Category Archives: Crime

Monday, August 3, 2020

Extortionists in Louisville

That’s just straight up extortion.

A Cuban restaurant owner in Louisville is slamming Black Lives Matter activists for sending him and other small business owners a list of diversity demands that they were told to meet or risk repercussions like ‘having their store fronts ‘f****d with’.

The letter went out to business owners in East Market District in Louisville, also known as NuLu, during a protest on July 24 that forced some of the businesses in the area to close.

It demanded that businesses employ at least 23 percent black staff, bought at least 23 percent of their inventory from black retailers or make a recurring donation of 1.5 percent of their net sales to a local black charity, and that they should display a sign showing their support for the movement.

It also listed a series of ‘repercussions’ if the businesses didn’t comply which included a boycott, social media shaming, and an ‘invasive reclamation’ whereby black owned businesses with competing goods of services would set up ‘booths and tables’ outside the store fronts.

[…]

Fernando Martinez, who owns La Bodeguita de Mima, claims that one of the activists warned him: ‘You better put the letter on the door so your business is not f*cked with.’

Owen Posted by Owen at 2018 hours     13 Comments
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Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Inmates Save Guard

What a great story about human compassion in even the most trying of circumstances. Huzzah!

Three Georgia inmates have been credited with saving the life of their guard who suffered a heart attack outside their cell doors.

Mitchell Smalls, Terry Lovelace and Walter Whitehead all rushed to Deputy Warren Hobbs’ aid when he fell unconscious at his desk in Gwinnett County Jail.

Smalls first alerted the rest of the inmates to the emergency by banging on his door. Lovelace and Whitehead then rushed to Hobbs’ side after the deputy managed to unlock their cell door.

Footage shows as Smalls raises the alarm after spotting Hobbs was in trouble by banging on his cell door. Fellow inmates then join in to make as much noise as possible in a call for help.

That noise seems to pull Hobbs conscious again and he managed to unlock the cell of Lovelace and Whitehead who are seen running from their room to help the deputy.  They then called for help using a phone and Hobbs’ radio.

Owen Posted by Owen at 1059 hours     No comments
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Tuesday, July 28, 2020

West Bend Police to Send Officers to Milwaukee for Convention

Call me less optimistic than Chief Meuler about Milwaukee officials supporting the police. I’m very wary of putting West Bend’s finest in harms way to protect another city’s residents. Perhaps some other city leaders will weigh in.

West Bend Police Chief Kenneth Meuler said he remains committed to sending about a dozen officers for the effort.

“I am confident that Chief Morales and city officials will work out an agreement to address the concerns that some of the other chiefs have raised,” said Meuler, a former Milwaukee Police Department captain.

Owen Posted by Owen at 2129 hours     3 Comments
Crime, Politics - Wisconsin
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Police Avoid Milwaukee Amid Dangerous Restrictions on Use of Force

Of course, Morales has an ax to grind, but I have no doubt this is going on. If you are a police chief in West Bend, for example, do you want to send your officers to Milwaukee where they are forbidden from using reasonable means to control riots? Do you want to get your officers injured or killed just to help out Milwaukee?

The city’s decision came before Milwaukee’s Fire and Police Commission issued a directive last week to Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales to stop using tear gas to control crowds, saying he could be fired if he refused. That order came amid intense scrutiny of police tactics at protests in Portland, Oregon and elsewhere in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody in May.

Since the Milwaukee order was issued, more than 100 law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin and across the country decided against coming to Milwaukee, Morales told WTMJ-TV on Tuesday. They were concerned with directives placed on the police department, including not allowing tear gas or pepper spray, he said.

Morales did not say which agencies would not be coming or how many officers were still expected. The original plan was to have 1,000 officers on hand from outside agencies to assist with security. Morales said using the National Guard or enlisting federal assistance was under consideration.

The convention has been scaled down to a mostly virtual event, with only about 300 people expected to attend in-person. Most of the speeches will be delivered online from other locations, though former Vice President Joe Biden has said he will be in Milwaukee to accept the nomination. Despite the event’s smaller scale, police are preparing for potentially large protests in and around the venue.

