates are qualified and don’t have these sorts of issues.
- twenty-three –
It doesn’t matter what demons are driving Christopher Lloyd. What matters is that we, as officers, have the only job in America where we can legally kill someone. We have to be held to a higher standard and we have to hold ourselves to that higher standard. We have to call out those who use their shiny piece of tin as a permission slip for their brutality and anger.
- twenty-four -
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Monday, October 12th, 2009
Twenty-four shots is self-defense? Really? Twenty-four? Not two or three or maybe even five?
Twenty-four?
No how, no way can anyone convince me twenty-four bullets to a human body is self-defense.
More on this madness tomorrow. Or maybe Wednesday.
And if that’s not soon enough for you, then you’ll have to shoot me…like…twenty-four times.
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Monday, October 12th, 2009
“This is Arkham asylum,” he said. “This is my asylum.”
And then he’d laugh and whoop and all in all, it wasn’t bad. Not as scary as it could have been, but he had thrown down the rules for the guests and had gotten the atmosphere just about right.
However, from there, it descended into a scream-fest. See, the actors are all high school kids and what passes for scary for them is screaming.
“WELCOME,” she screamed, “TO NO MERCY HOOOOSPITAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!!!”
Every three or four minutes for five solid hours.
Holy balls, Batman, can we shoot her now?
LuAnn and I are doing some volunteering at a local haunted house. Actually it’s at the county fairgrounds and it encompasses two complete barns and then a third arena for little kids.
I’ve done one weekend so far and it’s been fun.
“WELCOME,” she screamed, “TO NO MERCY HOOOOSPITAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!!!”
Uh…gotcha. At the hospital. Yeah.
Opening night was this past Friday. We got there an hour or so before show time and the man in charge seemed overjoyed to have us. His biggest problem is that most of his volunteers are high school kids and thus come with the baggage of being high school kids.
“…HOOOOSPITAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!!!”
Yeah, so that means I’ve committed to spending my weekend nights surrounded by high school kids. Yay! My favorite!
Anyway, the man in charge gave us some jobs and off we went. LuAnn was the ‘sorter.’ That is, she’d divvy up the groups into manageable sizes before shoving them along into the ‘Elevator To Hell,’ while I stand over the top of everything in the control tower and watch the timing of groups going through and watch for problems.
And listen…incessantly…to the hospital greeter.
“WEEEELLLCCOOOOOOME.”
Lots of screaming from lots of kids hidden in lots of places.
Pretty much, at the end of the night, I bought stock in Tylenol. I figured that as much as I was going to eat over the course of eight shows, I might as well watch the stock price go up.
Most holidays bore the tits off me. I’m not sure if it’s because growing up it was pretty much just me and Mom and so we just didn’t go in for big holidays or maybe I have no heart or emotional center or I just dig creepy scary things. For whatever reason, Halloween is my favorite of all the holiday (with the exception of the celebration of Will N. Harbin’s birthday, obviously).
When the store was open –
“NOOOOOO MEEEEERRCCYYYYYY – “
- I would be so tired of the holidays by the time they arrived that I pooped out on all of them. In retail, the holidays start three damn months before they arrive and continue on until well after their expiry date because now you have to send whatever you didn’t sell back.
But now, with the store closed? Hah! I can enjoy Halloween again!
But I can also get my theater nut off at the haunting.
See, they have zero expertise in lighting. They toss up a flood light they got at Wal-Mart and call it good.
So they’ve decided they want me to take a long look at the lighting this year and see how it and the electrics can be improved next year.
Woooohhooooo!
“…HOOOOSPITAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!!!”
Theater is one of the things I’ve missed dearly since leaving Denver. I tried doing some community theater here but the situation was not great and then my schedule at the Sheriff’s Office conflicted and blah blah blah.
But because the haunted shows are only in October, I’ve got all year to improve and tinker and work things around my schedule. And my charge from those in charge is to light it, but it has to be dark and shadowy and dreary and whatnot.
That’s a light designer’s wet dream.