Owen Posted by Owen at 1805 hours     2 Comments
Crime, Politics - Wisconsin
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Monday, July 27, 2020

Violent Perpetrators Who Beat Senator Carpenter Are Arrested

Yikes.

Two women were arrested Monday on tentative charges of substantial battery for the attack on state Sen. Tim Carpenter during a protest last month, Madison police reported.

Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain said the two Madison women — Samantha Hamer, 26, and Kerida O’Reilly, 33 — turned themselves in Monday afternoon.

Carpenter, D-Madison, was beaten after taking a video of protesters the night of June 23 along the 200 block of West Main Street.

Earlier in the evening, protesters told members of the media to leave the scene and demanded that observers not take photos or videos during the demonstrations that night, which included tearing down two statues on the Capitol grounds and throwing a Molotov cocktail into the City-County Building.

Hamer is a social worker in the Mt Horeb school district. O’Reilly appears to be a physical therapist (I wonder if Carpenter would agree!) who, “loves spoiling her cats, adventuring in nature, listening to podcasts, dancing in her kitchen, and playing tabletop games.” You just wonder about how seemingly normal people in solid careers work themselves into such a frenzy that they allegedly violently attack an old man.

Owen Posted by Owen at 2134 hours     21 Comments
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Madison Police Union Has No Confidence in Mayor it Endorsed Just Last Year

Perhaps they should be more discerning with their endorsements. Rhodes-Conway’s leftist proclivities were well known.

MADISON (WKOW) — The Madison Professional Police Officer’s Association has approved a declaration of ‘no confidence’ in the leadership of Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway.

The board of directors said the vote was ‘resolute’ with more than 95 percent of the association’s voting membership returning a vote of “no confidence,” according to a news release.

“The MPPOA did not make this decision easily or in haste,” board members said in a statement.

“Instead, our vote of no confidence is the culmination of many months of frustration in the absence of effective leadership from the mayor.”

Board members said that they had a recent meeting with Mayor Rhodes-Conway in which they say she effectively declined to help them meet with community groups and members to facilitate conversation, asking them instead to use their voice.

Back in March 2019, the MPPOA announced their endorsement of Rhodes-Conway for Mayor.

Owen Posted by Owen at 1438 hours     12 Comments
Crime, Politics - Wisconsin
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Grenade in Goodwill Box

Whoa!

On Monday, July 27, 2020 at 10:15 AM an employee at Goodwill discovered a grenade in a donation box and called the West Bend Police Department. West Bend Officers arrived and confirmed the device was a grenade. Officers immediately assisted in safely evacuating the store and securing the surrounding area. The West Bend PD contacted the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department and requested assistance from their Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Unit. Members of Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department EOD Unit responded and determined the grenade was a live device. Deputies assigned to the EOD Unit rendered the grenade safe, and transported it to safely dispose of it.

FYI, this not the appropriate way to dispose of or donate your live ordnance!

Owen Posted by Owen at 1411 hours     No comments
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Armed Protester Shot After Confronting Driver

This is going to happen more and more if the protesters and rioters continue their tactics. People are getting fed up.

The moment leading up to the fatal shooting of an armed Black Lives Matter protester in Texas over the weekend has been revealed in a newly surfaced photograph, hours after the suspect was released from custody having told investigators he shot the demonstrator in self-defense.

Garrett Foster, 28, was shot dead in Austin on Saturday evening after he confronted the driver of a car who had driven his vehicle toward a hundred-strong crowd of protesters marching in the city center.

Foster, who was carrying an AK-47, was shot three times by the driver who then fled the scene. The motorist later told police he fired his handgun at Foster after the activist pointed his assault rifle at his car.

A photograph circulating on social media on Monday shows Foster standing at the driver’s window moments before the fatal shots rang out. The barrel of his AK-47 appears to be pointing towards the floor, however he is leaning towards the car with right arm raised and his hand seemingly placed around the weapon’s grip.

Police, who declined to identify the driver, released the man as they continue their investigation.

‘We are heartbroken over the loss of Mr. Foster last night,’ Austin Police Chief Brain Manley told reporters Sunday. ‘It is actively being investigated and ongoing in conjunction with the Travis County district attorney’s office.’