See, stage directors always want their actors to be seen blah blah blah. Fine enough, I guess, unless you understand – as I do – that actors are only on stage to reflect my lighting. The lines don’t really matter, the blocking doesn’t matter. The costumes? Eh. The make-up? Sure, whatever.
The actors are there to give my light something to bounce off of so people can see how prettily I focused that lovely instrument with the deep green or the one with the rosy pink.
So this is gonna be great fun.
“WELCOME,” she screamed, “TO NO MERCY HOOOOSPITAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!!!”
If I don’t shoot them all first.
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Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
Okay, so I’m watching a little early morning TV…something on child stars or some crap…and there’s an ad for Hydroxytone. Apparently, this is a miracle medication that can magically disappear pound after pound after pound…without the user having to do anything different. That’s right, you can continue to eat nothing but Buffalo wings and donuts, not lift a finger to exercise, and still become that svelte and ripped hotbody like you see in airbrushed photos.
During this ad, there’s some siliconed-sister wearing a white lab coat and the on-screen graphics identify her as a ‘doctor of naturopathic medicine.’
Honestly, I laughed so hard I squirted my breakfast milk through my nose.
Naturopathic medicine is defined by the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (yeah, it exists…www.naturopathic.org) as medicine based on the “belief that the human body has an innate healing ability.”
And they call their physicians ‘NDs.’
I shit you not. Funny enough to make me milk-squirt.
“Naturopathic doctors (NDs), teach their patients to use diet, exercise, lifestyle changes and cutting edge natural therapies to enhance their bodies’ ability to ward off and combat disease.”
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely agree the body can do amazing things that western medicine refuses to recognize because it would loosen the stranglehold the AMA has around our collective necks (which goes hand-in-strangulating-hand with the fucking insurance companies…which is why we need some kind of health care reform, though what that should look like I don’t know).
But it’s hard for me to take this naturopathic medicine seriously when it’s being used to hawk a weight loss aid that basically says someone can be both slug and hotbody.
To me, those are pretty much mutually exclusive concepts. I make no judgments about either.
Personally, I would love to be a hotbody.
‘Trey the Hotbody…svelte, ripped, with a monsterous six-pack.’
But the reality is sliiiightly less impressive.
‘Trey the Slugbody…bit of a belly, torn rather than ripped…and more of a half-pack.’
Maybe I should call an ND and get me some’a that Hydroxytone.
hey…can you pass those wings….
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Thursday, October 1st, 2009
…via TPMMuckraker….
“A shadowy private security company that has no known clients but claims to have helped foreign governments combat terrorism and will protect anything from cruise ships to Pakistani convoys has taken over a jail in a small Montana town, with plans to build a law enforcement training facility on the property.
The state legislature is looking into the matter and residents of Hardin, MT, were alarmed last week when executives from the firm, American Police Force, showed up in the town, which does not have its own police department, with Mercedes SUVs bearing “City Of Hardin Police Department” decals.
And the town has had to tamp down reports on conspiracy Web sites that APF plans to impose experimental H1N1 vaccines on residents under threat of quarantine in the jail.
Under a lease signed with Hardin, APF, based in Santa Ana, California, and incorporated just six months ago, is now in control of a 400-bed detention facility the town built a few years ago but never used, a town official confirmed to TPMmuckraker today. The town reportedly stands to make over $2 million per year.
Just what American Police Force plans to do with the detention facility, which comes with 50 acres of land in the small south-central Montana town, is unclear. Also not clear is who, if anyone, APF plans to put in the jail.
Hardin, which is in default on the bonds it used to build the jail, recently undertook an unsuccessful campaign to make the jail a new home for Gitmo detainees. When that failed, the town turned to APF.
The 10-year contract that is now awaiting final approval of lawyers gives APF the option of building a training facility, said Al Peterson, spokesman for the Hardin economic development authority. APF has said it plans to invest $30 million in the site, including $17M in the training facility, where law enforcement will get sniper training and learn “DNA analysis” skills.
And where is American Police Force getting the money for this venture? Company spokeswoman Becky Shay — until about a week ago the Billings Gazette reporter covering APF — says they are no plans to answer that question. She did not respond to a request for comment.
The matter has attracted the attention of the Montana state legislature, which is seeking more information about the arrangement between Hardin and APF. The committee that deals with legal matters will send a letter to Hardin officials to get more details on the deal, Representative Bob Ebinger (D) tells TPMmuckraker.
“Because of the apparent secretiveness of this, it gives the far right and far left to come up with all kinds of ideas. That’s why I’d like to see some clarification,” Ebinger says.
Peterson, the Hardin official, says the controversy sparked last week when APF executives appeared in black SUVs marked “City Of Hardin Police Department” was a misunderstanding of an act of goodwill by the company. The decals were taken off within the day, he says.
Peterson hopes lawyers will approve the contract by next week, and at that point, a press conference is planned and the contract will be made available. Asked if he knew about the background of APF and what they do, Peterson replied: “No comment.”
Visitors to APF’s Blackwater-esque Web site listen to Ravel’s Boléro and peruse a menu of services that include: harbor patrol threat interdiction, interdicting terror activity, interdicting weapons of mass destruction, international airline security, cheating spouse investigations, polygraph testing, kidnapping response, weapons sales including “Nuclear/Biological/Chemical (WMD),” and, finally, private investigative services that draw on “vast global network of highly ranked officers and government officials.”
APF’s double-headed eagle coat of arms appears to be the same as Serbia’s Prince Aleksandar Karageorgevich, Raw Story points out. And the AP reported that a lawyer for APF describes the firm as “a fledgling spin-off of a major security firm founded in 1984.”
Late Update: Yet another strange development: This page on APF’s Web site brags about “our extensive tactical firearms training facility, the U.S. Training Center.” But the U.S. Training Center is part of Xe, nee Blackwater. And Xe spokeswoman Stacy DeLuke told us there is no affiliation between Xe and APF.”
*****
What the fuck is this all about? Sounds like, to me, an entire company of holster-sniffers.
My favorite part is in the website description of what they do: harbor patrol threat interdiction, interdicting terror activity, interdicting weapons of mass destruction, international airline security, cheating spouse investigations, polygraph testing, kidnapping response, weapons sales including “Nuclear/Biological/Chemical (WMD),” and, finally, private investigative services that draw on “vast global network of highly ranked officers and government officials.”
Notice the middle? Buried deep within all the manly, macho, swinging dick stuff? That’s right, Ladies and Gentlemen, cheating spouse investigations. ‘Cause, really, there isn’t enough terrorist action in the ENTIRE world to keep us busy, so we’re gonna get a good digital camera, steathily drive up to your bedroom window, and snap some shots of your wife blowing the milkman while you, of course, tickle your secretary’s tush with your teeth on the company dime.
Also, I love how they’re going to train copper-wanna be’s in sniper AND dna analysis…’cause you wanna be able to know who you just whacked.
You know, while I believe law enforcement is mostly full of people who want to help their neighbors, as corny as that sounds, there are those who are holster-sniffers even after they get their badge. They’re so amped up to be the poh-poh that everything is about that fucking chunk of tin. There are people who bought old squad cars and attempted to make straffic stops when they were teenagers, who go shopping with ballcaps that say ‘Police,’ who make traffic stops while off-duty, who cruise restaruants looking for free or discounted meals while in uniform, who carry portable scanners with them ALL THE TIME and randomly show up ‘to help’ on certain calls. There are people so proud of themselves that they post pictures on Facebook and MySpace that have guns, bullets, and handcuffs all in one picture!
Everybody say it together: Holster Sniffers!
But, back to Hardin, MT. Watch the conspiracy websites over the next few days ’cause this’ll get good. For the loony right, this will be the beginning of Obama’s army, the one that’ll put all of us into the FEMA re-education camps. For the equally loony left, this will be the left-overs of Fascist George II’s regime, spun off of Blackwater and headed, no doubt, by Cheney, Addington, Yoo, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz.
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