Officers also brought in a second gunman who shot at the car as it sped off. Both of the suspects’ have a license to carry and both of their guns were seized for evidence, Manly said.

Owen Posted by Owen at 1050 hours     40 Comments
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Madison Activists Protest at DA’s Home

Radical leftists eat their own.

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne is highlighting his identity as a Black man and his family’s roots in the Civil Rights Movement after protesters came to his house for the second time in a month Saturday, this time demanding that charges be dropped against two Black men and calling Ozanne a racist.

Ozanne said Sunday that scores of protesters with speakers, generators and a bullhorn showed up around 7:30 p.m. Saturday and stayed for about six hours blasting music, shouting profanity, chanting slogans, and calling him and even his family a racist — all in the name of pressuring Ozanne to drop charges against Kelsey Nelson and Gregg James.

Nelson, 30, is charged in the looting of Goodman’s Jewelers during the first night of protests in Madison on May 30 over the death George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody five days earlier. James, 23, is one of three men accused of making threats at a State Street bar in June.

[…]

A flier distributed at the “Black Out Block Party” Saturday does not name the group sponsoring it, but was instead aimed at letting Ozanne’s neighbors know he’s the DA and urging them to call his office to demand that charges against Nelson and James be dropped. It’s similar to a call to action put out on July 3 by Sawyer Johnson, a leader in the Madison chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, that identifies Nelson, James and two others recently arrested as “Black revolutionary activists.”

[…]

Johnson responded to requests for comment via Facebook on Sunday night with derogatory memes.

Get this…

With activists questioning the cash bail system or claiming people are being held in jail simply because they can’t make small bond amounts, Ozanne said, “we release about 82% of people on signature bonds.”

82%!

Owen Posted by Owen at 0730 hours     14 Comments
Crime, Culture, Politics - Wisconsin
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Black Trump Supporter Murdered in Milwaukee

How tragic. RIP

The Wisconsin Republican party has called for a federal investigation of a fatal shooting on Thursday, to ascertain whether it was motivated by animosity towards Donald Trump.

Bernell Trammell, a 60-year-old African American man who was a well-known figure in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood, was shot and killed at around 12.30pm on Thursday. Police did not immediately provide any details on possible suspects or motives.

However, the Republican party of Wisconsin said the “senseless” murder may have been politically motivated and called upon federal investigators to become involved.

Trammell, who ran a business called eXpressions Journal in Riverwest, regularly displayed signs on political and religious matters, including support for Trump as well as the Black Lives Matter movement, according to those who knew him.

Trammell was pictured holding a sign calling for a Trump victory in the November election. But community members have said he supported politicians from both sides of the divide, including Lena Taylor, a Democrat who ran for mayor of Milwaukee this year.

Owen Posted by Owen at 0724 hours     2 Comments
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Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Marxist Movements Attack Police

Mark Belling has a good column today that goes into the atrocious reactions of public officials in Milwaukee and Wauwatosa as they cave to Marxist attack mobs and abandon their police. In part, he says:

Many Americans sincerely want racial justice, which is why we fight so hard to replace rotten public schools with outstanding private, religious and choice schools. It’s why we support law enforcement that tries to control high crime in minority communities. But this movement is unconcerned with those things. It is singularly focused on attacking police, shrinking their ranks and destroying the lives of people who try to serve their communities by becoming police officers.

This is true. I think many of us are shocked at just how many of our otherwise mild-mannered liberal neighbors truly hate the police and are willing to support the abandonment of law enforcement in their communities. Many of us are still firm supporters of law enforcement and our police departments, but we seem to be a shrinking percentage of the populace.

At the same time, I think many of us were equally shocked by how aggressively some of our police were willing to enforce unconstitutional lockdown orders and the crackdown on our civil rights in response to a health concern. As communities consider and enact further lockdown orders, I would remind those officers who would enforce them that the will erode support in the community from the few of us left who are still supporting them. If we see cops breaking up birthday parties and harassing old ladies to wear a mask, I could see myself agreeing that they are over-funded.

Owen Posted by Owen at 0807 hours     146 Comments
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Monday, July 20, 2020

St. Louis Couple Charged for Defending Home

This is nuts. They were on their own property with their own, legally purchased and legally owned, guns. So now we can’t even defend our own homes?

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple that drew national attention last month after footage of them pointing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters outside their home went viral, have been charged with felony unlawful use of a weapon, The Associated Press reported.

The charges come after investigation circuit attorney Kim Gardner launched a probe into the couple late last month over the June 28 incident.

Owen Posted by Owen at 2242 hours     47 Comments
Crime, Firearms, Politics
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Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Surge in Crime

Sure… criminals run rampant as liberal city leaders demand that their police stand down. I’m sure those two things aren’t related.

Shootings and homicides, which dipped during the initial lockdown phase of the pandemic, are now rising at alarmingly high rates.
In New York, the homicide rate for the first half of the year is up 23% over 2019, led by a huge spike in recent violence. In Chicago, homicides jumped 39% during the last week of June and the first week of July compared to the same period last year. And Los Angeles has seen double-digit rises in homicides the past two months.
Owen Posted by Owen at 2143 hours     60 Comments
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Friday, July 10, 2020

California to Release Violent Felons Because They Might Get Sick

This will not end well.

Prison officials have announced California will release up to 8,000 people from state prisons to curb the spread of Covid-19 throughout the institutions.

Officials on Friday announced three separate efforts, approved by the governor, Gavin Newsom, that they say will decrease the prison population by 8,ooo by the end of August. The measures mark the largest release efforts the state administration has taken since Covid-19 began to circulate among prison staff and incarcerated people.

The first initiative expands a previous effort to expedite the release of people with 180 or fewer days left on their sentences to include people serving time for serious felonies.

The second measure is an immediate review of cases of people with less than a year left to serve in eight prisons that have large populations at high risk of developing Covid-19 complications.

The state will also launch a one-time program under which those incarcerated in state prisons, including people serving time for violent felonies, will receive a credit shortening their sentences by three months. People with recent rule violations and those who are sentenced to death or life without parole are excluded from the program. Prison officials say the program will affect roughly 108,000 people, or about 95% of the state prison population. For 3,100 people, the credit will allow their release when the program begins on 1 August.

Owen Posted by Owen at 2244 hours     15 Comments
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Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention

One wonders if they will be able to even fill this new agency with people. Who would want to work for it? Talk about a no win situation.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Members of the Minneapolis City Council are pledging a thoughtful approach to their proposal to dismantle the city’s police department following the killing of George Floyd.

Council members sought Wednesday to reassure the Minneapolis Charter Commission, with some commissioners expressing concerns that the council was rushing to push through the proposal so voters can decide it in the November election.

The proposal would eliminate the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with a new agency, the Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention. The commission needs to sign off on the question by Aug. 21 for it to be possible to make the November ballot.

Owen Posted by Owen at 2242 hours     5 Comments
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Blue Flight

What a shame.

In the past week, the number of officers filing for retirement has more than quadrupled on this time last year, with the exodus reportedly causing such a backlog of applications that the department is struggling to meet the demand.

Many of the officers hanging up their badges have cited a ‘lack of respect’ from the public amid national protests against police brutality following the death of George Floyd, and a loss of overtime pay following Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $1 billion cut to the department as the reason, the NY Post reported.

The NYPD said Wednesday that 179 cops filed for unemployment between June 29 and July 6 – a staggering 411 percent increase on the 35 who retired during the same time period last year.

The apparent evacuation comes as an astonishing 503 cops have reportedly filed for retirement between May 25 – the day of Floyd’s police killing – and July 3, according to the department.

That figure represents a 75-percent increase on the 287 cops who retired from the force during the same time period in 2019.

According to the Post, a line of officers were spotted lined up outside of One Police Plaza on Tuesday, where retirement paper are filed and processed.

‘Apparently, the pension section is only taking a certain amount of people per day and I think they are backed up till late July, early August,’ one officer told the outlet. ‘That’s why you don’t see like 100 a day, because they are only doing like 35 to 40 a day, by appointment.’

Owen Posted by Owen at 2233 hours     34 Comments
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Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Standoff After Arm Wrestling Match

Meanwhile…

A father is in jail after losing an arm wrestling contest to his young son which led to a shooting and an 8-hour standoff with the police.

The incident occurred on July 6 shortly before 1 a.m. in the morning when Boone County Sheriff’s Office deputies were dispatched to Florence, Kentucky, about a 20-minute drive southwest of Cincinnati, Ohio, to a report of a person in a home with a weapon.

When authorities arrived, they found two family members had vacated the premises safely and were unharmed but 55-year-old Curtis Zimmerman was still inside the home and refused commands to come out, according to a statement by the Boone County Sheriff’s Office.

“Deputies learned that Zimmerman was intoxicated and challenged his juvenile son to an arm-wrestling contest,” said Boone County Sheriff’s Office. “When Zimmerman lost multiple times, he became agitated which led to a physical altercation with his son.”

Zimmerman then reportedly grabbed a gun and fired two shots in the house as his son was going upstairs.
Owen Posted by Owen at 2202 hours     10 Comments
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Monday, July 6, 2020

Violence Spikes As Mayors Retreat

Defund the police?

At least 41 people were injured and at least nine killed following a troubling spike of shootings in the Big Apple across the holiday weekend. A spokesperson for the NYPD said the majority of the incidents occurred within a 15-hour time period.

Shootings in New York City have doubled every week for the last three weeks. In the last seven days alone, the city has experienced a 142 percent surge in shootings compared to the same time period last year.

[…]

Memphis, Omaha, Cleveland and several other cities were also rocked by a spate of shootings amid the holiday revelry.  In total, 37 have been killed in shootings across the US.

[…]
A total of 63 people were injured and 17 killed in the Windy City from Thursday afternoon to Sunday 6am.
[…]
In Detroit two people were killed and five were injured in gun violence over the holiday weekend.

[…]

In St. Louis, three people were killed and 11 injured across a 15 hour period. Four of the injured victims were children.

Owen Posted by Owen at 0741 hours     6 Comments
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Thursday, July 2, 2020

Couple Charged for Felony Assault

Looking at the video, this seems like a case where they were overcharged. I don’t see how a jury convicts them for felony assault for this. I expect it will be plead down.

It is a good lesson for concealed carry holders. We don’t see the alleged “bump” that precipitated the incident. The couple seemed to keep their cool pretty well as they got in their car and began to back up. It looks like, but is not clear, the mother and/or her friends got behind the car to block the couple in. That’s when it all went to hell.

The woman in the car got out and drew her weapon (much better control and discipline than the St. Louis couple). Given how we have seen several incidents of mobs surrounding cars and assaulting innocent people, perhaps the woman could be forgiven for overreacting. Context matters. But this was not a mob and there didn’t seem to be an imminent threat of anything except someone getting run over. By introducing a weapon into the situation, she escalated the situation unnecessarily. Judging by her yelling, she seemed legitimately fearful for her life, but her response was still inappropriate. She would have been better served by staying in the locked car and calling the police. As long as nobody tried to enter the car or assault them, it would have ended there.

In any case, as all of us watch riots and roving mobs assaulting people, people are going to continue to be on edge. Look for more of this to happen.

Owen Posted by Owen at 2009 hours  
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Middleton Enacts “Unlawful” Restrictions

There is a huge disconnect between the draconian laws that we are expected to obey and fact that the government is letting protesters and rioters ignore all of the laws. Equal application of the law is a fundamental pillar of a free society. And yes, Middleton does not have the legal authority to enact these restrictions.

MIDDLETON, Wis. (WMTV) – The Tavern League of Wisconsin is calling restrictions on bars and restaurants “unlawful,” after public health officials announced a new emergency order Wednesday to slow the spread of coronavirus.

At restaurants, the restriction (Emergency Order #7) brings indoor dining capacity down from 50 percent to 25 percent. Bars can no longer allow indoor dining, only takeout and outdoor seating with physical distancing.

Janel Heinrich, the director of Public Health Madison & Dane County, said that the county has experienced a high number of cases recently. She also said that contact tracers found much of the spread has come from public gatherings, restaurants and bars.

Owen Posted by Owen at 0920 hours  
Crime, Law, Politics - Wisconsin
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